Gordon G. Chang: China's "Red" Revival

Gordon G. Chang is the author of two books, The Coming Collapse of China and Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World.

“The river runs to the east for 30 years, the river runs to the west for 30 years, and now it will run east for another 30 years,” saysHan Deqiang, founder of the leftist Utopia website. “The transition is already occurring but people are failing to notice.”

Maoists like to speak in poetic language, but we should listen to them because they appear ascendant in the Chinese political system.  The Communist Party of China has already abandoned Deng Xiaoping’s transformational policies, which were encapsulated by the phrase “reform and opening up.”  China, as Professor Han tells us, has entered another era.

In the first three decades of the People’s Republic, Mao nationalized industry, collectivized agriculture, and imposed his atomized model, ripping apart China along the way with monstrous campaigns costing the lives of tens of millions.  For three decades after that, Deng restored order, rationalized the economy, and opened the country to foreign investment.

Beijing tells us it is still reforming, but Hu Jintao, the current leader, is presiding over an era marked, on balance, by the reversal of reform.  There have been three disturbing economic trends during his rule...