Just a note: part of Deng's political career extended into the 25 year range against the rules of the subreddit. That said, most of his reforms were in the early 80s, so discussion should be safe. When you say rest of the world, do you include the perspective of American scholars? I don't really focus on Chinese history, but I have some experience from the perspective of comparative government. Of course, politics can be very biased, even more so than history.