China's contemporary social experiments stand apart from those implemented in many other countries in the world because they were carried out in large scale and during only a short period. That period fell mostly under the leadership of Mao Tse-tung and Deng Xiao-ping, during and after the Cultural Revolution. Professor Wen Lang Li, director of Chinese Social and Management Studies Center, Tunghai University in Taichung, sets out to provide some insights into Deng's "socialism with Chinese characteristics," a program that is still being debated years after he passed away. Mao believed that Marxism was the only model for China's development and modernization following more than a century of domination by waves of Western intervention, starting with the infamous Opium War in the 1840s.

Mao considered China's large population as an asset that could be organized effectively under communism. When Deng came to power in 1978, he moved away from that experiment and took China onto a new path of modernization, allowing private ownership and launching the campaign that later on resulted in the adoption of free market economy. To Deng, a large population is a liability. His best known social experiment is the one-child policy. Deng shifted from total Marxism to revised Marxism, and his model of development sharply contrasted with Mao's. During the Mao years, efforts were aimed at bringing gender equality in order to achieve development under the communist vision of a society without the various problems between rich and poor. Gender equality was the trademark of the Cultural Revolution, which required that men and women wore the same dress and hairstyle.

Under Deng, inequality was not considered an enemy of development in the Chinese society.

Despite their contrasting approaches to solving China's problems of under development, Professor Li says Mao and Deng shared similar views about the Confucian tradition that has existed in China for centuries, particularly their belief that Confucian values could be essential elements in the modernization process. Mao disregarded the 2,000-year-old Confucian tradition in China when he wholeheartedly embraced Marxism at the start of the revolution. The results: millions of people were sent to re-education camps. His social experiments drove millions of Chinese to their deaths.

Deng moved away from Mao's deadly policies based solely on Marxist theory. He believed that Marxism could work if traditional Chinese values were integrated into it, and this became his "socialism with Chinese characteristics."

"Chinese brand of Marxism should not be the same as Western Marxism," says Professor Li. "Only through practice and experimentation can China develop its own model of Marxism."

Social scientists have long believed that traditional Confucian social value system can be best understood when it is focused on two institutions: ancestor worship and the emphasis on learning and education in Chinese society. Another important social experiment under Deng was the development of a new theory of authoritarianism, Professor Li says. Deng proposed that economic development be separated from political changes, an approach different from Western countries which based economic development on a strong democracy.

Professor Li's study is replete with insightful examples of social experiments in China.