In 1998, Communist China was trapped in crises. The Asian financial crisis precipitated sharp falls in incoming foreign investment and outgoing exports in China; violent protests against the United States brought Sino–American relations to near a halt; nationwide crackdowns on the religious movement Falun Gong pitted the state against its own society. Deng Xiaoping had just passed away a year earlier. Against this backdrop, Beijing’s decision to join the World Trade Organization was almost like “raising a white flag”; both liberals and conservative members of the ruling elite felt that “doomsday” was near. People of that era could not have expected that the Chinese economy could go so far so fast.