ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes Deng Xiaoping's embryonic but nevertheless critical contribution to China's foreign policy regarding "economic globalization". From 1978 to the present, Deng's particular synthesis of "self-reliance and open door" has continuously informed the substance of China's foreign policy. The most important opportunity to clear up all of the political confusion surrounding China's place in the world and the modern relevance of "self-reliance" came with Deng's April 1974 speech to the UN General Assembly. Deng personally identified with the success of the Shenzhen special economic zones (SEZ) and took personal charge of the expansion of the open door to include fourteen coastal cities, which he hoped would increase the levels of foreign investment. In the mid- and late-1970s, Deng's understanding of self-reliance represented an important break with previous "closed door policy". Deng's original dialectics of "self-reliance" and the "open door" provided the conceptual matrix within which China has responded to the opportunities and liabilities of economic globalization.
