China Under Deng

* In comparing China and the Soviet Union, Lester H. Lee (letter, Nov. 17) failed to recognize that China started its economic reform well over 10 years earlier than the Soviet Union. It was not government control that fostered economic development in China, as Lee asserted, but the opposite was true. When Deng Xiaoping came into power in the late 1970s, China was on the brink of economic collapse worse than that of the current Soviet Union. Agricultural productivity in 1978 was well below that of 1952; indeed, it was the loosening of political control by Deng that brought China on its road to economic recovery.

In asserting that “the event at Tiananmen . . . eventually led to prosperity for the people in China,” Lee further failed to recognize that the Tiananmen massacre created a paranoia within China’s government, resulting in a return to control that is not healthy to China’s overall economic growth. In spite of the Chinese government’s claim to the contrary, the massacre was merely Deng’s way of asserting his political power, to punish the students and citizens of Beijing and to teach them a lesson they would never forget.

ANN LAU

Torrance