Word: mao
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...these unprecedented events were part of an extraordinary Great Leap Outward. Departing from the rigid xenophobia of the late Chairman Mao Tse-tung. the Peking government has embarked on a policy of winning new friends, discrediting and, if possible, isolating the Soviet Union and, above all, acquiring the capital, technology and expertise to transform China into a superpower by the year 2000. Scuttling Mao's sacred precept of national self-sufficiency, China's leader have called for "a New Long March," toward modernization. There are mythic overtones to that phrase: Mao's original Long March...
...principal architect of this new policy is Teng, who has clearly emerged as China's strongman, overshadowing Mao's titular successor as Chairman, Hua Kuo-feng. Teng has given supreme priority to reversing the disruptive effects of Mao's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which was zealously pursued for more than ten years by Mao's wife, Chiang Ch'ing, and her radical colleagues. Twice toppled from power by the radicals, in 1966 and 1976, Teng has stepped from the political shadows, not only to supervise the disgracing of Chiang's Gang of Four...
While Teng has not directly attacked the memory of the Great Helmsman, a gradual process of de-Maoification is under way in China. Last week, for example, the Peking daily Kwangming Jih Pao published an article arguing that a well-known polemic launching the Cultural Revolution-clearly inspired by Mao, if not written by him-was "counterrevolutionary" and a "signal to practice fascist dictatorship." Meanwhile, the memory of Teng's protector, pragmatic Premier Chou Enlai, is increasingly honored, and something of a cult of personality seems to be developing about Teng himself...
...pursuit of modernization, China is now willing to accept the aid of the capitalist West. Last week alone, the Chinese negotiated a series of deals with the Western world that would have been inconceivable under Mao. At the Canton Trade Fair, Peking's main foreign trade showcase, the Chinese sold approximately $1 billion in goods to foreign countries, while their purchases amounted to about $600 million. According to the National Council for U.S.-China Trade, American businessmen sold the Chinese some $83 million in commodities, mostly industrial chemicals, and bought $62 million worth of textiles and arts and crafts...
...Mao Tse-Tung's dictum of self-reliance made it difficult for China to achieve technological advances during the period from 1966 to 1976, which the Chinese now refer to as "The Lost Decade," he added...