From internationally renowned historian Frank Dikötter, winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize, a myth­-shattering history of China from the death of Chairman Mao to Xi Jinping.

Deng’s plan was to exercise political control of the foreign owned companies, in effect to use capitalism against the capitalists, encouraging even greater foreign investment and economic development and demonstrating superiority of the socialist system. Pudong, a large area of marshes across the Huangpu River in Shanghai was promoted to become a new financial center to rival Hong Kong. Foreign investors soon found themselves mired in a sea of red tape as they began to take advantage of the concessions. Everyone from Siemens to Matsushita and Ford got on board including the former opium dealer Jardine Matheson. In a short time every major city on the coast was offering preferential policies to foreign firms. Real estate development leapfrogged each year prior as domestic investors registered foreign shell companies.A pulsating account that makes clear how important it is to look beneath the surface when it comes to any period or region in history – but above all to China' Peter Frankopan, TLS China’s determination to maintain ‘double-digit growth’ meant that local branch managers of state banks lent more money to state enterprises. The drive to increase exports was catalysed by direct export subsidies, swap markets, export tax rebates and low-interest export loans. This transformed local economies and China became the newest actor on the world economic stage, having been responsible for less than 1% of global trade in 1978 but reaching 1.7% in 1988. However, inflation soared to 48% by the summer and the banks began to issue ‘I owe you’ notes of ‘very little value’. They were no longer able to top up and neatly tie the bow on the sac of debt gathered by local governments, officials and state enterprises – it bulged and tore at the seams. Cities were ‘up in arms’. A bastion of stability? The main question that this study of China after Mao revolves around is an examination of a seemingly plausible and widely accepted hypothesis: that an implementation of free market methods will lay the foundation, inevitably, for democratic political reform. What the leaders had in mind in 1976, and to a great extent to this very day, is the Stalinist model of development. After 1929, for instance, the Soviets collectivised the country the better to drain it of grain, meat and milk, which was sold on the international market in exchange for foreign currency. The foreign currency was used to buy the industrial equipment required to industralise at great speed. Mao tried it with the Great Leap Forward in 1958. Deng and his acolytes tried it in 1978, calling for a 'new Leap Forward'. In short improve exports and use the hard currency to build up capacity. Forty years ago it was heavy industry, today it is chips and artificial intelligence. As a summary of events in China since 1976, it probably does the job, although I can’t definitively say so since I’m a layperson. I will note that it reads more as summary-with-an-opinion than cutting analysis, although that’s not necessarily bad. Presumably the access to long-restricted archives gives it an edge over other, similar texts?

The first quarter of the book is basically the road to Tienanmen massacre. If you ever wanted to fully understand why would any country send hundreds of tanks against its own people, this is the book to read - the context here is deep, well researched and shows how the massacre shaped modern China. He has published a dozen books that have changed the ways historians view modern China, from the classic The Discourse of Race in Modern China (1992) to China before Mao: The Age of Openness (2007). His work has been translated into twenty languages. Frank Dikötter is married and lives in Hong Kong. A blow-by-blow account of the uneven, reactive and sometimes chaotic course of economic policies . . . An important corrective' Financial TimesChristopher Marquis: You describe the period of 1989-1991 as a watershed, and you discuss the changing perceptions around the Tiananmen protests. Can you say why this juncture is so important to really understanding what came after?