Earliest Liberalization in Communist China?

[Douglas]

Under what circumstances, if any, would it have been possible for Communist China to liberalize after the 1949 victory over the Nationalists? As sort of an ideal time frame, have the process of economic liberalization that occurred from the end of the Cultural Revolution to the present day begin in 1949; China would ideally be a favored trading partner of the United States and hold its current position as second-largest national GDP by 1983.

[Rousseau]

Mao Zedong would have to not be in power, it seems to me, for any of that to be possible at an earlier stage. Perhaps he had died during the civil war in such a scenario?

[jaybird]

Without Mao, the CCP may well have stopped at the Chang Jiang - cue North/South China. THAT would be bad.

The best time is after the Great Leap Forward and at the Sino-Soviet split, where China and America realize the existence of a mutual interest.

[Onkel Willie]

You could also just kill off Mao by means of a car accident or something in the mid 1950s before the Great Leap Forward and have reformists take power then. A Zhou Enlai - Deng Xiaoping - General Peng triumvirate could do.

[Urban fox]

Pretty much any time after the civil war and maybe Korea. So perhaps 1955, by this time the CCP has had a chance to secure itself in power and the there is little risk posed by the KMT exiles in Taiwan. Or any other faction for that matter.

Mao has a sudden fatel attack of ASB caused death. China is by defult more libral, because no single person in the CCP could become a despot to match the Great Helmsman, and anyone who tried would end up playing Brezhnev to Mao's Stalin.

[Hendryk]

There are two suitable times for Mao to die: at the beginning of the Hundred Flowers campaign, when it seemed that he had given his blessing to the expression of political opinions outside of the Party line, or at the end of the Great Leap Forward, when his failure had resulted in his losing much of his influence over the Chinese Politburo and the pragmatists gaining prominence.