New Thinking

“Three cobblers with their wits combined equal Zhuge Liang, the master mind,” says a Chinese aphorism. To speed up Deng Xiaoping’s market-style reforms, China’s pragmatic leaders are tapping the mind of a modern-day Zhuge Liang: University of Pennsylvania professor Lawrence Klein. The American Nobel laureate in economics in 1980 was appointed as an adviser to the State Planning Commission, which oversees the industrial sector. They hope Klein’s wisdom can help them build a “socialist market economy,” Deng’s newest oxymoron.