Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Tour

In the late 1980s and early 1990s the international and domestic situation changed greatly, with upheaval in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union; at home some people had doubts about reform and opening-up and asked whether it was “capitalist” or “socialist.” At this critical moment, from 18 January to 21 February 1992, Deng Xiaoping, then retired and 87 years old, toured Wuchang, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shanghai and other places and gave a series of important talks, known as the “Southern Tour Talks.” Deng stressed that the Party’s basic line must hold for a hundred years without wavering: “If we do not uphold socialism, carry out reform and opening-up, develop the economy and improve people’s lives, we will be left with only a dead end.” He said reform and opening-up should be bolder, with the courage to experiment: if something is judged right, try it boldly and break new ground. The criterion for judging it is chiefly whether it is conducive to developing the productive forces of socialist society, to increasing the overall strength of the socialist state and to raising people’s living standards (the “three favorables”). He also gave a penetrating account of planning and the market: “Whether there is more planning or more market is not the essential difference between socialism and capitalism. A planned economy is not equivalent to socialism, for capitalism also has planning; a market economy is not equivalent to capitalism, for socialism also has markets.” The talks theoretically answered many major questions that had long troubled and constrained people’s thinking and marked the maturing of Deng Xiaoping Theory. After the tour, a new wave of reform, opening-up and economic construction swept the country.