Rereading Deng Xiaoping Theory: Border Influencing Center and People’s Character in Reform and Opening Up

Abstract

Over forty years of reform and opening up constitute an important part of contemporary Chinese history. Therefore, the emergence and formation of the Chinese road, which is regarded as the research object today, were realized in a specific historical process. Taking this as the source, research and elucidation should also place the Chinese road in the historical process. In this historical perspective, the people's character and practicality that have been consistent in the reform and opening up over the past 45 years constitute the striking characteristics of China's road. This article attempts to take a series of key changes that took place at the beginning of the reform and opening up such as the rural reform, the opening up of the coastal areas, and the emergence of the urban private economy as the research object. In combination with relevant discussions in Deng Xiaoping Theory, this article explains the guiding and promoting role of the people at the border and bottom levels in China's reform, and further demonstrates that, in the process of more than 45 years of reform and opening up, the people's subjectivity embodied in the practice and cognition formed under the mutual influence of edges and centers.