WOH 2001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Deng Xiaoping, Glasnost, Mikhail Gorbachev
• What were the positive and negative outcomes of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms?
Positive
Negative
Stunning economic growth
Massive corruption among
Chinese officials
New prosperity for millions
Sharp inequalities between the
coast and the interior
Better diets
Urban overcrowding
Lower mortality rates
Terrible pollution in major cities
Declining poverty
Periodic inflation
Massive urban construction
Street crime, prostitution,
gambling, drug addiction, and a
criminal underworld surfaced in
China’s cities
Surging exports
• Why did Deng not allow China to democratize? In other words, the economy
opened up, but political rights did not. Why?
o Deng Xiaoping didn’t want to give up his control
• How did the end of communism in the Soviet Union differ from the end of
communism in China?
o
• What were Gorbachev’s major reforms?
Glasnost plus other reforms
Perestroika
Openness
Restructuring
A policy of permitting a much
wider range of cultural and
intellectual
Freed state enterprises from the
heavy hand of government
regulation
We need glasnost like we need
the air. –Gorbachev
Permitted small-scale private
businesses
Democratization
Offered opportunities for private
farming
New parliament with real powers
chosen in competitive elections
Cautiously welcomed foreign
investment in joint enterprises
Made unilateral cuts in Soviet
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