Book Title: Wild Ride: A Short History of the Opening and Closing of the Chinese Economy Author: Anne Stevenson Yang Headline: Deng Xiaoping's Reforms and the Rise of Red Capitalism Following Mao Zedong's death, Deng Xiaoping initiated economic reforms in
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 8 September 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Summary
Following Mao Zedong's death, Deng Xiaoping initiated economic reforms in 1979, driven by the need for hard currency for international travel. His solution was to create hermetically sealed export zones, like Shenzhen, to attract foreign companies and currency. This "red capitalism" led to an elite class, where Deng Xiaoping's daughter and Jiang Zemin's son, Jiang Mianheng (Mr. 10%), secured money and political power, often by taking equity in new companies.
1954
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| 0:30.2 | I'm John Betts with Anne Stevenson Yang. The new book is Wild Ride, a short history of the opening and closing of the Chinese economy. Tiananmen is a catastrophe. The tanks on students, the damage, and then the pursuit of anyone who was |
| 0:40.2 | in attendance takes two years of closing the country down, brutalizing. We don't have a good history. |
| 0:47.3 | But in 1992, the country starts to open up again to capital. It needs capital. It needs money invested. It needs |
| 0:58.2 | to organize itself to attract investment. And this is the period of creating the red capitalists, |
| 1:05.0 | which I know Dan invariably were the sons and daughters of the leading political figures, |
| 1:10.7 | all of them. |
| 1:11.3 | Dung has a daughter whom you describe as mousy, Deng, Deng Nann, who becomes part of the free economy and other, the premier have children or friends of children. |
| 1:26.2 | The one I love best is a Drexel University graduate |
| 1:29.6 | named Zhang Ming Hong, who is called Mr. 10-percenter. What was the 10% about? |
| 1:38.3 | Well, that's because in Shanghai, where he lived then, a lot of companies felt that they needed to give him 10% of the equity in order to smooth their way to getting licenses and getting capital. |
| 1:50.4 | He was the son, of course, of Jiang Zemin, who was the head of China. |
| 1:55.7 | I hate to use the word president, which Chinese people never use, but he was the head of China after Tannerman. |
| 2:02.6 | And so his son was Mr. 10%. And this is red capitalism. This isn't quite our idea of |
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