Man Of The Year: Visionary of a New China

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normal trade relations with other countries of the world."

To accomplish the journey, Teng and his backers have embarked on what sometimes looks suspiciously like a capitalist road. The new doctrinal slogan might be formulated thus: "Let one hundred business deals blossom, let one hundred foreign investors contend." Although very few Chinese have acquired much individual freedom as part of the new enterprise, they are discarding, without ceremony, much of their old ideological baggage. Gone is the once sacred Maoist principle of national self-reliance and independence from outside resources. Chinese managers have heretically embraced such impure capitalist devices as meritocratic promotions and other special treatment for their best and brightest. A people that has traditionally regarded all foreigners as barbarians has opened its gates to the outer world; 530,000 tourists visited the Middle Kingdom last year. So did thousands of capitalists dowsing for new markets and investments in this promising territory. Perhaps the two most startling pieces of symbolic revisionism: the Chinese are planning to construct a golf course on the outskirts of Peking, and have given Coca-Cola exclusive rights to sell in the People's Republic.

After dwelling so long beyond the world's gaze, the Chinese suddenly seemed everywhere, bargaining intensely, cutting deals, eager to learn how the rest of mankind makes things work. In August, Hua visited Eastern Europe, where he gaily danced a hora with Rumanian youths. That spectacle on their European front did not amuse the Soviets, who keep 43 of their best combat divisions tied down along their 4,500-mile border with China. Teng went to Japan to ratify a peace and friendship treaty, pledging amid champagne toasts to "let bygones be bygones." He then flew to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, signing scientific exchange agreements and preaching endlessly against Soviet "hegemonism" (imperialism). Later this month, Teng will visit the U.S. to give dramatic personal confirmation of the new Chinese-American relations.

On their junkets, Chinese delegations carried elaborate shopping lists whose extravagance may far exceed the limits of the Chinese budget. Although China's international credit rating is excellent, the country has never dealt in the lofty sums now being discussed. The Chinese hope to finance their modernizations through development of oil exports, through joint ventures in which they pay off their debts in goods manufactured in foreign-built mainland factories, and through their immense human resources: manpower and discipline. One shadow over the New Long March, however, is doubt that the primitive Chinese economy can rouse itself to meet the price. One freewheeling guess is that the Four Modernizations could cost $800 billion by 1985 The Chinese consumer market may be a long time in developing. Despite all the current capitalist visions of the new market opening up on the mainland, it may be years before the Chinese can afford to pay for all they want. Among other things, Chinese oil reserves, on which Peking heavily counts to earn cash, are afflicted by a number of serious technical problems including a high wax content and great difficulty in extraction owing to geological structure.

But the Chinese are proceeding with ambitious vision. In February, Japan and China