In 1950, China intervened in the Korean War to save the North Koreans from being
        wiped off the map, and by 1953, the Korean War was over (actually, South Korea
        and North Korea are still technically at war with each other, even though the fighting
        stopped in 1953).

        In 1958, Mao, who was growing increasingly distant from Moscow, launched the
        Great Leap Forward. The idea was to mobilize the peasant masses to increase crop
        production by collectivizing the farms and use the excess labor to produce steel.
        What ended up happening was the greatest man-made famine in human history.
        From 1958 to 1960, poor planning and bad management managed to starve 30 million
        people to death. Officially, the government blamed it on "bad weather."

        By 1962, the break with the Soviets was complete, and China started to position itself
        as the 'other' superpower while it recovered from the Great Leap Forward.
        Unfortunately...

        ... in 1966, Mao launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The origins of the
        Cultural Revolution are vague, but probably stem, in part, from a growing separation
        between Mao's clique and the rest of the CCP. Mao called upon students to rebel
        against authority, and they did, forming units of Red Guards. China promptly
        collapsed into anarchy. Schools shut down, offices closed, transportation was
        disrupted -- it was so bad that even today, the full history is still far from known. In
        terms of the chaos, blood, and destruction, it was comparable to the French
        Revolution, though it lacked the same political impact. At one point, Red Guards were
        fighting pitched battles with Government troops outside of the Foreign Ministry
        building. Later on in the Cultural Revolution, Red Guard units ended up fighting each
        other for supremacy. In the summer of 1967, there were massive riots in both Hong
        Kong and Macau.

        One of the reasons why Mao was able to pull off something like the Cultural
        Revolution was because he was taking on the trappings of an emperor -- indeed, Mao
        himself often compared himself to the First Emperor of China. Another reason was
        the political support of the People's Liberation Army, spearheaded by a general
        named Lin Biao. During the glory years of the Cultural Revolution, Lin became very
        close to Mao, and was appointed his heir-apparent. Lin was also in charge of
        developing the 'cult of personality' around Mao. But after 1969, Lin's position began to
        deteriorate, and he vanished in 1971. Lin apparently died in an airplane crash in
        Mongolia; the official story is that he was fleeing to Russia. Many people believe that
        Mao had him murdered. It is doubtful that the whole story will ever be told, particularly
        as the principles involved (Mao and Lin) have taken their secrets to the grave.

        While the Cultural Revolution 'officially' ended in 1969, and the worst abuses stopped
        then, the politically charged atmosphere was maintained until Mao's death in 1976.
        Deng Xiaoping, who was purged twice during the Cultural Revolution (once at the
        beginning; once again right before Mao died); eventually emerged as the paramount
        leader in 1978, and promptly launched his economic reform program.

        Deng's actions, initially limited to agricultural reforms, gradually started to spread to
        the rest of the country. One of his favorite sayings is "It doesn't matter if the cat is
        black or white; what matters is how well it catches mice." This is in direct contrast to
        the ideology of the Maoist years, where a favored slogan was "Better Red than
        Expert," which meant, in practice, that totally unqualified ideologues were put in
        charge of projects that really needed technical expertise.

        In 1982 Margaret Thatcher, then Prime Minister of Britain, went to Beijing to meet
        with Deng Xiaopeng. Most of the talks concerned the issue of Hong Kong. By the
        time she had left, the United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China had signed
        an agreement in principle to hand Hong Kong from the UK over to China. In 1984,
        the agreement was formalized in a document known as the Joint Declaration. The
        people of Hong Kong were never consulted about their future.

        Hong Kong is a place of many ironies, and the handing over of the territory to China
        is replete with them. Many of the people who made Hong Kong what it is today were
        only in the territory because they were fleeing the Communists and are now faced
        with the prospect of returning to Communist rule. The Hong Kong Chinese residents
        lucky enough to have British citizenship are not actually allowed to live in Britain; and
        those who hold the British National (Overseas) [BN(O)] passport will find themselves
        PRC nationals after 1997, whether they like it or not. Finally, there is perversely
        poetic justice in the fact that Hong Kong, which was made by unequal treaties, will be
        unmade by an unequal treaty.

        As the economic reforms on the mainland spread, the question of political reform
        started to come to the surface, propelled by events in the Soviet Union and Eastern
        Europe. This came to a head in Tiananmen Square in May, 1989. The leaders of the
        Communist Party saw this as an attack on their power, and proceeded to destroy it.
        Officially, 200 unarmed demonstrators died. The actual figure is far higher, and it is
        doubtful that there will ever be an accurate roll call of those who died on June 4.

        After June 4, progress and reform in China stopped for three years. But in 1993,
        Deng Xiaoping, in one of his last major public appearances, toured the Shenzhen
        Special Economic Zone and emphatically voiced his approval. After that, the Chinese
        economy exploded, and it has only been recently that the economy has cooled off to
        more reasonable levels.

        One of the most significant developments in recent history was the death of Deng, on
        February 19, 1997. While he has not been active in politics for some time and has
        not appeared in public for more than three years, the deaths of senior leaders has
        always had an unsettling impact on Chinese politics. Given Deng's former position as
        the paramount leader of the country, the political shockwaves will not only be
        substantial, but unpredictable.

        On the other hand, given that Deng had apparently handed over power to Jiang
        Zemin several years ago and 'retired,' we may be witnessing a new epoch in Chinese
        politics, one where the death of a senior leader does not automatically result in a
        scramble for power. It will be several years before we are able to look back and
        accurately assess the events of this period; after all, Mao died in 1976 but it was not
        until two years later that Deng was able to fully consolidate his grip on power.

        Either way, the next few years will be interesting times.

        Longer term, it is impossible to predict what will happen. China will probably become
        a leading industrial power sometime in the next century, and it will probably become
        more closely economically tied to its East Asian neighbors. However, predictions that
        China will become the world's largest economy by the year 2020 are based on
        unsustainable growth projections. And if the last 150 years of Chinese history tells us
        anything, it is that the only predictable thing is unpredictability.