Beginning in 1949, several thousand Chinese NationalistAlthough these forces over time included non-Chinese recruits, for purposes of simplicity I shall use the terms “Nationalists,” “KMT” or “irregulars” to refer to them. soldiers fled from mainland China into the so-called “Golden Triangle” of South-East Asia, made up of the northern parts of Burma, Thailand, Laos and Indo-China. At first, the United States saw these “irregulars” as a useful force in the containment of communism and provided support to them. But by 1953, Washington had come to consider them a threat to that very same policy. Removing them, however, was no easy task, largely because of the attitude of Taiwan's leader, Chiang Kai-shek, who hoped to use them in his plans to return to the mainland. In 1953, and again in 1961, Washington had to use intense pressure to get Chiang to agree to the repatriation of the irregulars. By the time of the second withdrawal, American credibility, U.S.-Burmese relations and the entire containment programme had suffered serious harm.

The deterioration in government finances, the bad loan problem in the state banking system and the losses of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are well-known characteristics of China's reform period. The decrease in the share of government revenues in GDP is frequently cited as sign of a deterioration in government finances. A corollary is the gradual rise in the budget deficit. While the 1978 budget was still in surplus, new domestic government debt incurred in 1997 was equal to 28.63 per cent of total government revenues, or 3.31 per cent of GDP.On the decline in the share of government revenues in GDP see, for example, Christine P.W. Wong, Christopher Heady and Woo Wing-Thye, Fiscal Management and Economic Reform in the People's Republic of China (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1995). For the debt data see Zhongguo tongji nianjian 1998 (China Statistical Yearbook 1998) (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 1999), pp. 55, 269 and 291. At the same time, bad loans in the banking system have come to account for perhaps as much as 25–50 per cent of all loans extended by the exclusively state-owned banking system.On the bad loan problem see, for example, John Bonin and Huang Yiping, “Dealing with the bad loans of the Chinese banks,” manuscript, Wesleyan University and Australian National University (March 2000), or Carsten Holz, “China's bad loan problem,” manuscript, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (April 1999). All financial institutions in China are controlled by the state. All financial institutions except Minsheng Bank and the rural credit co-operatives are also state-owned. China Minsheng Bank is 85% owned by member enterprises of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, a state-controlled federation of privately owned enterprises; the independence of China Minsheng Bank, not least due to the personnel appointments at its top tier, is highly doubtful. Its assets at end-1997 amounted to 0.20% of the total assets of all financial institutions (Zhongguo jinrong nianjian 1998 (Almanac of China's Finance and Banking 1998) (Beijing: Zhongguo jinrong chubanshe, 1999), pp. 508 and 563). The rural credit co-operatives are directly administered by the central bank. While they are formally owned by farmers, their aggregate net worth is negative; i.e. formal ownership comes neither with control rights nor with financial returns. SOE losses have grown continuously over the economic reform period; in the case of industrial SOEs, for which detailed data are available, losses in loss-making enterprises relative to profits in profitable enterprises rose from 7.64 per cent in 1978 to 45.92 per cent in 1997.On the data see Zhongguo tongji nianjian 1998, p. 461. Due to data limitations, industrial SOEs cover only those “with independent accounting system.” A comparison with all industrial state-owned units is possible based on Gross Output Value of Industry (GOVI). In 1978, industrial SOEs with independent accounting system produced 96.44% of GOVI of all industrial state-owned units, in 1997, 95.97%; this share was constant at 96% to 97% in the two decades in between. (Calculated from Gaige kaifang shiqi nian de zhongguo diqu jingji (China's Regional Economy in 17 Years of Reform and Opening) (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 1996), p. 146; Zhongguo tongji nianjian 1998, pp. 435 and 454; Zhongguo tongji nianjian 1997, p. 413.)

The Monument to the People's Heroes (Renmin yingxiong jinianbei) in Beijing's Tiananmen Square was one of the most important new political symbols created in the early days of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The huge granite obelisk, situated along Beijing's most sacred central north-south axis, commands the vast and austere square – the ritual centre of China's capital – not only by its imposing presence but also by its centrality. On the surface, the monument was constructed to commemorate those who had sacrificed their lives for the building of a new communist state, echoing what Philippe Ariès once argued: “Without a monument to the dead, the victory could not be celebrated.”Philippe Ariès, Western Attitudes toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present, trans. Patricia M. Ranum (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), p. 75.

Ezra Vogel, in the first of his classic works on Guangdong, cites the dream of 20th-century Cantonese of turning Guangzhou “into an industrial as well as a commercial center.” The victory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) revived these dreams, but they were dashed for a variety of reasons, including “Communist fears of military vulnerability.” Guangdong and Guangzhou never did develop into the kind of heavy industrial city comparable to Shenyang, Wuhan or other monuments to Soviet-style socialist visions of industrial power and modernity. As Vogel makes clear in his second classic work on Guangdong, in the long term, and especially in the post-Mao period, this was not a bad thing. One of the reasons that Guangdong was able to take off was because there was much less state-owned heavy industry there at the onset of reforms, and thus the burdens of readjustment and state-owned enterprise reform were relatively light. In his later book, Vogel notes that Guangdong was not without defence industry, especially in the 1960s. But he does not see this playing a major role, and the entire output of heavy industry remained smaller than that of light industry, contrary to national trends, and the pattern in most other provinces.

Michel Charles Oksenberg passed away on 22 February 2001 after an eight-month battle with cancer.

Mike was determined to face his disease with dignity, optimism and activism, and he did all three. Until shortly before the end, he continued to pen articles, to advise students, to give media interviews, to take part in academic panels and to mobilize support on Asian policy issues. He also communicated frequently with colleagues and friends by phone and e-mail. Mike drew great strength from these contacts, and they comforted those of us who were deeply affected by his illness. He was, until the end, a life force.