This week on Sinica, Kaiser is joined by Jonathan Chatwin, author of a new book about Deng Xiaoping's "Southern Tour" of early 1992 — a pivotal event that renewed a commitment to economic reforms after they'd stalled following 1989, and seized the initiative from conservatives in the Chinese leadership. The book is called The Southern Tour: Deng Xiaoping and the Fight for China's Future.
2:10 – Why Jonathan focused on the Southern Tour, and the narratives surrounding it in China
7:19 – How the events of ’89 influenced Deng’s thinking
11:08 – How the political fates of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang affected Deng’s planning
14:31 – The reformers’ path to victory from the second half of ’89 to January of ’92
20:32 – Deng’s vision of opportunity in the face of communism’s apparent global retreat
24:53 – How Deng’s personal experiences shaped his policy decisions
27:07 – The strategic signaling and risky timing of the Southern Tour
34:07 – The influence of the Chinese horoscope, and “The Story of Spring”
37:33 – Shenzhen speed
40:57 – What Jonathan learned about Deng Xiaoping
45:00 – Jonathan’s recommendations for learning more about Deng Xiaoping and the post-Mao era
46:18 – Xi Jinping, the “end” [not sure how to phrase] of Deng’s reform and opening era, and the [parallels with the?] Chinese economic situation today
Recommendations
Jonathan: China’s Hidden Century, edited by Jessica Harrison-Hall and Julia Lovell, produced to accompany the British Museum’s exhibition by that name; and the app Voice Dream, a text-to-speech reader
Kaiser: Andrea Wulf’s Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self, a book about the group of German Romantics gathered in Jena, Germany
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