This 2016 book won two book prizes. It had been hailed as game-changing in its economic analysis of China from 1978 to 2016.
Deng Xiaoping launched China’s policy of ‘reform and opening’ at the Third Plenum held in Dec 1978.
China was dirt-poor then. In 1980, China’s GDP per capita was only US$193, lower than Bangladesh, Chad, and Malawi. The Chinese in China did not eat more or better food during the 1970s than they had in the 1930s, before the CCP took power.
These were due to two political disasters. First, the Great Leap Forward (1958- 1961), Mao’s disastrous plan to accelerate economic production. Second, Mao tried to reconsolidate power by unleashing the disastrous Cultural Revolution (1966- 1976).
So, how did development actually happen in China?
Was growth required before there could be good governance? Or is good governance a prerequisite to growth?
Ang, in this book, put forward her theory on how China managed to become the world’s second-largest economy in 35 years.
LWH, 26 SEP 2025, Friday 11 pm