I agree that Xiaoping sold China out, and greatly reduced China's global influence, but Vietnam also sold out, and Vietnam may have sold out to a larger degree than the Deng dynasty. The "online community" always talk about the accomplishments, but they stay away from talking about the bad things Xiaoping has brought to China. Even Chinese on the far right will agree that people had much better moral values in 1966 than they do today. In 1966, Chinese people were honest. Today, it is common place for taxi drivers to rig their meters, and use fake notes. That's why Chinese always check for counterfit bills. If Xiaoping wants to take credit for the "economic miracle", then shouldn't he take credit for the decadence that arose after 78 too?
As far as China closing off the world in 1966, that is another lie that has been repeated many times. In 1966, and the years surrounding it, China was heavily involved with cultural exchanges, however, mostly with other socialist countries like Albania, and Romania. China was the training ground and mecca for revolutionaries around the world, particularly the 3world. China's training centers rivaled that of today's Ft Benning. Hundreds and thousands of successful African revolutionaries trained in China and effectively challenged western hegemony. Ho Chi Min was trained and educated in China. Also received most of his support from China. In fact, Ho adopted his name in China. If you asked workers around the 3 world in 1966 what they thought about China, they would have said, China will become the leader of the 3 world. No one would say that if China was "closed off". The reality of it is, China was actively engaged with workers, and peasants all over the world, and maintained a bigger network that rivaled the ClA, and KGB. The prolateriat of the world was in 1966, optimistic about China. China's propaganda in 1966 was largely more effective, and influential than today's ClA psyops are, despite the lack of technology during that era. Workers across the world were able to quote Mao. Today, most people do not expect China to lead the world, and workers do not look to China for inspiration anymore. China's influence was so effective that it caught the attention of western imperialists, which led to the unpopular US led invasion on Vietnam. Today's China has distanced itself from the masses, followed by an increase in western propaganda. The result is a negative reputation of China.
Comunist China had visa free access to East Germany, and vice versa.
However, capitalist China has no visa free access to today's Germany. China was also very involved with the highly successful global people's war that spanned from America to Indonesia, and back again. China had a huge network of revolutionaries all across the world, and way more allies than China has today. At that time, China could have called upon its army of supporters to do regime changes at just about most points on the globe, something China can't do today. I use this example over and over, but China called upon revolutionaries in Hong Kong to challenge British imperialism in 1967. However, today's China has no grasp of HK, despite HK being nominally a part of the PRC, and you are more likely to find western NGOs backing street mobs against the Chinese central gov.
. What a genius he was indeed.
