The book China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower is a chronicle of China’s rise to world power. Award-winning Dutch author Frank Dikötter is a China expert who bases his research on access to government documents and what he witnessed. His story is compelling because he has no agenda beyond trying to explain what he observed.
Four decades after Mao Zedong’s death, the communist nation went from the 126th largest economy to the second. Western optimists credit a growing market economy and free trade for this transformation. However, the author challenges the “economic miracle” narrative of China after Mao.
Beyond the glitter of the nation’s shining metropolises and industrial base lies an immense system of contradictions, illusions, corruption, shadow banking, and political intrigue. Extreme wealth exists beside abject poverty. The plight of the poor Chinese people remains dire in the face of a political program that only serves the Communist Party and its leaders. If there is any miracle, it is that China still survives.
Dikötter traces this darker and more chaotic narrative. While the players, facts and policies constantly change, one thing stands out. The Chinese Communist Party is amazingly consistent in its four-decade march to ever more socialism -- not a market economy..............To Read More....
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