What if China never went capitalist?

[Bomster]

It is said that Richard Nixon’s trip to China helped to open China up to economic reform, leading to the economical giant it is today. But what if this never happened? Say that Nixon loses the election, or he simply never goes to China. What are the consequences?

 

[kernals12]

A. It's probably not Nixon that led to China's reform, it was Deng Xiapong's pragmatism.
B. A non capitalist China means several hundred million more people living in utter poverty under a brutal and extreme communist dictatorship.
C. Japan remains the superpower of East Asia.

 

[CountPeter]

Yeah Nixon's influence was not significant to Deng's reforms. Having Nixon as a POD isn't going to change anything.

But as an alternative to Deng's reforms, I seem to recall that there was another trend which advocated dominating and sponsoring the international drug trade (although that might have been a AH proposal and my memory is playing tricks on me).

The idea was in a similar fashion to how Deng intended for China to mess with global capitalism, instead causing as much destabilizing as possible by aiding the criminal underworld through training, weaponry and cheap access to product.
In practice, this would have meant that any militantly subversive group would have access to a sustainable income to support their movement.

 

[Lusitania]

My understanding was that Mao 1960 cultural revolution had disillusioned so many that Deng and his supporters were able to convince the Communists to move towards capitalism.

Have Mao die in 1960 and a traditional communist come to power who implements a soviet style communist economy during the 1960s. The lack of cultural revolution takes away the impetus to move to capitalism.

 

[kernals12]

Yeah Nixon's influence was not significant to Deng's reforms. Having Nixon as a POD isn't going to change anything.

But as an alternative to Deng's reforms, I seem to recall that there was another trend which advocated dominating and sponsoring the international drug trade (although that might have been a AH proposal and my memory is playing tricks on me).

The idea was in a similar fashion to how Deng intended for China to mess with global capitalism, instead causing as much destabilizing as possible by aiding the criminal underworld through training, weaponry and cheap access to product.
In practice, this would have meant that any militantly subversive group would have access to a sustainable income to support their movement.

This sounds like the plot of a 70s Comedy Spy movie.
Soviet General: Comrades, we've got a brilliant way to crush the imperialist pigs once and for all.
*Gestures toward pile of LSD

 

[Sam R.]

Well apart from the urban boutique proletariat supporting the Shanghai and Beijing nomenklatura with surplus labou received as profits.

The generalisation of capital relations in China was a useful way to break petitbourgeois and collective peasant power