Fang Lian Talks: From Badass to Trash! A Sharp Critique of the Five Generations of Leaders! What Are the Historical Positions of the Five Generations of Leaders? Mao Zedong │ Deng Xiaoping │ Jiang Zemin │ Hu Jintao │ Xi Jinping

This episode examines China's development process by providing a detailed review and sharp critique of the core policies, power dynamics, and historical roles of the five generations of leaders: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping. It analyzes the profound impact that their different governing styles have had on China's politics, economy, and the lives of its citizens.

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When talking about China's leaders, we all know there are five generations: Mao, Deng, Jiang, Hu, and Xi. During their terms, China's economic growth was sometimes the fastest in the world, and at other times, it experienced the greatest famine in human history. Counting them up, these leaders introduced over 130 policies in total. Through these flip-flopping policies, in this episode, I will take you through the perspective of China's development process to see what these leaders actually did during their terms and what roles they played in the history of China's development. Hello everyone, I am Toronto Fang Lian. In this episode, we will go from solid to stretched and provide a sharp critique of China's five generations of leaders.

Mao Zedong was the leader who held power for the longest time since the founding of the People's Republic of China. He started in 1949 and stayed in power until he kicked the bucket on September 9, 1976, a total of 27 years. Did Mao Zedong do anything during those 27 years? He certainly did, and he did quite a lot. But if you ask whether he did anything decent, there really wasn't much. After Mao Zedong came to power, what specific policies did he implement, and what contributions did he make to China's development? Those unfamiliar with Chinese history might only know about the "three years of natural disasters" (Great Famine) and the Cultural Revolution. However, those familiar with Chinese history and who watch my show regularly—the "Mao-ologists"—should know that the policies during the Mao era are as numerous as a menu of dishes: the Three-anti and Five-anti campaigns, the Four Clean-ups Movement, the Anti-Rightist Campaign—even if you asked Guo Degang, he couldn't list them all in one breath. Throughout Mao Zedong's tenure, conservatively estimated, he caused the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese people. Of course, we cannot simply define Mao Zedong's historical position as just someone who tortured Chinese people, or think that Mao was just sick and addicted to torturing people. Although Mao Zedong caused the deaths of tens of millions, every policy he implemented had a purpose. His main objective remained very clear: to strengthen the Communist Party and his own personal power. This is what Mao Zedong did his entire life, and it is also his greatest role in the historical process of China.

In fact, Mao Zedong's method of purging people was carried out in stages and scientifically. The first stage was from 1949 to 1953. During this period, Mao Zedong did two things: externally, he played the submissive role to the Soviet Union; internally, he carried out purges and retaliation against former anti-communist forces. The behavior of playing the submissive role to the Soviet Union was mainly reflected in the Korean War. Regardless of how the CCP beautifies the Korean War now, in reality, the Korean War was a story of Kim Il-sung acting on a whim, leading his troops south to attack South Korea, and then the CCP joining the war on behalf of its 'father' to help the Soviet Union defend North Korea. At that time, because Mao Zedong still needed the support of the Soviet Union, it was equivalent to Mao Zedong using the Korean War and the lives of Chinese soldiers to submit a 'letter of intent' (toumingzhuang) to Comrade Stalin in exchange for Stalin's continued support for Mao Zedong. Once the external situation was stable during this stage, Mao Zedong's focus remained on the internal front. While the Korean War was being fought fiercely, the situation inside China was also extremely intense. Mao Zedong started with several waves of major purges. Of course, because Mao Zedong understood the principle of starting from the easy to the difficult, the initial targets of the purges were some very vulnerable enemies, the 'evil' people who had grudges against the CCP, such as landlords. In June 1950, the Land Reform Law of the People's Republic of China was promulgated, which was the infamous land reform. At the beginning of the land reform, according to regulations, people in rural areas were divided into different classes: landlords, rich peasants, middle peasants, poor peasants, and farm laborers. Then, only the land of the landlords was to be distributed to the poor peasants, while the land of the rich peasants was to be retained by themselves, and the distribution method was supposed to be carried out in a non-violent form. However, when implemented in rural areas, it turned into a feast of robbery. A large number of landlords not only had their land confiscated but were also beaten to death. The female relatives of the landlords were traded like commodities, and were subjected to mass rape and distribution. After struggling against the landlords, these poor peasants were naturally not satisfied, and the land of the rich peasants, which could initially be retained, also became an object of plunder. The entire process of land reform was extremely bloody and violent. The current statistics on the death toll caused by the entire land reform vary significantly; the lowest estimate by Chinese scholars is 200,000, while the highest estimate by Western scholars, such as Frank Dikötter, is between 1.5 million and 2 million. Of course, the most 'miraculous' part of the entire land reform actually lies in this violence. When Mao Zedong launched this land reform, the purpose from the beginning was not for fair distribution, but to make everyone's hands stained with blood. When the land reform first began, Liu Shaoqi actually opposed violence. In June 1950, in his report on the issue of land reform, Liu Shaoqi had tried to limit the use of violence in land reform. However, just as Liu Shaoqi released this report, Mao Zedong kept emphasizing the need to 'let go and mobilize the masses' and criticized 'peaceful land reform.' Mao Zedong's calculation here was very obvious. Mao Zedong had always known the secret of struggle. The secret of struggle was never to defeat the opponent unilaterally in public opinion, nor was it to hold high the banner of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, but rather to use human greed in the simplest way, letting the majority struggle against the minority, and letting the majority become his accomplices. And the most ingenious part here is that Mao Zedong would also put a reasonable and legal hat on everyone's greed, making robbery, rape, murder, and even cannibalism 'innocent.' This set of tactics would appear frequently in Mao Zedong's life later, such as in the Campaign to Suppress Counter-revolutionaries that began immediately in October 1950. It was the same, only this time the target was no longer the landlords in the countryside, but some counter-revolutionary elements in the cities. To make the movement bloody and violent, Mao Zedong even set a killing quota at this time. Nanjing was a large city with a population of 500,000, the capital of the Kuomintang; the statement that 'more than 2,000 reactionary elements should be killed' was made at this time. Mao Zedong demanded that there must be one reactionary element for every thousand people nationwide, which was issued to governments at all levels like a quota. In the end, how many people were killed in this campaign to suppress counter-revolutionaries? Subsequent reports from the Ministry of Public Security in 1954 showed that a total of 712,000 people were executed. At that time, China's population was just over 500 million, which perfectly met, and even exceeded, Mao Zedong's requirement of one in a thousand. Of course, in addition to the movements mentioned above, there were others such as the 'Three-anti and Five-anti' campaigns targeting the business community, the first rectification movement targeting intellectuals, and so on, which I will not go into detail about.

Of course, there are still people who would say at this time: How can you say Mao Zedong was taking the opportunity to crack down on his enemies regarding the land reform and the suppression of counterrevolutionaries? Isn't this Mao Zedong fulfilling his own revolutionary promises? If you think Mao Zedong could be a man who kept his promises, that would be too ridiculous. After watching the simplest enemies get purged, Mao Zedong began to turn his sights on another group of people: the opposition within the party, non-party figures, and their big daddy, the Soviet Union. When the People's Republic of China was newly founded, in order to win over non-party figures and get these people willingly to join him in denouncing others, Mao Zedong also formulated a provisional constitution called the Common Program. This program stated very well that after the CCP came to power, it did not want to establish a dictatorship by itself, nor did it want to establish a one-party monopoly, but rather to unite everyone to govern together. Economically, Mao Zedong also emphasized that socialism would be built in 15 to 20 years, rather than immediately adopting a Soviet-style planned economy right off the bat. Therefore, when the PRC was newly founded in 1949, to fit this narrative, among the 6 vice chairpersons of the state, 3 were non-communists; among the 4 vice premiers, 2 were non-communists; and among the 21 ministers, as many as 11 were non-communists. By 1953, seeing that his previous opponents had been almost all purged by him and that democratic figures were also beginning to wane, Mao Zedong immediately turned his back on them. In 1953, he started his First Five-Year Plan, and a series of planned economy measures such as the Three Great Transformations and rural cooperatives immediately began to be launched. The constitution was also heavily revised later. The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) of democratic figures, which was originally the supreme organ of state power in China under the 1949 provisional constitution, was replaced by the National People's Congress (NPC) in the 1954 Constitution, making the NPC the supreme organ of state power in China. Of course, these revisions on paper were still minor adjustments; the most ruthless one was the Anti-Rightist Campaign starting from 1957. During the Anti-Rightist Campaign, a large number of non-communist democratic party figures were labeled as rightists, and those within the Communist Party whose loyalty was not high enough were also labeled as rightists by Mao Zedong. Among the non-communists, the most famous were Zhang Bojun, Luo Longji, and Zhang Naiqi. They were democratic figures who, before the Anti-Rightist campaign, served respectively as Minister of Communications, Minister of Forest Industry, and Minister of Food, and they were successively liquidated and dismissed from their posts in the Anti-Rightists. Meanwhile, some high-ranking cadres within the party who opposed the rapid implementation of a planned economy, such as Deng Zihui, were slapped with the label of bound-foot women by Mao Zedong, and Peng Dehuai was directly labeled as an anti-party clique two years later at the Lushan Conference. Mao Zedong once again instigated the majority of society to crush the minority. At the same time, feeling that his wings were stiff enough, Mao Zedong also began to grow dissatisfied with his suzerain, the Soviet Union. After Stalin's death, Sino-Soviet relations began to directly turn sour, and Mao Zedong finally shook off the Soviet Union, becoming a fully-fledged tyrant.

The centralization of power actually made no difference to most Chinese people. There is not much difference between a single person exercising dictatorship and a bunch of people exercising dictatorship; even whether the CCP acted as a dog for the Soviet Union made no difference to Chinese people, because being a dog for the Soviets and being a dog for Mao Zedong made no difference to ordinary Chinese people. But the problem was that after the Anti-Rightist Campaign began, Mao Zedong used the entire movement to sweep away the opposition both inside and outside the party at one stroke, completely completing his control over the party and eliminating dissenting voices. Losing dissenting voices also meant that China's brakes were essentially dismantled by Mao Zedong, which led to the impossibility for anyone to correct Mao Zedong's subsequent erroneous economic policies. To spite the Soviet Union, the Great Leap Forward began, and the Great Leap Forward led to an unprecedented catastrophe in human history—namely, the Great Chinese Famine—which caused the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese people, and can even be said to be the largest man-made disaster in human history. And what was the significance of this disaster for Mao Zedong? Did it make Mao Zedong realize that he was not cut out for governing the country and that he should step down and yield to a worthier successor? Not at all. The Great Chinese Famine directly led to a blow to Mao Zedong's personal prestige, especially among high-ranking cadres within the party; everyone discovered that Mao Zedong simply lacked the ability to govern the country. Therefore, after the outbreak of the Great Chinese Famine, the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference broke out, at which technocrats led by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Shaoqi—alongside Deng Xiaoping—began to collectively challenge Mao Zedong. Of course, these people were still merciful; the entire challenge was not to have Mao Zedong killed, but in the hope of reaching a tacit understanding with him: you continue your personality cult, and I will handle the economy; we mind our own business. Since you, Mao Zedong, are not good at economics, then spare the Chinese people. Initially at the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference, when Mao Zedong saw that the situation was looking bad, he played the humble underdog and agreed to release control over the economy. However, in less than a year after the conference, Mao Zedong's counterattack began immediately. Of course, the logic of the counterattack was the same old routine: seeing that high-ranking officials were not standing on his side, Mao Zedong mobilized the grassroots masses to struggle against these high-ranking bureaucrats, letting the masses take to the streets to drag these old bureaucrats into the streets for public struggle meetings—and this is what everyone is familiar with as the Cultural Revolution. Once this Cultural Revolution was launched, it lasted straight until Mao Zedong's death. Before the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong's practice of using the majority to struggle against the minority only occurred intermittently, but after the Cultural Revolution began, it became normalized, and Chinese people thus entered a decade of massive public struggle meetings.

In fact, looking back at the years Mao Zedong was in power, ordinary Chinese people were like NPCs. For those 20-plus years, China had only one protagonist, and that was Mao Zedong himself. Everyone was using their own blood and tears to play along with Mao Zedong in a game of power. During Mao Zedong's rule, the only real work he did was purging the opposition—all kinds of opposition, from genuine dissenters to non-party opposition, to non-party democratic figures, and then to opposition within the Party; none could escape Mao Zedong's clutches. Under this "virtuous governance" of Mao Zedong, China's economic growth during this period was a complete mess, and it was during this stage that China was left behind by South Korea and Taiwan. In 1950, the per capita GDP of China and South Korea was roughly the same, and the gap with Taiwan was not significant either. However, by 1976, when Mao Zedong passed away, Taiwan's per capita GDP was already 4.1 times that of China, while South Korea's was 3.2 times. So, from a historical perspective, what was Mao Zedong's only contribution to China? Perhaps it was building the dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Mao Zedong did indeed change the chaos of the Republic of China era and formed an absolutely powerful and stable central government. Of course, whether this is a merit is a matter of opinion. A strong central government is not necessarily a good thing for China or the Chinese people. Therefore, all things considered, Mao Zedong can only be given a rating of "terrible." After Mao Zedong died, the person who succeeded him was not actually Deng Xiaoping; there was the Gang of Four and Hua Guofeng in between. Until his death, Mao Zedong never gave up his greed for power. When choosing a successor, he still did not consider China's economy, but chose Hua Guofeng, who lacked ability but was loyal enough to him, hoping that after his death, he would not repeat Stalin's fate and be liquidated. Mao Zedong's obsession with power was truly profound.

However, what Mao Zedong did not calculate was that the Hua Guofeng he chose was simply too incompetent. Furthermore, the Chinese people, who had been tormented for so long, could finally take no more, and eventually, Deng Xiaoping came to power. In fact, unlike what many people think—that Deng Xiaoping came to power relying on superior political maneuvering—the process of Deng Xiaoping's rise was not because his political skills were so brilliant, but because the Chinese people at the time were so terrified of the Mao Zedong era and so unwilling to live the life of the Mao Zedong era. In fact, as early as April 5, 1976, before Mao Zedong had even passed away, hundreds of thousands of people stormed Tiananmen Square in the name of commemorating Zhou Enlai. This protest was more than a decade earlier than the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. Moreover, it was not just the public; while Mao Zedong was alive, he truly practiced isolationism. Except for him, Zhou Enlai, and some officials in the diplomatic system, most CCP bureaucrats had never been abroad. They might have known that foreign countries were better than China, but the extent of their knowledge was limited, and they had no real bottom line in their hearts. After Hua Guofeng came to power, in order to change this, he sent many high-level cadres abroad for visits. These cadres were deeply shocked after going abroad. For example, after visiting Japan, Deng Xiaoping said directly, "Only after visiting Japan did I understand what modernization is." Wang Quanguo, then Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Committee, also said after going abroad, "I used to think capitalism was decadent and declining, but after going abroad to see it, it was completely not the case." Of the twenty or thirty high-level cadres who went out, not one was not shocked by the West. It had a bit of the flavor of Li Hongzhang's visit to the United States back in the day. Eventually, these reports were collected by Hua Guofeng, and Hua Guofeng finally uttered that classic line: "China is not only the hometown of Mao Zedong Thought, but also the hometown of arrogance and ignorance."

Don't look at how many people miss Mao Zedong now; when Mao Zedong died, his bullshit policies had actually long been spurned by the majority of Chinese people. It was only because Mao Zedong's personal prestige was too high to be shaken that they did not change. Therefore, by 1978, when everyone pushed Deng Xiaoping to power, it became a natural progression. Of course, for Deng Xiaoping, who came to power at the end of 1978, taking power was only the first thing he had to do. Although Deng Xiaoping had determined not to follow Mao Zedong's path after taking power, another problem followed: if not following Mao Zedong's path, what path should China take? This became the question Deng Xiaoping needed to answer. Therefore, during the Deng Xiaoping era, although there were many operations and policies, the main core was actually solving this problem and providing an answer to it.

At that time, there were actually two trends within China. One was the conservative faction led by Chen Yun. They believed that the economic policy errors of the Mao Zedong era were mainly due to Mao Zedong personally, not the planned economy system. At that time, because the Soviet economy was still okay, Chen Yun said, "Look, the Soviet Union, which also practices a planned economy, is doing quite well, isn't it? It's just that Mao Zedong didn't know how to run a planned economy; the fault is not in the planned economy itself." The other trend was the democratic faction led by Hu Yaobang. They comprehensively denied the past China from both political and economic systems, believing that China should fully Westernize from its political system to its economic system. Faced with these two factions, which one did Deng Xiaoping choose? He chose a compromise. Deng Xiaoping chose extreme conservatism in politics, maintaining the one-party dictatorship built by Mao Zedong, while in the economy, he tried his best to suppress the conservatives and maintain openness.

This became very evident right at the beginning of Deng Xiaoping's rise to power. When he first took office, politically speaking, Deng immediately had Hu Yaobang start rehabilitating victims of past political campaigns, but at the same time, he also launched a crackdown on the Xidan Democracy Wall. What was the Xidan Democracy Wall? It was a wall in Beijing at the time where people would sometimes paste big-character posters (dazibao). These posters were primarily about politics, making it the main space for ordinary Chinese citizens to participate in political discussion during an era before the internet. Initially, during Hua Guofeng's tenure, the Xidan Democracy Wall supported Deng Xiaoping, so Deng welcomed it. However, once Deng came to power, the people at the Xidan Democracy Wall were no longer satisfied with just economic reform; they began seeking democratic and political reforms. At this point, Deng's attitude toward the Xidan Democracy Wall took a 180-degree turn, immediately shifting from support to a heavy-handed crackdown, arresting multiple dissidents including Wei Jingsheng and Wang Juntao.

Of course, the most typical manifestation of this approach came from Deng Xiaoping himself in March 1979, when he put forward the Four Cardinal Principles. What did these Four Cardinal Principles state? They were: upholding the socialist path, upholding the dictatorship of the proletariat, upholding the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, and upholding Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. To us today, this might seem like nonsense, but back then it was not. When Deng proposed these Four Cardinal Principles, he was actually answering a question the entire society was waiting for: how exactly should politics in post-Mao China be reformed, and what direction should it take? Deng's answer was that China would not walk the path of a democratic system, nor would it even revert to the pre-1953 era of multi-party co-governance; at the same time, he would not liquidate Mao Zedong the way Khrushchev liquidated Stalin. This was Deng's answer.

Of course, while politically conservative, on the other hand Deng Xiaoping consistently promoted economic liberalization, such as the household responsibility system in 1978, establishing diplomatic relations with the United States on New Year's Day in 1979, and launching special economic zones in 1980. To stimulate the new economic modernization, Deng also continually employed reform-minded figures, even protecting them from conservative suppression—figures like Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang—and this continued right up until the era of June Fourth. At the end of 1986, student protests broke out, and because Hu Yaobang supported the student movement, he was forced to resign the following year and completely broke with Deng Xiaoping. Yet even so, Deng still appointed Zhao Ziyang, who was also a reformist, to succeed Hu Yaobang. Later, in 1989, because Zhao Ziyang opposed the imposition of martial law, he once again broke with Deng. Still, Deng did not completely lean toward the conservatives; instead, he appointed Jiang Zemin, who had reform-leaning tendencies, to succeed Zhao, while also cross-generationally appointing former Communist Youth League faction member Hu Jintao to succeed Jiang. All the conservative figures, such as Li Peng, Deng Liqun, and Hu Qiaomu, exerted tremendous effort in the process of defeating Zhao Ziyang, and Li Peng even participated in and presided over the martial law throughout, using tanks for suppression. Yet under Deng's suppression, these conservatives did not receive high promotions after June Fourth.

Whenever we discuss Deng Xiaoping's achievements, we tend to call him the chief architect of reform and opening up. However, I believe this description is incorrect. As for how reform and opening up should actually proceed, Deng designed the general concept, but the specific details of how to walk that path were not actually designed by him. Until Jiang Zemin came to power, all of this was chaotic. Figuring out how to take each specific step was actually Jiang Zemin's job; Deng merely determined the direction, determined what reform and opening up meant, and determined that reform and opening up meant reforming only the economy while leaving politics untouched.

Looking back at history, at that historical juncture under Deng Xiaoping, embarking on the path of reform and opening up itself was not difficult. We generally harbor a misconception: because the Deng Xiaoping era was vastly better than the Mao Zedong era, Deng must be much greater than Mao—and vastly greater at that. But this logic is actually flawed. Embarking on the path of reform and opening up was not hard. China in the Deng Xiaoping era actually needed to choose one among three paths: democracy, totalitarianism, and authoritarianism. Returning to the totalitarian era was virtually impossible, and this was not something Deng alone could decide; people no longer wanted to live a Mao-style life. After all, if people had wanted a totalitarian life, it wouldn't have been Deng's turn to take power, and Deng would have had nothing to do with it—the Gang of Four would have done it, or Hua Guofeng would have done it. Between the two paths of democracy and authoritarianism, Deng did not perform any astonishing feats to overthrow the entrenched privileged bureaucratic class in one stroke, bring China into a democratic society, surpass South Korea and Taiwan, and become a national hero in Chinese history. He simply chose the path that 90% of dictators would take, and Deng still became trapped in the vortex of power.

Of course, Deng Xiaoping was not without significant contributions. His core contribution actually lay in personnel arrangements; Deng consistently prevented the restoration of conservative old-timers like Chen Yun, and to a certain extent, successfully maintained the forward momentum of the Reform and Opening-up policy. It was his personnel appointments that firmly pushed China onto the path of reform, which is Deng Xiaoping's greatest contribution. At the same time, Deng Xiaoping took the lead in proposing the abolition of the lifelong tenure system for leaders to prevent repeating the mistakes of Mao Zedong. Ironically, however, while Deng Xiaoping was designing a system to prevent China from ever having another dictator like Mao Zedong who would rule for life, he himself was a leader with lifelong tenure, effectively remaining in power until his death. In the final years of his life, although he had retired to the second line, he still held the power to decide the fate of his successors until the day he died, effectively acting as an emperor emeritus. Furthermore, although Deng Xiaoping's economic policies were much more decent than Mao Zedong's, he inexplicably implemented another highly problematic policy regarding population: the one-child policy. This policy directly caused China to experience the aging levels and population pressures typical of developed nations before it had even become a developed nation in 2020, which could be considered an over-fulfillment of the task across time and space. Considering these merits and demerits, Deng Xiaoping can barely be considered a person above the average.

After Deng Xiaoping, it was Jiang Zemin's turn to take the stage. Speaking of Jiang Zemin, he was actually the true chief architect of the Reform and Opening-up, because the specific implementation of reforming the economy without reforming politics was determined by Jiang Zemin, which is also his greatest contribution. Of course, this is not to say that Jiang Zemin was great enough to be given the highest praise. To evaluate Jiang Zemin, we must first look specifically at what kind of Reform and Opening-up he designed.

First, in terms of diplomacy, Jiang Zemin established the diplomatic strategy for China's Reform and Opening-up period, which was to be pro-Western. Starting in the 1990s, Jiang Zemin was personally orchestrating China's WTO accession negotiations; it can be said that joining the WTO was the most important turning point for China's economy. However, the process of joining the WTO was not an easy one. The greatest resistance did not come from the United States as we might imagine, nor from abroad, but from within China—from the conservative old-timers and the endless encirclement by populists. In April 1999, in order to join the WTO, Jiang Zemin arranged for Zhu Rongji to visit the United States for negotiations. Unexpectedly, the details of the negotiations were leaked. The terms appeared very unfavorable to China, which the conservative old-timers used to their advantage, hyping it up in the media as an act of treason. Subsequently, in May 1999, the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia was bombed, causing public opinion to explode. The entire nation was plunged into opposition against joining the WTO, with an attitude of wanting to fight the Americans to the death. Yet, facing such pressure, Jiang Zemin chose to stand firm and insisted on joining the WTO; this, in fact, was not easy.

Later, after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Jiang Zemin broke with convention and called Bush on the very night of the event. Subsequently, Jiang Zemin also unconditionally supported the anti-terrorism resolution at the UN Security Council. This rapid response directly reversed the China-US relations at the time. If China and the US were in a state of hostility before Nixon's visit to China in 1972, then between 1972 and 2001, they were in a state of probing. After 2001, thanks to Jiang Zemin's efforts, China-US relations finally entered a honeymoon period; the United States to a certain extent gave up on confronting China, and the main theme of China-US relations returned to cooperation.

Beyond this, another of Jiang Zemin's prominent contributions was the major transformation of China's market economy. Although Deng Xiaoping set the route of reforming the economy without reforming politics, the specifics of how to conduct the economy and what to do with the state-owned enterprises of the past were all a mess; these were actually all determined during Jiang Zemin's era. The Company Law was passed in 1993, the Securities Law in 1998, and the Contract Law in 1999. The passage of these laws completely transformed China from socialism to capitalism. Of course, there are three other important matters in the entire reform that need to be mentioned separately: the tax-sharing reform, the welfare system reform, and the GDP-centered approach.

At the very beginning of the reform and opening-up in 1979, because China had not figured out how to establish its financial system, the initial fiscal system was extremely chaotic. At that time, to stimulate the enthusiasm of local governments, the central government adopted a fiscal contracting system. For example, in 1988, the central government set a fiscal target of 10.5 billion RMB for Shanghai. This meant that as long as Shanghai turned over 10.5 billion RMB in tax revenue that year, all the surplus would belong to Shanghai itself. In the early stages, this fiscal system was very effective and, to a certain extent, stimulated the subjective initiative of the Shanghai government. However, by the standards of any modern government, this system was completely absurd. Was it treating China like a business? Were all the provinces treated like branch offices and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as the headquarters? Even if viewed as a company, this method of taking a cut was exceptionally outrageous. In fact, there was no other way, since Deng Xiaoping's era failed to produce a modernized political and fiscal system. Finally, by 1993, this model began to break down. The direct reason for this breakdown was that the proportion of local fiscal revenue was too high, once reaching nearly 80%, while the central government could only get a little over 20%. Moreover, the central government at that time not only took in little, but also had to bear large-scale expenditures such as pensions and national defense. The central government took the lion's share of expenses, while the local governments took the lion's share of revenue—any company would collapse under this, let alone a country.

To solve this problem, the tax-sharing reform was born, finalized at the end of 1993 and implemented in early 1994. Of course, the initial purpose of designing the tax-sharing reform was very simple: to optimize the fiscal relationship between the central and local governments. However, its actual impact was enormous. The most ironic part was that its biggest actual impact was not changing the central-local fiscal relationship, but rather causing two other unexpected effects. First, the tax-sharing reform distributed customs duties, value-added taxes, corporate income taxes, and personal income taxes between the central and local governments. This distribution actually established China's subsequent major tax types, and China's tax system was built on the basis of the tax-sharing reform. Another major change was that the tax-sharing reform gave birth to land finance. When carrying out the tax-sharing reform, the central government lacked foresight and logic; it not only collected the lion's share of tax revenue to the center, but also assigned major responsibilities to the localities. This was like wanting the horse to run fast while refusing to let it graze. Seeing no other way, local governments had to work hard to lower welfare benefits while starting to develop revenues outside of taxation. What was this non-tax revenue? It was the land finance that everyone has heard of later on. And what did land finance give birth to? It gave birth to high housing prices; high housing prices were directly caused by the 1994 tax-sharing reform. Later on, due to the surge in land finance, local revenues did not actually decrease by much, which is why I say the original purpose of the tax-sharing reform was fundamentally unfulfilled, achieving nothing of real consequence.

Following the tax-sharing reform, another important reform during Jiang Zemin's era was China's welfare system reform. During the Mao Zedong era, although Mao did not develop the economy at all and China's economy progressed at an extremely snail's pace, at least theoretically Mao still implemented the communist framework, meaning that in name, medical care, education, and pensions were still handled by the government—as for the actual quality, well, never mind that. By Jiang Zemin's era, the market began to modernize, so what should be done about the responsibilities of education, medical care, and pensions? Jiang Zemin's answer was to have no responsibility at all. Except for public servants inside the system, the overwhelming majority of Chinese people were directly excluded from the welfare security system, and Chinese labor rights were driven straight to zero. For the sake of development, with a wave of his hand, Jiang Zemin said all of these could be discarded. The poor welfare and poor labor rights of the Chinese people did not actually stem from ancient times, but originated from Jiang Zemin's design of the reform and opening-up.

Besides that, another major feat during the Jiang Zemin era was the introduction of the concept of GDP. Whenever we talk about whether a country is developing well, our first reaction is to look at its GDP growth rate and GDP per capita. To help everyone understand better and to make comparisons with foreign countries easier, I also repeatedly cite GDP data when making my programs. However, GDP is not the only standard for measuring economic levels in many countries. For example, if you follow the U.S. stock market, you will find that it is more easily influenced by non-farm payroll data—that is, unemployment rates and new job additions—rather than GDP. How did GDP become the standard, or even the only standard, for measuring economic performance in China? That is because of Jiang Zemin. In 1993, China officially switched from the Soviet-style national income accounting mechanism to the GDP accounting mechanism, and GDP subsequently became China's primary economic indicator. But that is not the most critical part; Jiang Zemin's truly key move was turning GDP into the main performance indicator for the promotion of local officials. To achieve this goal and win the "GDP race," local officials began engaging in massive infrastructure projects and investment attraction. Of course, at the national level, the Jiang Zemin era also breakthrough-ly tied the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to GDP. The "Three Represents" theory proposed by Jiang Zemin mentioned that the CCP must always represent the development requirements of advanced social productive forces. In effect, this was the CCP setting limits on itself, requiring itself to ensure China's development. And what is used to measure whether this development is being ensured well? It is the GDP growth rate. Of course, Jiang Zemin also answered a question that had troubled the Chinese people since the 1990s. After the Eastern European upheavals in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the thinking of the Chinese people at that time fell into chaos. The CCP was founded on communism, but by the 1990s, all Chinese people knew that communism was finished. After communism failed, why the Communist Party was still in power became a question that needed answering, especially since the reputation of communism was already tarnished; for decades, communism had basically been synonymous with poverty. Surely, one could not really say that China needed the Communist Party just because it had tanks to suppress people. Therefore, to solve this problem, Jiang Zemin officially passed the "Three Represents," re-establishing performance legitimacy brought by growth as the source of the CCP's legitimacy. This change completely resolved the conflict between development and the CCP system; previously, it was a choice between development and the CCP, but now it became the CCP equals development. At this point, superimposed on Jiang Zemin's implementation of Deng Xiaoping's principle of no political reform, modern China—the China in everyone's impression—basically took shape.

Actually, looking at this, everyone can think about what China has been like in your mind over the past few decades. It is that economic development is okay, but there has been absolutely no political reform, while social corruption is rampant, welfare is extremely poor, and housing prices are soaring. The source of all this—how China ended up this way—can be said to have originated in the Jiang Zemin era; these were all the tones set by Jiang Zemin. Do people like this Reform and Opening-up that Jiang Zemin carried out? In terms of results, it was actually average. This set of Reform and Opening-up that Jiang Zemin implemented is not unique to China in political science; it is a standard authoritarian development model. The earliest pioneer of this can be traced back to the Spanish dictator Franco, and in East Asia, it can be traced back to Park Chung-hee; Chiang Ching-kuo also implemented this same model, using GDP growth to exchange for the legitimacy of the ruler, so that the dictator could lead the country to high-speed development. Even when Jiang Zemin chatted and laughed with Mike Wallace, saying that China could not engage in democracy for the time being because its development was too backward, it was a 1:1 copy of Park Chung-hee's authoritarian development theory. The core of Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents" is almost indistinguishable from Park Chung-hee's model. We can also compare the three figures of Park Chung-hee, Chiang Ching-kuo, and Jiang Zemin in East Asia. The GDP growth rate during the Jiang Zemin era was actually not outstanding; the three were basically at the same level. However, at the same time, the negative effects during the Jiang Zemin era were the most numerous. High housing prices, official corruption, and poor welfare—although these were also common problems during the Park Chung-hee and Chiang Ching-kuo eras, it is clear that Jiang Zemin made them more exaggerated. Therefore, judging by the results, Jiang Zemin's design for how to implement Reform and Opening-up was not very brilliant. Thus, I can only give Jiang Zemin a mediocre evaluation, just like Deng Xiaoping. Of course, I believe many people still think Jiang Zemin was not bad, which is mainly because the Chinese people actually have no choice. Perhaps he was better than the Mao Zedong era, and for the Chinese people who have suffered their whole lives and never seen the light, that was enough.

Hu Jintao's position in Chinese history can be considered that of a ruler who maintained the status quo. When he came to power, there was actually not much left that could be changed. Deng Xiaoping had already set the direction for reform and opening-up to focus on the economy rather than politics, and Jiang Zemin had defined what reform and opening-up meant and how specifically to pursue it. So, what was left for Hu Jintao to change? Of course, it is not as what Hu Jintao did was nothing during his tenure. What were his main tasks? He mainly had two tasks: one was patching up the policies left by Jiang Zemin, and the other was properly executing reform and opening-up. Regarding the first task of making patches, Hu Jintao did not execute it very well. Of course, this does not mean his direction was wrong; Hu Jintao's direction had no problem. How did Hu Jintao specifically make these patches? It was actually written in his guiding ideology for governance, which was the Scientific Outlook on Development. After coming to power, Hu Jintao clearly felt that there were some problems with Jiang Zemin's GDP-obsessed model, where nothing else mattered as long as there was growth. Therefore, as soon as he came to power, Hu Jintao proposed the theory of scientific development, applying many patches to the problems of the Jiang era.

Among these, the first patch was the abolition of the agricultural tax. This system, which had lasted for over 2,000 years since the Warring States period and was specifically used to exploit farmers, was finally officially abolished during Hu Jintao's era. Afterward, in the areas of healthcare, pensions, education, and labor rights, Hu Jintao also introduced corresponding laws. In 2003, the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme began pilot programs; in 2006, the Compulsory Education Law was revised; in 2007, the Labor Contract Law was passed; and in 2009, the New Rural Social Pension Insurance began pilot programs. If Jiang Zemin built the economic and tax systems of reform and opening-up, Hu Jintao could be said to have built the pension and welfare systems of reform and opening-up. Hu Jintao actually threw a lifeline to the Chinese economy here. China is currently trapped in deflation largely because its welfare system is too poor and social distribution is unfair, leaving residents with no money to spend. If the basic welfare systems built by Hu Jintao back then had not existed, China might have fallen into deflation not around 2023, but most likely as early as 2018.

Of course, although Hu Jintao made these changes and these laws and policies were introduced during his tenure, their actual effects, frankly speaking, were limited. To this day, China's labor rights and its healthcare, pension, and educational welfare remain extremely poor. During his tenure, Hu Jintao also attempted to curb housing prices, repeatedly issuing purchase restriction orders, but their effectiveness was also extremely poor. This was actually a characteristic of Hu Jintao's era: from today's perspective, his economic reform strategies were very correct, belonging to heading in the right direction, but their execution was a complete mess. The reason for this situation was also related to the political landscape of Hu Jintao's era. During his time, the political model set up by Deng Xiaoping was pushed to the extreme. "Nine dragons ruling the water," meaning the collective leadership system, officially took shape. The nine members of the Standing Committee were truly like dragons, each possessing power nearly equal to that of the General Secretary. At a time when Hu Jintao's imperial edicts could not even get out of Zhongnanhai, what could he want to do? The room for maneuver was extremely limited. This resulted in the series of policies that Hu Jintao tried to promote during his tenure having very poor effects. The saying that "imperial edicts do not leave Zhongnanhai" was truly no joke.

On the other hand, however, Hu Jintao executed his other task—properly carrying out reform and opening-up—quite well. First, politically, the "nine dragons ruling the water" did indeed limit Hu Jintao's influence, but wasn't "nine dragons ruling the water" itself a part of reform and opening-up? It was designed by Deng Xiaoping, who believed it was the ultimate system to guarantee the CCP's rule for 100 years. Such a system, along with the cadre term limit system, was perfectly implemented during Hu Jintao's era. As for economic development, Hu Jintao actually did quite well in this regard. Although he proposed the Scientific Outlook on Development during his tenure, attempting to stop using GDP growth rate as the sole evaluation metric, China's GDP growth rate under Hu Jintao was actually the fastest among all five generations of leaders. In addition, Hu Jintao's luck could be said to be extremely bad. Right after taking office, he encountered the Wenchuan earthquake—one of the biggest natural disasters since the founding of the PRC—a massive epidemic (SARS), and the global 2008 financial crisis. For Hu Jintao, whose administrative orders could not leave Zhongnanhai at the time, solving these problems was extremely difficult, yet he still successfully resolved them, and these disasters ultimately did not cause extremely serious consequences in China.

Therefore, overall, as a social reformer, Hu Jintao was quite failing; he did not truly advance reforms. But as an executor of reform and opening-up, Hu Jintao scored almost a top score, especially considering that his governing environment was far harsher than those of Jiang Zemin and Deng Xiaoping. Therefore, looking at it comprehensively in the end, I can give Hu Jintao a rating somewhere between above-average and top-tier. It would have been better if Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin could have swapped their ruling order back then, because Hu Jintao's policies were clearly much milder and growth was faster. If he had been the one to design the specific execution model of reform and opening-up, China's economic development in a parallel universe would have been even better, and the people's welfare would have been superior as well. But unfortunately, history has no "ifs"; Jiang Zemin simply ruled before Hu Jintao. And after Hu Jintao, we entered the highly anticipated Xi Jinping era.

In the stories of the previous four leaders, one should be able to notice that the style of Mao Zedong's story is quite different from those of Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao. Indeed, this is mainly because their goals and priorities during their terms were different. There was no economic policy worth discussing during the Mao era; it was filled with the flavor of power. By the time of the Xi Jinping era, the same narrative has reverted, and Xi has begun playing the same power-grabbing game that was played during the Mao era. Since Xi Jinping took office, all his actions can be summarized as one thing: maintaining his own power. It is just that the way Xi and Mao maintained power differs; Mao was constantly strengthening his power, while Xi is preventing the loss of his power. So, what would lead to the loss of Xi's power? In fact, there is only one word: democratization. It is a sense of crisis about losing power at any moment; he himself has repeatedly stated in speeches that the CCP must have a sense of crisis about the party's demise. This cannot be said to be Xi's overthinking, because historically, the model of reform and opening up has its limits. If one reviews the paths of Franco, Park Chung-hee, and Chiang Ching-kuo, one will find that this authoritarian development model reaches its end when per capita GDP reaches the threshold of developed countries. These countries generally completed their democratic transitions at this stage and successfully became developed countries after the transition. This was perhaps also the initial expectation the United States had for China.

However, in terms of planning, this was not a problem for Xi Jinping to handle. After all, when Xi took office, China's per capita GDP was only over 6,000 USD, still halfway to the high-income country threshold set by the World Bank at the time. According to normal assumptions, the time point for the Communist Party to face this test would have been around 2022. By then, Xi Jinping would likely have stepped down, and it should have been Hu Chunhua, the successor designated by Hu Jintao, to handle this issue, not Xi himself. How would Hu Chunhua have handled this issue after taking office? According to my consistent speculation about the Tuanpai (Youth League faction), it is highly probable that he would have followed the trend of the times and carried out democratic reforms. But this development trajectory is clearly not what Xi Jinping wanted to see. After Xi came to power, he implemented strict defenses against this. The first thing he did to defend his position was to seize power, and the means of seizing power was anti-corruption. The first major thing Xi did after taking office was anti-corruption. Initially, when anti-corruption first emerged, neither the CCP high-level officials nor the general public realized what it actually meant. Many people applauded Xi's anti-corruption efforts because the corruption problem had indeed plagued the Chinese people for a long time. In this regard, Xi also followed Mao Zedong's example. Xi's anti-corruption, and even his later crackdown on capitalists, were actually replicating Mao's strategy of the majority fighting the minority.

However, as the anti-corruption campaign continued, everyone realized something was wrong. Xi quickly achieved a massive purge through anti-corruption. When Hu Jintao took over, only one and a half of the nine Standing Committee members belonged to the Tuanpai, the faction of Hu Jintao. After one term, by the beginning of the second term, Hu Jintao had only replaced two and a half of the nine Standing Committee members with his own people. But in the Xi Jinping era, Xi's progress was significantly faster. Through the anti-corruption purge, Xi controlled the vast majority of seats on the Standing Committee within his second term, abolished the term limits for leaders, and the "nine dragons ruling the water" system collapsed instantly, as did the cadre term system. After the collapse, there was naturally no role for Hu Chunhua. The abolition of lifetime tenure and the collective leadership system designed by Deng Xiaoping were only realized under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao; by the time of Xi's term, they were directly changed back by him. If we count 1997, the year Deng Xiaoping passed away, as the beginning of the collective leadership system, and 2012, when Xi took office, as the end of this system, then this collective leadership system actually only lasted for 15 years in China, far shorter than everyone imagined.

Beyond the internal affairs of the CCP, in external aspects such as social control, Xi also began drastic reforms. Although the Deng, Jiang, and Hu periods maintained a certain degree of speech and ideological control, the overall bottom line was the same: maintaining the policy set by Deng Xiaoping of reforming the economy but not the politics. As long as speech and ideology did not truly involve inciting the subversion of the CCP, the CCP generally did not deal with them during this stage to ensure market vitality, especially at the economic and scientific levels. To prevent economic strategies from affecting economic development, Deng Xiaoping maintained a relatively high degree of leniency toward economists and scientists. Economists and scientists not being punished for their speech was a privilege that belonged to these people during the Deng, Jiang, and Hu periods. However, in the Xi Jinping era, things are different. Xi is not satisfied with the status quo. Public opinion has begun to become like the Mao era. Xi no longer allows Chinese people to criticize the CCP and even demands that Chinese people must praise the CCP. In 2013, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued a judicial interpretation stating that a post being forwarded 500 times could be prosecuted as defamation, and punishment for speech began to have systematic legal support. In 2014, the Central Leading Group for Cybersecurity and Informatization was established, with Xi Jinping as the leader. In 2016, party media were required by Xi to "bear the party surname." In 2017, the Cybersecurity Law was implemented, and the real-name registration system for the internet was officially landed. And so on. Under a series of regulations, Xi eventually transformed China into what it is today, where not even a little criticism, or even a little sarcasm, is allowed.

In terms of social power, thanks to the enormous wealth generated by the reform and opening-up, the strength of capitalists accumulated over the past few decades, faintly even forming a force capable of challenging the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After Xi Jinping came to power, however, he launched heavy crackdowns: Ren Zhiqiang was investigated, Jack Ma was forced into exile overseas, and the social status and influence of capitalists plummeted. The capitalist power inherent in capitalism was thoroughly curbed. Of course, another major supporter of democracy and freedom is the West. Therefore, after Xi came to power, to prevent the influx of Western democracy, relations with the West deteriorated rapidly, and wolf warrior diplomacy became the mainstream. In the Russia-Ukraine war, Xi also directly stood on Russia's side, forming a stark contrast to Jiang Zemin's stance after the September 11 attacks in 2001. In terms of economic policy, Xi also broke away from the laissez-faire policies of the Deng, Jiang, and Hu eras, beginning to heavily intervene in the economy. The "grasp the large, release the small" approach introduced during the Jiang Zemin era—meaning the CCP only controls industries vital to people's livelihoods while leaving other ordinary industries to the market—began to be dismantled. A new type of planned economy belonging to Xi Jinping started to take shape; today, China's industrial development is close to that of the Mao Zedong era. What to develop is no longer decided by the market, but by what Xi Jinping wants to develop. If he wants to develop new energy, the entire nation must pool its resources to do so; if he wants to develop robots, the entire nation must do the same. This strongly echoes Mao's mass campaigns for the Two Bombs, One Satellite and the Great Leap Forward.

At this point, China's technological innovation is just like that of the Mao era: it is no longer an economic or technological issue, but a political one. When China launched the Great Leap Forward back then, it was not because Mao hoped to make Chinese people rich through it, but to compete with Khrushchev at the time, proving that China could develop well even without the Soviet Union. When Mao pursued the Two Bombs, One Satellite, it was not because having them would improve China's production efficiency, but to ensure mutual destruction with the Soviet Union under extreme circumstances. For Xi Jinping, it is the same: electric vehicles, robots, and AI are not tools to make Chinese people rich, but tools to ensure he is not overthrown by a democratic system. Beyond this, there is another political rollback: Xi has gradually dismantled the GDP performance legitimacy. Knowing that China's economic growth is about to slow down and preparing defenses in advance, he no longer treats development as the source of the CCP's ruling legitimacy. Instead, imitating Mao, he has promoted a narrative that while China is bad, the rest of the world is even worse. Isn't the recently popular "Lao A" just a 2.0 version of the Mao-era propaganda that 30% of Americans couldn't afford a meal every day? Locally, Xi no longer uses GDP as the primary evaluation criterion for the promotion of local officials, replacing it instead with loyalty to himself as the main metric.

Of course, under this set of operations, China's governance capacity has also begun to experience problems, gradually regressing to the Mao Zedong era. Although Xi Jinping's power is far greater than Hu Jintao's, China's disaster relief capability has declined significantly. For COVID-19, which had a lower mortality rate than SARS, Xi Jinping insisted on a three-year mass lockdown. Now, China's GDP growth rate has slid all the way to 5%, and the annual scale of new debt even exceeds the GDP growth for the same period. In fact, looking at the biggest difference between Xi Jinping and the Deng, Jiang, and Hu eras, I believe their greatest difference lies in their self-positioning. Since Xi Jinping took office, his main goal has not been to maintain economic development, but to maintain his own rule, which is the same as Mao Zedong. The reason for this, I think, is that their mindsets are different. Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping have one thing in common: they both feel that China is their private property. This is normal for Mao Zedong, and Xi Jinping, as a second-generation red, has once again possessed a mindset similar to Mao's. This idea of viewing China as one's own private property is actually very common among the second-generation reds. For example, Bo Guagua; his statements in recent years have revealed this. Even though his father, Bo Xilai, was taken down by Xi Jinping, and even though he has already run to Canada, he still strongly supports the CCP and still feels a sense of pride in the CCP's development. Second-generation reds generally view themselves as the legitimate shareholders of China, so maintaining their absolute control over China has become their inherent vocation. This sense of ownership determines the two different forms they take compared to the Deng, Jiang, and Hu eras. Deng, Jiang, and Hu did not naturally consider themselves to own China, so in order to continue their rule, they worked hard to improve the economy to gain legitimacy. If a conflict were to arise between CCP rule and China's economic development, while we are not sure what choice Deng, Jiang, or Hu would make—whether to choose the CCP or China's development—at least these people would hesitate. But when it comes to Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping, they feel that ruling China is their right, so they would not hesitate at all. Maintaining the Communist Party's rule and maintaining their own rule is their absolute goal; even if economic development completely explodes, it does not matter. The mission of the Chinese people is to be supporting actors for them; except for themselves, all Chinese people are NPCs. Therefore, for a leader who only puts his own interests and the pursuit of power first, I can only rank Xi Jinping between a total piece of shit and an NPC. Of course, he is not completely a piece of shit, and he ranks slightly higher than Mao Zedong. This is not because Xi Jinping is not a fucking idiot, but because Xi Jinping is too much of a fucking idiot. His ability is inferior to Mao Zedong's, and he cannot pull off the level of personality cult that Mao did, so his destructive power is ultimately still worse than Mao Zedong's.

After talking about Xi Jinping, this is roughly my ranking of the five generations of Chinese leaders in my heart. Of course, every viewer may have their own ranking in their heart, and everyone is welcome to post their own ranking in the comment section. However, at the end of the program, some people might say, "You are just smearing the CCP. How can the highest-ranking Chinese leader in your view only be a 'superior person'? Doesn't the CCP have even one top-tier 'legend'? I think you are just smearing the CCP and find every Chinese leader unpleasant." In fact, it is not that China has no legendary leaders. Aren't Zhao Ziyang and Hu Yaobang considered legendary leaders? Take Zhao Ziyang, for example. On May 17, 1989, when the June Fourth movement had already begun, there was a fierce confrontation between Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang. When Zhao Ziyang realized that he could not persuade Deng Xiaoping and that Deng was still insisting on martial law, Zhao Ziyang resolutely chose to support the students. Having been at the center of power for a long time, did Zhao Ziyang not know what he would face if he continued to oppose martial law and support the students, knowing he could not persuade Deng Xiaoping and was at an absolute disadvantage? What he would inevitably face was the loss of his position as General Secretary and the loss of his political career. Let's ask ourselves: many people, let alone a General Secretary position, if given a mayoral position and told that you would lose it tomorrow for supporting democracy, many people probably wouldn't be willing. But what about Zhao Ziyang? Zhao Ziyang knew that even if he might lose the position of General Secretary and his entire political career—such a huge temptation of power—he still refused to implement martial law for the sake of democracy and the Chinese people. In the early morning of May 19, he came to the square and said to the students, "We are already old, it doesn't matter. You are still young, there is a long way to go," which is enough to establish Zhao Ziyang's legendary status. The same is true for Hu Yaobang. These two people formed a sharp contrast with Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping. Such leaders can definitely be considered legendary leaders in Chinese history. Unfortunately, even with the title of General Secretary, they never truly held power. The CCP's system ultimately does not allow a legendary leader to emerge.

Finally, thank you all for watching today's program. I am Toronto Fang Lian. I hope you will like and support my video, as this can increase the weight of YouTube's recommendations for me. See you in the next episode.