Compared to other Communist parties that were falling apart in the 1980s, the China Communist Party's success since 1978 is extraordinary. Deng did not start opening and reform, but he made it work. How? What kind of person was he? How was he prepared for his job? One important strategy was setting goals but not drawing bluebrints. He tried experiments, learnt from them, and then let new institutions develop organically. His key experiments were in Guangdong and Fujian. What were the politics and the economics of these experiments and what did they learn?

Ezra Vogel is Henry Ford II Research Professor of Social Sciences at Harvard, honorary director of the Program on US-Japan Relations and former director of Harvard's East Asia Research Center. He was also the second chairman of the Council for East Asian Studies, the first director of the Harvard University Asia Center and former director for the Program on US-Japan Relations at the Center for International Affairs. He has been a professor at Harvard since 1967. Vogel holds a bachelor's degree from Ohio Wesleyan, a PhD from Harvard and ten honorary degrees. He received the Japan Foundation Prize in 1996 and lectures frequently in Asia. Professor Vogel is currently writing a biography of Deng Xiaoping.

This talk is part of the Stanford China Program Winter 2009 China Seminar Series titled "30 Years of Reform and Opening in China: How Far from the Cage?"