The paper discusses the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and his role in initiating the economic reforms in the People’s Republic of China at the end of the 1970s and after. It also deals with the effects these reforms and the so called “socialism with Chinese characteristics” had on the changes in Chinese national economy, as well as their international implications. The paper argues that Deng’s reforms plan was meant mostly as a way to end the economic underdevelopment of China, while the economic success of the reforms induced Deng’s successors to aim higher and move the focus of the new economic policy on placing the PRC among the leading economic powers of the world. The author also follows the developments in the recent years that show a possible amplification of the socialism with Chinese characteristics to a form of globalism with Chinese characteristics.