One must go back to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) and its 60-year era of “heavenly flourishing” ( Qianlong ) in the eighteenth century to find a comparable period of coherent political and economic policy. The era of “reform and opening” has outlived its “emperor” by more than a decade, and has been the common thread running through transfers of political authority from Deng to Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.