Deng Xiaoping's Economic Reform

Deng, a communist leader from 1970 to 1997, promised to establish a better socialist government. During his time in office, Deng conducted his economic reform, a plan to modernize China’s economy to be a major influence in the West. Many criticized Deng for his work, claiming that he demolished communist China and lowered living standards due to the reintroduction of capitalism. However, the economic reform yielded positive results. Although Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms brought an end to communism and created unsafe work environments, his work ultimately led to long term benefits in China's economy by shifting business into private ownership, and strengthened bonds between nations of the West. Deng’s transfer of businesses to private

Critics and loyal communists were dissatisfied that Deng’s many promises were not maintained. They were enraged that Deng had not created a better socialist government, but had directly injected capitalistic attributes. In mid 1988, inflation got out of control and spread panic throughout China. Critics poured onto the streets Tiananmen, protesting against Deng’s capitalistic reforms as the root of the poor living conditions (Tyler). However, living conditions had not declined; in fact, they had been improved. In 1978, around 41 percent of the population lived in poverty; nevertheless, by 2001, this figure dropped to around 5 percent (Marti). Living standards were not the only thing critics attacked, Deng’s shift into private ownership was also criticized by many. New businesses introduced the light of perilous factories. Work conditions in these factories were often horrendous; workers worked in a crowded environment and production lines were often fire trapped and unsupervised, leaving workers unable to escape during fires. (Tyler). These are, however, all consequences and side effects to any increase of production. In spite of the fact that new factories housed uncomfortable work environments, they introduced thousands of new jobs to the market which greatly benefited the economy. At the start of the economic revolution in 1978, only 28 million people were employed by township and village enterprises. Yet, a decade later, in 1988, employment rates more than tripled to 95 million employed