China's emergence onto the world stage in recent years did not happen overnight. Anyone who had witnessed how China has transformed from a backward country to what it has become on the world stage, will be aware that Deng Xiaoping had played a role in opening up China to the world, transforming China from communism to embracing its own brand of capitalism which makes China becoming one of the fastest-growing economies the world has ever seen in decades.
To try to explain the story of the transformation that has taken the world by storm does come with caveats, in terms of how the outside world saw as a blot during Deng Xiaoping's tenure, the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. Or at least that is how the documentary is portraying it. But the story of China's transformation was not so straightforward as it is, in terms of a leader passing the baton to the successor. Mao Zedong has always being revered in China, but his death in 1976 would expose the economic failure of the country. His time studying abroad, with Deng Xiaoping's time studying in the then-Soviet Union being highlighted, would influence Deng for advocating market reform. Mao was more philosophical in his thinking when it comes to the running of the country. Deng's views would saw him being sacked from the Chinese Communist Party thrice.
At the same time halfway across the world years before the death of Mao, there would be a man who was keen to re-establishing relations with China. It was Richard Nixon, who was vice-president from 1953 to 1961 when Dwight Eisenhower was president. It would become a reality eight years later in 1969 when Nixon was elected president.
But before Richard Nixon's famous visit to China with his wife Pat in 1973 and Deng visiting the United States six years later in 1979 when Jimmy Carter was president, Mao had chosen Hua Guofeng as his designated successor and not Deng. But Hua would eventually be ousted in a leadership battle in the Chinese Communist Party which would come to see Deng gaining control over the party. That would when Deng's economic reforms began to see its effect, when foreign investors began coming into China. But before it happened, it actually started out as an experiment in a village in Anhui over local managers taking responsibilities for the profit and losses of what the farmers had produced. That would catch the attention of Deng and he praised what was done.
As for the events of the Tiananmen Square massacre, it has originally started out as a mourning for the death of Deng's right-hand man Hu Yaobang apart from protesting over corruption in the government. But it would turn into something nasty in terms of how the Chinese Communist Party interpreted what was happening, contrasting to how the international media saw what was going on. Still, despite how it might had looked like Deng would fade into obscurity in the 90s before his death in 1997, he still has an influence over those who come after him at the Chinese Communist Party.
The fact that the documentary comprises not only the American officials who recalled when Deng Xiaoping came to power and what happened during Deng's tenure and including the ordinary Chinese ranging from former student protesters who took part in the demonstrations leading up to the massacre, business people who had benefited from Deng's economic policies, the former Chinese Communist Party officials including the American-born Sidney Rittenberg, meant that the documentary does not go with the conventional view of looking at the transformation of China from purely a Western perspective but also from those who had witnessed it for themselves and those formerly inside the party like Rittenberg himself who also knew Deng personally. It does feel a little surreal to the viewer who might had took how China has presented itself to the world in recent years for granted in terms of how the country was like before the economic policies from Deng took hold.
What the documentary presents may not give the full picture of China's transformation as there are also other aspects which plays a part in how there would be a generation of Chinese seeing how their lives has turn out to be as a result of China opening itself to the world to foreign investors, but nevertheless it is a reminder of what was achieved in China in a manner of few decades and how Deng is more remembered for opening up China to the world than the events of the Tiananmen Square massacre. And how in China, capitalism is not the word it is used to describe what the country is embracing.
To try to explain the story of the transformation that has taken the world by storm does come with caveats, in terms of how the outside world saw as a blot during Deng Xiaoping's tenure, the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. Or at least that is how the documentary is portraying it. But the story of China's transformation was not so straightforward as it is, in terms of a leader passing the baton to the successor. Mao Zedong has always being revered in China, but his death in 1976 would expose the economic failure of the country. His time studying abroad, with Deng Xiaoping's time studying in the then-Soviet Union being highlighted, would influence Deng for advocating market reform. Mao was more philosophical in his thinking when it comes to the running of the country. Deng's views would saw him being sacked from the Chinese Communist Party thrice.
At the same time halfway across the world years before the death of Mao, there would be a man who was keen to re-establishing relations with China. It was Richard Nixon, who was vice-president from 1953 to 1961 when Dwight Eisenhower was president. It would become a reality eight years later in 1969 when Nixon was elected president.
But before Richard Nixon's famous visit to China with his wife Pat in 1973 and Deng visiting the United States six years later in 1979 when Jimmy Carter was president, Mao had chosen Hua Guofeng as his designated successor and not Deng. But Hua would eventually be ousted in a leadership battle in the Chinese Communist Party which would come to see Deng gaining control over the party. That would when Deng's economic reforms began to see its effect, when foreign investors began coming into China. But before it happened, it actually started out as an experiment in a village in Anhui over local managers taking responsibilities for the profit and losses of what the farmers had produced. That would catch the attention of Deng and he praised what was done.
As for the events of the Tiananmen Square massacre, it has originally started out as a mourning for the death of Deng's right-hand man Hu Yaobang apart from protesting over corruption in the government. But it would turn into something nasty in terms of how the Chinese Communist Party interpreted what was happening, contrasting to how the international media saw what was going on. Still, despite how it might had looked like Deng would fade into obscurity in the 90s before his death in 1997, he still has an influence over those who come after him at the Chinese Communist Party.
The fact that the documentary comprises not only the American officials who recalled when Deng Xiaoping came to power and what happened during Deng's tenure and including the ordinary Chinese ranging from former student protesters who took part in the demonstrations leading up to the massacre, business people who had benefited from Deng's economic policies, the former Chinese Communist Party officials including the American-born Sidney Rittenberg, meant that the documentary does not go with the conventional view of looking at the transformation of China from purely a Western perspective but also from those who had witnessed it for themselves and those formerly inside the party like Rittenberg himself who also knew Deng personally. It does feel a little surreal to the viewer who might had took how China has presented itself to the world in recent years for granted in terms of how the country was like before the economic policies from Deng took hold.
What the documentary presents may not give the full picture of China's transformation as there are also other aspects which plays a part in how there would be a generation of Chinese seeing how their lives has turn out to be as a result of China opening itself to the world to foreign investors, but nevertheless it is a reminder of what was achieved in China in a manner of few decades and how Deng is more remembered for opening up China to the world than the events of the Tiananmen Square massacre. And how in China, capitalism is not the word it is used to describe what the country is embracing.
