Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

How China’s economic revolution created billionaires overnight

Desmond Shum’s exposé of corruption in the noughties and the obscene wealth shared by politicians and entrepreneurs has clearly spooked the authorities

Desmond Shum with his wife and son. [©Desmond Shum] 
issue 18 September 2021

In the winter of 1992, the retired octogenarian Deng Xiaoping toured China’s southern coasts. From there he gave a spirited warning to his communist successors: ‘Whoever doesn’t reform will have to step down! We must let some people get rich first!’

These words were the starting-gun for the country’s opening, and its intense economic reform.

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