WEBVTT - Odd Arne Westad on how China First Joined the Global Capitalist Economy 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:19.079 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.880 Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:27.160 I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.560 Tracy now that I'm like a middle aged old man, 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:34.640 I don't know. I've been getting really into reading history lately. 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:36.400 Is it Roman history? No? 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:39.160 No, it's actually worse than Roman history. I've been reading 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:42.280 a lot of twentieth century history. And the problem, well, 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:44.800 one problem is a bit of a diversion. But one 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:48.720 problem with reading twentieth century history is that I'm eventually 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:50.479 going to have to get around to really learning what 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:52.360 World War two is all about, and then I'm going 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:53.480 to be a fifty year old man. 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:55.760 Reading You have to fulfill your destiny. 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:55.520 I know. 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:57.360 So I'm going to be a fifty year old man 0:00:57.400 --> 0:00:59.400 in a few years reading World War two books and 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.120 watching World War or two documentaries. So, but yes, I've 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:04.120 been reading a lot of twentieth century history lately. 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:06.520 You know how you know that you are really old, 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:10.080 It's when you start reading twentieth century history books and 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.720 realize that you were like there and sort of participating 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:14.840 in that time period. 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.399 Well, it's so funny that you mentioned this because this 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:21.280 is increasingly dawning on me when I read history. And again, 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.000 slight sidetrack, but I've mentioned before a couple of times. 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:26.280 I lived in Malaysia for a year in nineteen eighty 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:30.520 nine and nineteen ninety and I discovered in reading history 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.120 recently that I don't know if they call it the 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:35.959 Malaysian Civil War, but the Ultimate Peace Agreement between the 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.679 Malaysian government and the Communist Party of Malaysia was signed 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.360 in nineteen eighty nine that ended that conflict, And so 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:45.039 I was there. I had no idea, but reading his. 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:47.160 Grade school Joe was living through history. 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.160 I was, and it sort of reminds I think this 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:51.720 is an important thing that I've realized reading more history, 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:54.120 is that the modern world as we know it is 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:57.040 so young. It's basically like the length of a person's life, 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.440 depending on where you want to start it. Like we're 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:00.520 just getting started here. 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.880 So the history we're going to be talking about specifically 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.320 is China. And I was thinking about this because the 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:09.920 first time I went to China was in nineteen ninety four, 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:14.240 and it was completely different to how it is now, 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:18.760 Like there were still rickshaws on the street, Friendship stores existed. 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:21.720 Friendship stores still existed in the early two thousands when 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.040 I was there, and I don't know, do you know 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:25.040 what a friendship store is? 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:26.160 I can guess. 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:30.200 So it's like where foreigners were basically allowed to go 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.320 and like purchase specific goods. They had a lot of 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:35.840 like tourist tat and stuff like that. But if you 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:38.680 went to a friendship store in Beijing in the early 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.359 two thousands, it was basically like going to the East Bloc. 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.440 It was like a full employment program where you would 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.000 find a salesperson on the floor and you would say, 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:50.680 I want this item, and then they would give you 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.359 a little like token or receipt and then you would 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.560 take that to the cashier and pay, and then someone 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.600 else would bring the item to you. So yeah, that 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:01.959 was in the two thousands, And now when I think 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:06.760 about Beijing, like it has changed completely, Like stuff that 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:09.760 used to be one story neighborhoods full of bars like 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:14.040 san Ley Turn is now like luxury shopping centers totally. 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:16.080 So this is the other thing too, which is that 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:18.079 you know, we talk a lot about China right now 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:22.000 for obvious reasons, but I kind of feel that like, 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.240 if we're going to talk about today. There probably is 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:27.280 some justification for like how we got here, and I 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:31.000 have to admit, you know, my understanding is really very 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:34.080 rudimentary and limited. Like in my mind, it's basically like 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:39.040 Maud died Doung Hopeng liberalized the economy, that was the 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:40.600 economy plugged into global. 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:42.640 Idiot sunflower seeds happened. 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.160 Yeah, and then they allowed a business and then they 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:47.360 entered the wto in here. And I would say, I 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.600 know basically four facts about the history of China, and 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:54.600 those you know, nineteen seventy eight wto now, so maybe 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:57.800 that's just three. And so I actually think it's important 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:01.360 to sort of deepen our understanding of how we got 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.600 to the China that we are so deeply connected to today. 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:07.800 I am in favor of you using the podcast as 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:09.920 an excuse to read a bunch of history books. 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:11.280 It's great, it's other. 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.160 Manifest your middle aged self. That's fine, we should do it. 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.080 Well, it's better because if I have to read books, 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:18.039 that means I'm not just scrolling Twitter all the time. 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.560 So if I have to prepare for episodes anyway, we're 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.000 going to be speaking with one of the co authors 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:26.480 of the new book came out in October The Great Transformation, 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:31.400 China's road from revolution to reform. And I would say 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:34.960 it complexifies a bit the very rudimentary story of the 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:37.160 last I don't know, forty plus years of China. It's 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:41.400 more than just three specific dates. It complexifies that story. 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:43.520 It sort of fleshes it out in a big way. 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:47.640 The co authors are Odd Arned Westdad and Chen John. 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:50.359 The first time on odd Lots that we'll have a 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:51.599 guest with the name odd. 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:52.760 Surely the perfect guest. 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.840 So it's truly the perfect guest. So we're speaking with 0:04:55.960 --> 0:05:00.000 professor of history at Yale, Odd Earned west Dad. Professor Westdad, 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:01.760 thank you so much for coming on the podcast. 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:04.120 Thank you for having me on you you almost had 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.880 to write we had It's truly, it's really a shame 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:11.599 that you haven't had me on before, I mean your 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:13.120 podcast with me as you first guest. 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:15.800 We had to wait for Joe to enter his history phase. 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:18.000 That's right, but you should have. You should have been 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.479 the first guest. So why this book, because I imagine 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.560 if I go on Amazon, there are probably hundreds of 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:30.080 books that are some version of how China reformed, How 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:34.560 China went from being this backwards economy to dynamic capitalist economy. 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:36.880 I know it's been written about in various forms of 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:39.960 numerous numerous times. Why did you and your co author 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.279 still feel at this point that this was an important 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:45.400 story or collection of stories to tell. 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:47.520 I think there are two reasons. The first one is 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:49.480 quite personal in a way. I mean it almost goes 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:51.200 back to what you were talking about a minute ago. 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:53.720 So I first came to China as and I changed 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:57.120 student back in the late nineteen seventies and Changen. Of course, 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:59.640 my co Walton lived there during that period, so this 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:03.359 is away so personal process. Well, we lived through parts 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:05.839 of the time period that we are talking about in 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.800 this book, and there is no better incentive, as you 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:11.920 just touched upon, to go back to look at history 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.080 again than trying to understand the period that you lived through. 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:17.359 So that's the first reason. And the second reason is, 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:18.880 of course that we think we do it better than 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.800 anyone else. Do it better than anyone else because we 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:26.000 have more access to sources and more access to information 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:29.320 about what actually happened during that time period. So as 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.920 you read the book, you can see how, at least 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:34.400 when we do this as well as we can, we 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:37.320 are able to get on the inside of many of 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:39.560 the things that took place during that time period and 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:43.760 show the complexities, I mean, show how complex that period 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.440 of very early Chinese reform and opening was and in 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:51.560 many ways how contingent the process was, and how surprising 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:53.360 it is in more than one sense that we ended 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:54.279 up where we are today. 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:58.159 So speaking of access, you mentioned this, I think in 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:01.920 the very beginning of the book, but you started researching 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:05.279 this in twenty ten, and you said that the research 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.600 process and the access you had kind of changed over 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:11.360 the next I guess thirteen or fourteen years or so. 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:13.760 Give us a little bit more detail, like, as a 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:18.280 researcher of Chinese history, how have things actually evolved for you? 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:22.040 That's right. We started thinking about this and started researching 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.760 it in the early twenty teens, and of course back 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.280 then we had much better access to sources, much better 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.520 access to archives, to talk to people, to travel around 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.760 and country, to have informal discussions with people who would 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:36.800 be in the know than what is the case today. 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:40.600 So China has really since twenty sixteen seventeen, there were 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:44.800 closed down in terms of access to historical sources of 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:47.600 all kinds. So we were lucky. We started this process 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.280 quite early on and had some good years in which 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:54.480 we actually could collect material. Then we did something really silly. 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.480 We put it aside for other projects, hoping that we 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:00.600 would get even better access in a few years. That 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:02.880 happens sometimes that you make the wrong call on these 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:05.240 kinds of things, and instead, of course, it got much 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:07.760 was So what we had to do was to go 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.440 back to some of the material that we had gathered 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:12.840 in that early time period before we switch to other 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.880 projects that we then completed before we returned to this book, 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:18.760 and then try to feel that in the best we 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:20.880 could with all the materials we could get now. But 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.520 the level of access, the level of information is very 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.000 different today from what you could get pulled off back then. 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:29.680 So I want to get into some of the content 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.960 of the book obviously, And like I said in the intro, 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:37.319 you know, I have this very cartoonish vision of history 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:41.160 in my head where Mao dies, Don Chopeg becomes the 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:43.000 new leader of the country after a little bit of 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.560 tension and turmoil, and then China liberalizes. 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:48.520 So one of the sort of eye. 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:50.960 Opening or sort of mind expanding moments in the book, 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.480 you talk about the cultural revolution, and how even there, 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:56.840 you know, we think of that as going I guess 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:59.920 from nineteen sixty six to sometime in the nineteen seventy. 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.800 You argue that the real intensity of it was two 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.960 years where the sort of the youth of China rose 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.320 up against the old cadres within the Communist Party. But 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.800 even in that time, amid some of this incredible turmoil 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:17.480 that the Communist Party was going through under mau, some 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:22.080 of the seeds of I guess capitalism were actually planted 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:23.360 in that turmoil. 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:25.640 Yeah, that's right. I mean that I think is one 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:28.600 of the contributions of this book. I mean, your summarized 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:30.960 history of what happened. It is not wrong, okay, It's 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:34.520 just that it was really difficult and, as I said, 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:37.000 very contingent in terms of the various things that are 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.600 happening to get from warm to the next of those stages. 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:43.040 And one of the things that we do show in 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:47.360 the book is how the cultural revolution, which was undertaken, 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:51.560 of course, in order to solidify Maltadome's leadership and attack 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.880 the old leaders in the Communist Party who he regarded 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.760 as being too backle to take China into his new 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:02.640 Communist paradise. This cultural revolution had effects that were in 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.360 no way for sea, and part of them was in 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.480 many ways the destruction of all China. I mean, they 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:12.040 got rid of many of the traditional ways of thinking 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:17.280 and loyalties, and much of the patriarchal approaches within families. 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:21.000 All of this because of these political campaigns that they undertook, 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:26.040 directed almost against any kind of authority except most of 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:29.319 ohn authority. And in a strange kind of way, when 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.840 you get into the nineteen seventies, Mao's still alive, still 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:37.160 ruling from Beijing, things start to change in some places 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:41.559 from the ground up. So this is turning to markets 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:45.600 almost as a kind of revolutionary acts out of desperation, 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:49.599 because people along the coast, in the south, in the 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:53.319 areas that have some experience with capitalism and with markets, 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:56.800 they are worried that when this campaign ends, things have 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:58.640 got to get even worse. And some of these people 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.559 have been starving, you know, back during the Great Leap 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:04.280 forward in the late fifties and early sixties. So they 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:08.439 start rating, they start building up the opportunities that they 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.200 can take for themselves. In a little way. I mean, 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:14.000 this is not a predominant act in China in the 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:18.440 early nineteen seventies, but it did see something that is 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:22.080 incredibly important for the future, and then comes into full 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:24.960 flow after the party takes a step back off the 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.640 mal died and opens up for these console reforms happening 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:29.800 on an until boy Scain. 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:34.320 I apologize in advance for asking a hypothetical, but do 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:38.040 you think the economic liberalization of the late nineteen seventies 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:41.400 early nineteen eighties would have been able to happen or 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.800 would have happened in some form if China hadn't experienced 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.760 the Cultural Revolution and all the I guess emotional trauma 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:52.559 and political chaos that came with it. 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:54.840 It wouldn't have happened when it happened, that's for sure. 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:57.920 That's not even a hypothetical. I mean, I think if 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:02.640 China had continued basic along the Soviet model of development, 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:05.320 which is what they took up after the People's REPROBLEBM 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:08.360 was put in place in the late nineteen forties, Soviet 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:13.200 style everything right, planning, centralization, the wholer. I don't think 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:15.160 the kind of reform that we saw in the late 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.400 seventies and nuineteen eighties would have happened because there wouldn't 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:21.040 have been any fundamental reason to undertake it. I mean, 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:23.480 China would probably have chugged along in the same kind 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.079 of way as the Soviet Union did until some point 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.800 when that model started breaking down. Now, I'm not saying 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:34.079 that the Cultural Revolution was a necessary condition for these 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:38.199 changes in pay place, but the period of Cultural Revolution 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.000 activism did in many ways prepare the ground for the 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.400 timing of this and when it was to happen alst 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:46.800 be because you know, China at the end of the culture 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.040 ablution was a deserted thing. You know, when I first 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:52.000 arrived there in nineteen seventy nine, this was a dirt 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:56.200 poor and terrorized country, you know, a poorer in terms 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.240 of income to capital and most African countries and things 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:03.360 are getting work not that. So that kind of desperation 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:07.360 at all levels of Chinese society fitted into these changes. 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.120 Something had to be done, and going back to the 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:12.960 Soviet model of development as it existed only on when 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:15.560 you get into the nineteen eighties does not seem as 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:16.679 a viable composition. 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:35.400 What does it mean when you talk about history being contingent? 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:37.080 You use that word a couple of times, and I 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:40.440 actually don't know if I fully understand what that means. 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.000 But when you're telling these stories or this story and 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.280 you're keeping in mind the contingency and history, can you 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:47.720 talk a little bit more about this idea. 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:51.200 So you'll see from the book that we go in 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:53.920 and out from the sort of micro to the macro 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:59.040 level of telling history. And if you look at the 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:03.440 night and the coup against the radicals, the softball gang 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:07.000 of four within the party took place, which we described 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:09.520 in some detail almost you know what happens from hour 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:09.960 to hour. 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:13.480 That right, This was the moment in which the left 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:19.040 faction after maud Dies was arrested and allowed for a 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:21.520 sort of more moderate path to emerge. 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:23.960 That's right. And it was in effect the military coup, 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.119 and it was undertaken by the military and the security 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:31.400 forces against the people who himself had put in charge 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:34.200 of the party, including his widow was most prominent of 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:38.760 all jiang Qin. Now that night, the following few days, 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:42.480 things could have ended up very differently. In Shanghai, the 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.280 biggest city in China by far, was still under control 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:48.680 of the radicals. There were military units that supported the 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.560 radical approach to politics. This could have ended up very 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:55.200 differently from what it did. And as we described in 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:57.480 the in the books, some of the protos, some of 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:03.400 the coup makers themselves in those days that followed the 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:08.800 coup itself, were completely surprised by how little resistance there 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.240 had been from the left and how chales there had 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:13.160 been on the streets. So that's what I mean with 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:17.240 it being contingent. I mean, this is something that obviously 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.280 connects to the larger picture that we see today, going 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:22.800 back to your sort of three level version of what 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:26.040 happened right in China, But it didn't seem that obvious 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:28.360 at the time, and it could have gone in very 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:30.280 different directions from what we're seeing today. 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:35.400 How important was the fraying of the relationship between China 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.280 and the Soviet Union in the sort of nineteen sixties 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:42.920 early nineteen seventies to spurring or catalyzing that opening up, 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:46.320 Because it does feel like the sudden emergence of the 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:50.280 Soviet Union as an external enemy. It feels like that 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:54.000 led China in some respects to open up to the 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:55.680 US and some other countries. 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:59.080 This is a sort of trajectory that I think is 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.720 really important to get right because what Mao and his 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:07.160 group of leaders did in the late nineteen sixties was 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:11.320 to turn to the United States as an ally pseudo 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:15.000 ally security ally against the Soviet Union because they were 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:18.160 so deadly afraid that there would be a war with 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.680 the Soviets, a war that China certainly would have lost, 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:24.360 given the state that the Italians communists themselves had put 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:28.160 China into during the Cultural Revolution. So what Mao did 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:32.440 was to turn to the enemy far away in the 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:36.800 United States to help backing against an enemy much closer 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.640 to home, the Soviet Union, which that had this falling 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:43.320 out with mainly for our geological reasons. From Mao's perspective, 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:47.920 this was always intended to be a strictly security oriented 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.080 pseudo alliance right it was the right state against the 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:54.000 Soviet Union. Mao, to the end of the States, was 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:58.080 puzzled that the United States would support the real Communists 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:01.800 meaning him, against the thing communists meaning the Soviet Union. 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:03.920 But as long as they were willing to do that, 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.400 he was certainly willing to reap burnefit. But he never 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:11.119 intended that this would have any effect in terms of 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:15.240 the increasingly radical communist direction that he was taking for 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:21.080 China internally domestically. So that's when what happens in nineteen 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.960 seventy six. After Mouse. That becomes so significant because the 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:28.480 people who then took over, they thought, aha, we have 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:31.680 this relationship with the United States. They are supporting us 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.320 for their own reasons in the Cold War against the 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:37.240 Soviet Union. We can now also make use of this 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:42.320 to suit the charge Chinese reform. Right, if it hadn't 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:46.720 been for that relationship strictly security orialited that already existed 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:49.159 between China and the United States, I doubt that that 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:52.600 would be possible. So it's very important point about the 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:56.640 longer term US China relationships to think about that origin 0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:00.080 and how this actually got started, very different from the 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:04.040 way most people think about it, where the security element 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.760 and the reform element that sort of conflated into one. 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:11.800 It's also just hard in twenty twenty four to imagine 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:17.399 that various communist states would not be natural allies. And 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:21.040 of course China after the Vietnam War, China also went 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:23.639 to war against Vietnam. The fact that they're so concerned 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:26.760 about the Soviet invasion, it just sort of this fascinating 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.959 dimension that I don't think fits neatly into our heads. 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:30.480 You know. 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:34.080 I also read your co author's book. He recently wrote 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.359 a great biography of Joe and Lae, and it occurs 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:40.400 to me like reading that book and the new book. Obviously, 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:44.199 I think Mao associated ideologically with the left faction and 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:46.879 the CCP and the Gang of Four, etc. But he 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.600 always seemed to keep a couple of I don't know 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:52.240 if the word is liberals, but to some extent liberals 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.879 around So Joe he never got purged, even though it 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:58.000 didn't seem like Mao particularly liked him. For much of 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:03.639 his life. Liberals and dun Chopeng got purged multiple times, 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:07.560 but never lost his membership of the Communist Party and 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.159 always seemed to find his way back even during the 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:14.880 Mao era. Why was it that, despite his ideological predilections 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:19.600 towards the left, that in these important roles he couldn't 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:23.520 bring himself to purge some of these perhaps more reformist 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.119 minded characters. 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:28.600 Because he needed to have things stop. I mean, Mao 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.560 wasn't just an audiologue, which was the most important aspect 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:34.200 of him. I think when you look at his historical role, 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:37.199 he was also the leader of a country, and he 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.479 needed to get certain things to work within the country 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:44.160 or within the pup and for that, having seen time 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.320 and again that his ideological allies were not particularly good 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:51.440 at this. They were good at reciting Marx and Lenin, 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:53.720 but they were not particularly good at running things. He 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:56.320 needed people like Joe and I. He needed people like 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.920 Dung Show King to get Kingstom. But as chan Jen 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:04.600 Great Joe in biography shows very clearly, there were limits 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:06.840 to how far he would go in working with people 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:10.200 like Joe. Or he was willing to work with them 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:13.359 as long as they served his purposes, and if there 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:15.919 was any sense that they actually tried to have a 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:21.360 direct political influence above or different from his, they would 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:24.960 get into trouble. So I'm not sure if talken liberals 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:26.960 here is the right term. I mean liberals in terms 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.920 of their thinking about politics. These people served, as long 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:33.000 as he was alive, served as gelemen, and they served 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:35.639 him at his leisure. So if he got a suspicion 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:38.439 with them, as he did so many other people, that 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.320 they were not serving his radical interests, he would act 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:42.760 against them. 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.560 You mentioned earlier that your book brings together the macro 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:50.080 and the micro, and in terms of the micro, it 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.879 reminded me a lot of second hand time which is 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:57.520 an oral history of the end of the Soviet Union, 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:00.880 and there are lots of stories in there about individual 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:06.080 experiences and entrepreneurs who suddenly are starting their businesses in 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:09.280 the post communist period and things like that. I've been 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:11.720 trying to get Joe to read this book a lot time. 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:14.800 It's amazing. But can you talk to us a little 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:19.000 bit more about the individual stories that you heard from 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:21.520 this particular period in Chinese history. 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:24.760 So there are many stories, and both Jan and I 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:28.080 are the kind of historians who are storytellers. We like 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:31.640