BEIJING — "To get rich is glorious."
With that catchy slogan, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping is credited with unleashing a revolution that transformed a nation of Mao jackets and people's communes into a land of Starbucks-drinking, Gucci-loving techies.
Deng's phrase from the early 1980s has become a prophetic symbol in the West of the 21st century's most dramatic economic turnaround, one so extraordinary that many believe the world's largest communist country is poised to overtake the United States as the world's largest economy within five decades.
It also symbolizes a China where getting rich -- or at least showing off the trappings of luxury -- is in vogue. China is now the biggest market for BMW's top-of-the-line 760Li luxury sedan, which carries a price tag of close to $200,000, nearly double the cost in the United States. Wealthy tourists staying at Commune by the Great Wall are housed in villas designed by Asia's top architects, each with a private butler. Italian designer Giorgio Armani plans to open 20 to 30 new stores in China by 2008, joining other luxury brands rushing into the market.
And a country with a per capita annual income below $1,000 is minting millionaires at a rapid clip, with more than 236,000 by one count.
One problem.
Deng never actually said "to get rich is glorious." Or at least no one can prove it.
Although many scholars and journalists -- including China expert Orville Schell and veteran CBS correspondent Mike Wallace -- helped immortalize Deng's phrase, he never actually said, sung or muttered it, many scholars and other experts say.
"As far as I can see, the use of the slogan ... has been entirely in foreign reports," says Bai Xueqiu, researcher at Beijing University's Deng Xiaoping Theory Research Institute.
As such, the slogan may rank among "Play it again, Sam" and "What's good for General Motors is good for the country" as among the world's most famous misquotations that have morphed into popular culture.
Humphrey Bogart never urged Sam to "play it again" in the classic "Casablanca." It was Ilse, Ingrid Bergman's character, who said, "Play it once, Sam. For old times' sake."
And former GM President Charles E. Wilson actually said something far less quotable: "For years, I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa."
Of course, the authenticity of Deng's quote could be regarded as merely academic, for arguments among intellectuals or questions in trivia games.
