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Hello and welcome to Chinese Whispers with me, Cindy Yu. Every episode, I'll be talking to journalists, experts and longtime China

watchers about the latest in Chinese politics, society and more. There'll be a smattering

of history to catch you up on the background knowledge and some context as well. How do

the Chinese see these issues? For most people, Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping stand out as the two communist leaders of the People's Republic of China.

But growing up, it was actually a third man by the name of Deng Xiaoping, whose legacy I felt the most.

Though less than five foot tall, his impact on China's trajectory was arguably greater than Mao's and possibly will be more than cease. It was Den's vision of

reform and opening Gekeh Khae Fan, which we've talked about in passing many times on this podcast,

that started a process which transformed China from a Mao's backwater to today's economic superpower.

Thai magazine twice chose him as their man of the year. Yet he was also Den, who gave

the final go-ahead for the military clampdown of the Tiamen Square protests and headed up Mao's

anti-rightist campaigns in the 50s. So what sort of leader and politician was he, and how do we

reconcile the seeming contradictions in his career between liberalism and authoritarianism?

I'm joined today by James Carter, who is Professor of History at the St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia.

He writes a weekly column called This Week in China's History for the website Sub-China, which I would highly recommend,

and his latest book is Champion's Day, the end of

old Shanghai. So, James, welcome to the podcast. Dan's life is an incredible one, but so or so many

of China's politicians and ordinary people in that first half of the 20th century. I want to focus

more on his later life as paramount leader of China, but can you first set the scene for us for Den's early life?

Can you talk a little bit about perhaps what kind of family he came from and how he got into communism?

Sure. Well, he, so he's born in Sichuan, and in fact, his life and his identity as a Suu Kuan is really important.

So the idea that he's from Sichuan becomes very

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