Deng Xiaoping: And the Making of Modern China by Richard EvansReview by: Donald ZagoriaForeign Affairs, Vol. 73, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 1994), p. 169Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20045994 .

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Recent Books

Asia and the Pacific DONALD ZAGORIA

Deng Xiaoping: And the Making of Modern China, by richard evans.

New York: Vikng, 1994,327 pp. $27.95.

Despite the scarcity of reliable informa

tion about China's supreme leader, the

enormous difficulty of gaining access to

key documents, and the problems of

dealing with a country in which history is still viewed as a

political weapon, this

biography of Deng Xiaoping will be a reliable and valued guide for years to

come. Written by the former British

ambassador to China, Sir Richard Evans, a sinologist in his own right, the volume

is superbly researched, quite readable and

extremely judicious in its assessments.

Not the least of the author's accom

plishments is to place the rise of Deng within the context of the tumultuous

history of twentieth-century China?the

Japanese invasion, the rise of commu

nism, the Long March, the Great Leap

Forward, the innumerable struggles for

power within the Chinese Communist

Party, the Cultural Revolution and

Tiananmen Square. Evans says that Deng's greatest

achievements were to put China on a

path of rapid economic development and

to bring it into the mainstream of inter

national life. He sees three secrets of suc

cess in China's drive to development that

distinguish it from the failures of the former Soviet Union, first, China began

by reforming agriculture rather than

commerce or industry. This made food

and raw materials for light industry plen tiful and thereby created conditions con

ducive to change in the cities. Second, China avoided hyperinflation and a rapid decline in living standards by removing

price controls gradually, so that the con

sumer was not turned into an enemy of

reform. Third, economic reforms pre ceded political reform, which improves the chances that a more open political order will survive once it does come

about. According to Evans, democracy does best when it grows slowly in a devel

oping country and reaches maturity only when that country has achieved high lev

els of prosperity and education.

The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China, by Susan l. shirk. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1993,

399 pp. $48.00 (paper, $15.00). A political scientist seeks to explain Deng Xiaoping's success and Mikhail Gor

bachev's failure in reforming a commu

nist economy by focusing on the political institutions that blocked reform in the

U.S.S.R. and facilitated it in China. The

key to effective reform, says the author, is

that reformist leaders need to develop an

effective pro-reform coalition and render

ineffective the groups that will lose as a

result of the reforms.

Gorbachev tried to develop a reform

coalition by opening up the political arena

to real competition and thereby developing a

counterweight to the anti-reform com

munist party apparatus. But this was a

highly risky strategy that eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet communist party.

To order any book reviewed or advertised in Foreign Affairs, call 1-800-255-2665.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS - March/April 1994 [169]

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