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Deng Xiaoping was the People's Republic of China's Paramount Leader for over a decade.  A decade,  in which the nation rose from a backwards, isolated, command economy,  Communist Nation, to the front doorsteps of becoming an unquestioned World Power.  It is hard to find an argument against Deng Xiaoping's status as one of the most important figures in the history of the 20th century.

While all of that is true it is also true that most Americans probably know almost nothing about him and the remarkable life that landed him in the position to lead the World's most populous nation almost singlehandedly for over a decade.  He had been politically shunned more than once during the years of Mao Zedong. His own son was tossed from a building and spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair because of it. He was even forced at one point to wear a dunce cap, and shipped off to the Chinese hinterlands.  

However, once Deng Xiaoping assumed power, in his 70's, he moved quickly to change the nation into an industrial an economic power. While other leaders like Chairman Mao are more famous none are as important to the nation we now see as our chief rival as the most powerful nation on Earth. The fact that China is now the number two economy in the world, moving quickly to fill the power vacuum around the world created by the end of the Cold War, can be directly attributed to the  leadership of this one man. 

This episode will introduce you to him. We will hear from many of the American diplomats who dealt directly with Deng Xiaoping while he was in power,   and we will listen in on the news coverage available when he passed away in 1997.  Ironically, Deng Xiaoping was often overshadowed by others. So often,  Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai have been  lauded for their roles in Revolutionary China,  the outreach they did to President Nixon and the United States, and the dominance they held in China for so many years, all of which  often overshadowed Deng Xiaoping's role in the eyes of the World, and even in his own country.   It is my opinion, and the opinion of many historians, that  eventually  his mark on World history will probably be far more consequential than any of the rest of the leadership China has had to this very day. 

Here in this episode we put  the spotlight on Deng Xiaoping,  and his axiom " To get Rich is Glorious" 

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