In the 1980’s, the political and economic cultures of America and China weregrowing more similar with each passing day. In fact, the two nations had been progressing along paradoxically similar trajectories for the previous two decades. For instance, beginning in 1967, Chinese President Mao Zedong implemented his CulturalRevolution program, which was a campaign, intended to purify China’s artistic productions and change them into political vehicles. It was a clash between traditionalChinese artistic expression and modern artistic repression. Ironically, at that same exacttime, the United States was struggling through its own traditional-modern clash: theyouthful, hippie culture against the traditionally conservative parents of the day.
Twodecades later, neither country had changed much, except for one main thing— conservatism had become the status quo amongst the majority of American youth,whereas it was still despised by many Chinese youth. At the time, America had already begun its transition from the disco-crazed 1970’s into the Members-Only youth elitism.
“Like the 1960’s, [the 1980’s] was an era of frantic change, characterized by political andeconomic decentralization [for the U.S.].”
From 1981 to 1989 (“the Reagan Years”),this conservatism became “the dominant creed in American political and cultural life.”
Concurrently, China was under the control of Deng Xiaoping, Zedong’s successor, and itwas undergoing a similar “de-collectivization of the countryside [and] industrial reformsaimed at decentralizing government controls in the industrial sector.”
For the first time,
America’s involvement in the controversial Vietnam War was splintering the nation, and America’syouths (who were being drafted into the war) began rebelling like never before.
Members-Only was a brand of preppy outerwear that conservative youths enjoyed wearing throughout the1980’s.
Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia. www.wikipedia.com.
Ibid. A measure of Xiaoping’s Economic Reforms and Openness (