Whatever the cause, the boom seems an unlikely capstone to a century of war, ferment, and revolution, and only adds to the sense of discontinuity that characterizes modern China. Certainly, few observers looking in 1978 at the smoldering embers of the Cultural Revolution, or at the seeming ruination of the post-1989 years, thought China would emerge as the lightning rod of the world’s developmental hopes.
无论原因如何，繁荣都似乎是一个世纪战争、动乱和革命之后难以达到的顶点，因此只会加重现代中国留给人们的缺乏连贯性的印象。勿庸置疑，几乎没有研究1978年文革余烬、以及1989年后表面上看去是一片废墟的观察人士认为中国将擎起世界发展希望的火炬。