Mao Zedong consolidated power during the 1950s, implementing massive reforms known as the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Both ended in disaster for Zedong and the Chinese people. Mao Zedong’s death provided for the rise of Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, a time when China returned to reforms Chinese style. From 1980 to now, China has followed the same strategies implemented by Xiaoping, including economic liberalization under the direction of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). However, this marketization and decentralization has not been accompanied by significant democratic reforms. The culmination of these policies resulted in mounting demands for political reform and democracy, as witnessed by the Tiananmen Square demonstrates that were easily suppressed by the CCP and Red Army. During the 1990s, however, the power of the CCP has been eroded by the rise of a market economy, high growth rates, decentralization of finance, and a push for democracy from the bottom up. It is under such policies, reforms, and sweeping changes that Anita Chan takes us inside Chen Village. In the village we see how such massive reforms, often ones that fail, have a profound impact on common villagers throughout China. The lifestyle experienced by these people is not only deplorable in the modern world, but it is a direct result of such massive reforms that seldom fail to provide a better lifestyle for the people. Chan describes living conditions in Chen Village, “The narrow steep-peaked houses were built mostly of plastered mud, with only small sections of their foundation walls boasting any real brick. They were dilapidated, dank, and reeked of the sows and poultry that shared the quarters with their owners” (13).
We see that high levels of corruption exist within China’s bureaucracy, corruption that typically costs the people in the long run. Further
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