Ep. 63 | Deng Xiaoping (Part 1)

The China History Podcast

Laszlo Montgomery

Places & Travel, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 November 2011

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Laszlo is happily back in Cali with a new episode that looks at the early years of Deng Xiaoping. Most of the narrative is based on passages gleaned from Ezra Vogel’s new biography of The Great One. Inspired by the events of May Fourth, 1919, Deng Xiaoping was a lifelong revolutionary and by the end of his days had personally seen to it that China ended up the nation it was meant to be on the world stage. In this multi-part series on the life of Deng Xiaoping, we’ll trace his life, all the triumphs as well as the tragedies. We’ll look at why he is lionized as one of the greatest 20th-century world leaders and also why some have vilified Deng for his actions. His life itself is an interesting prism from which to view 20th century China. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone, Lasla Montgomery here again, coming your way as usual via the China History
0:06.4	Podcast.com.
0:09.1	Well, on the heels of Henry Kissinger's book on China, We now have Ezra Vogel's new biography of Deng Xiaoping.
0:17.3	Pretty much all the reviews are good, and I spent a little time going over all his sources and who he had access to.
0:25.2	In short, you could call this about as definitive a biography written by a Westerner as
0:30.1	there ever was about Deng Xiaoping.
0:32.4	I thought now would be as good a time as any here at the
0:35.4	China History Podcast to look at the life of Deng Xiaoping. It's 700 plus pages. I don't know how many of you will have the time to read Ezra Vogel's new book.
0:46.9	So I had the idea to use Vogel's new biography as a sort of guide to look at Deng Xiaoping's life and in looking at the life of Deng we could
0:56.9	also examine it in the context of the history of China at the time.
1:02.2	He lived a very long life, chain smoking, panda cigarettes and all.
1:08.0	1904 and 1997, not quite 93 years. Quite a lot went down in China during that time, and Deng played a central
1:18.0	role from the very beginning up until the very end. Much of what you see today in China is a result of policies he put into
1:25.1	place. Deng's achievements, what he did for China domestically, and with China
1:31.6	international standing is pretty clear and obvious.
1:35.1	You don't have to peel away nauseating thick layers of propaganda.
1:40.9	And Deng wasn't the Kim Jong-Yil or Ugo Chavez type either with all these acts of self-promotion.
1:48.0	His record going back to the beginning always spoke for itself. He got the job done. He got things done
1:57.0	using his intelligence, his leadership skills, commanding respect from others and
2:02.1	most of all through the force of his will.
2:05.0	He was a detail man as much as he was a big picture man.
2:08.0	He was never the president of China or the official head of state.
	...

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