What exactly is the Chinese dream?

How familiar is the name Deng Xiaoping to most Westerners today? Most people you could ask on the street would probably never have heard of him. Sadly many more would be familiar with his old party comrade, Mao Zedong. China today arguably owes a lot more to the former than the latter. When Mao died in 1976 shortly after his historic meeting with Richard Nixon, he left behind a country where 80% of the country made less than $40 per year, and where the level of state repression can only be matched today by North Korea. Modern China is the largest global economy, and a world leader in agriculture, transport, and telecommunications, something that can be credited almost entirely to Deng Xiaoping’s legacy.

An autocratic crossroads

In Portugal at twenty past midnight on the 24th of April, 1974, a popular marching song called Grandola, Vila Morena started playing on radio stations all across the country. The song was banned by the military junta that had controlled Portugal since the 1930s because of its Communist overtones. Playing it on public radio was enough to get the broadcasters imprisoned or even killed.

What anyone listening would soon discover was that the song was actually a signal to the Portuguese military to march on Lisbon, and occupy the airport, Police stations, and town halls. This was a military coup with the aim of forcing Marcelo Caetano from power.