FPIF
China’s once-in-a-decade leadership transition will have major
implications for China’s neighbors in Southeast Asia. Given this, it
might be worthwhile to review the changing understanding of the
momentous developments in China on the part of people in our region,
using my generation—the so-called “baby boomers”—as an example.
Many in my generation in Southeast Asia came of age during the
tempestuous years of the Mao era, when China was seeking to assert
itself as a revolutionary beacon and undergoing the Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution. Many were radicalized by the twin forces of the
Vietnamese struggle for national liberation against the United States
and China’s bid for revolutionary leadership in the third world.
