ABSTRACT
One of the wealthiest men in China, Zhang Guoxi has much to laugh about: in fact, more than $50 million. The location of Zhang's factories suggests that his road to riches was no easy street. His eleven-story company headquarters sticks up from an impoverished plain in Jiangxi Province like an arrogant capitalist weed in the hothouse of China's Communist revolution. Zhang is one of thousands of go-getters who have amassed millions since senior leader Deng Xiaoping checked the powers of bureaucrats and allowed the market to animate the economy. While Zhang was pioneering entrepreneurship in one of China's poorest provinces, the father of the country's economic reforms, Deng, was also in Jiangxi Province working at a tractor repair shop in political disgrace. Zhang was six years ahead of the radical invigoration of China's command economy launched by Deng in 1978.
