E. Economic Reform Results - 1976 - 1992

One of the misunderstandings that the American people have about China is that they think of the reforms as political and economic. Payment and earning power - that's what most Chinese are thinking about. Ten years before Tiananmen, China's road to socialism took a dramatic turn, widespread reforms that began in 1979 with the Four Modernizations. It was an economic idea, not a political program." Joseph reports that as early as June 9, 1989, Deng Xiaoping proclaimed that the Tiananmen incident should not mean the end of reform, and that reforms should instead be accelerated.

The differences between the definitions of the "good life" for the majority of people in the United States and the majority of people in China are due to historical and cultural differences between the two groups. Because of these differences, the American people largely feel that the Chinese people have not achieved a great deal of freedom, while the Chinese people feel they have achieved a great deal of freedom and progress. This study will cover primarily the period from 1949 to 1987 and will concentrate on the Chinese perspective.

Life for the Chinese people has improved greatly in the 1980s in many respects. When reform began in the 1970s, the "Three Bigs" for consumers were a bicycle, a wristwatch, and a sewing machine. Today, they are a refrigerator, a washing machine, and a television set. For many people, there are now "Four Bigs," with a video recorder added. The increase in the production of Chinese consumer goods between 1952 and 1987 has been spectacular. The production of some goods, such as watches, had begun to exceed the demand for the products.