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So convincingly has he left his stamp on the country that many Chinese will find it difficult to envision a China without Deng. After the ruinous years of the Cultural Revolution and the death of Mao Zedong, Deng consolidated his power. In 1978 he dropped Marxist orthodoxy to begin economic reforms he hoped would make China "a modern, powerful socialist country." He and his disciples insist they are creating a "socialist market economy," an oxymoron they interpret officially as "socialism with Chinese characteristics." While they cling to such slogans to bolster their positions, in practice they are producing capitalism with Chinese characteristics.
Though the formerly totalitarian government is now simply authoritarian, the leaders make no pretense of easing the hard hand of the police state to permit any political diversity or plurality, let alone real democracy. Dissidents are still arrested and thrown into prison. Even so, the high-energy drive for economic diversity and the freedom that offers to talented people have helped open the society -- so long as individuals do not challenge the state. "There is more openness in China now," says a senior Western diplomat in Beijing, "than at any time in the past, and far more than under Gorbachev in Russia."
The effects of Deng's economic revolution are astounding. In Mao's time, leveling was the rule, and everyone aimed at a drab, fanatical egalitarianism. The nation dressed in rumpled blue tunics that made it difficult to tell men from women, and waxed so proletarian that even army officers removed their badges of rank. Today the society is brazenly materialistic, roaring through cycles of boom and bust that have made millions rich. The free-for-all has also left hundreds of millions in the dust but still eager to get theirs. "People are thinking only about money," says a Chinese professor of philosophy in Beijing. "We are only interested in seizing the opportunity brought by this economic change," agrees 23-year-old photographer Nie Zheng.
In the 15 years since Deng abolished the agricultural communes and opened the door to cooperative business and private enterprise, China's economy has mushroomed, growing an average of 9% a year, doubling the size of the economy every 10 years. In 1992 gross domestic product increased 12.8%, and this year it is growing at 13% despite a series of austerity measures. Though per capita income is only about $380, by some calculations of purchasing power China has the third largest economy in the world (after the U.S. and Japan) and could become No. 1 in two decades.
Some provinces are even more gung-ho for growth than the bosses in Beijing. Hainan in the far south plans to build itself into another Hong Kong. Guangdong and Shandong hope to catch up with such Asian powerhouses as South Korea and Singapore by 2015. The special economic zone of Shenzhen is two hours' drive from the southern city of Guangzhou, where bustling construction sites and rows of town houses, factories and shopping centers line the road through the Pearl River delta. In Shanghai, China's New York City, shop windows are crammed with chic imports, electronic pagers and fancy cuts of meat.