The major difference between Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong can be simply put that Deng Xiaoping was much more practical and realistic.
Deng Xiaoping was not extreme as Mao Zedong, and unlike Mao who closed the country to the world and implemented non-realistic terrible economic policies, Deng reformed the economy of China and opened it up to the world.
Deng started with the Four Modernizations, which included the agriculture, industry, technology, and science development. He opened up the country gradually to the world, and gave his best to modernize the country, catch the pace of the developed countries, and make China a strong nation. All of his policies were perfected to detail, they were realistic, practical, and very efficient, resulting in great prosperity and development in China very rapidly, making China the biggest producer of goods in the world, as well as one of the strongest nations in every aspect in the world. No wonder that he is often referred to as the ''Greatest economist in the human history''.
