Reform is truly revolutionary. The rigidness of Soviet-style state planning for everything, except married women giving birth, had stifled creativity and productivity, though China's population more than doubled. We look back in sorrow at those difficult years of the Great Leap Forward and natural calamities, as starvation took many of our forefathers' lives. The political struggles and ideologue campaigns, that sent learned men like former Premier Zhu Rongji to raise hogs in outlying farms, were wasted opportunities.
Now, the market system, though not fully in place yet, has set its foothold. A large number of businesses have privatized, and millions of people of all ages with dreams, energy, and free enterprise, have jumped into the entrepreneurial sea seeking their fortunes. Many have succeeded and become better off. More are aspiring to add more digits to their bank accounts, because the revered Deng, the reform architect, once said: "To become rich is glorious".
Despite all of our achievements since 1978, reform and opening-up is not completely accomplished, and I believe, it will never be finished. The epoch initiated by Deng is just the beginning. We have no excuse to take a rest, or call it a day and let it wither. And, we won't have the luxury again to see a retired old man in his late 80s making intermittent but firm sound bites in Shenzhen in 1992 to accelerate his drive.
Happily, rural farmland reform has lately taken on new steam, moving towards agriculture machinery and modernization, and farmers are allowed to lease or contract their plots to corporations. However, I believe that more urgent reforms are needed to improve the rural medical care system, which is now underfunded, and phase in a pension safety net for the most neglected group of our fellow countrymen.
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