In January 1992, Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who had overseen a decade of remarkable economic growth and social change during the 1980s, set off on a tour of China’s south. Having retired in 1989, and worried that his successors were failing to continue his project of encouraging ever-faster economic growth, he spent a month travelling from city to city on board his private train, telling the officials that he met - telling everyone he met – that China must not turn back on expanding and reforming its economy. He characterised any ambitions that failed to develop the country and improve people’s lives as the ‘road to ruin’. The leadership in Beijing, given little choice by this act of political theatre, were forced to change course and began once more to encourage economic ambition: the Southern Tour would mark the beginning of the so-called ‘Roaring Nineties’. Deng’s journey was a seminal moment in China’s modern history, and has become part of the complex mythology of the 1980s. This podcast will follow the stops of Deng’s 3000 mile journey, exploring its history and legacy, and interviewing writers and scholars with insight into the story of this remarkable journey.
For this first episode, we’re joined by Julian Gewirtz (@JulianGewirtz) to discuss the decade leading up to the Southern Tour of 1992, and some of the myths that swirl around the period known as Reform and Opening.
Julian is Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a research scholar at the Columbia-Harvard China and the World Program and a lecturer in history at Columbia University. Dr. Gewirtz is the author of Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers, Western Economists, and the Making of Global China (Harvard University Press, 2017), and a new book on the tumult, legacies, and historical manipulation of the 1980s in China (Harvard University Press, forthcoming 2021).
The Southern Tour Podcast is hosted by Dr Jonathan Chatwin, author of 'Long Peace Street: A walk in modern China'.
Twitter: @jmchatwin
