The fiery crash landing in China was the pre-PRC era, where China was so weak that it was being carved up by the Europeans, Americans and Japanese.

The Cultural Revolution kicked off an era of double digit GDP growth in China, which persists to today.

I think the Cultural Revolution created one of the most politically educated generations in history. The PRC seems to have survived its graduate schools closing for a few years. Didn't the US and Europe see a dropoff in college and grad school during the early 1940s? They managed to survive that.

Personally I think that empowering young people to smash and burn Buddhist sculptures and paintings, and to eradicate the feudal vestiges of China are what helped it onto its current path of prosperity.

Also, the pathology of focusing on bodies instead of GDP per capita can be found in the US in the Social Security debate. Instead of dividing the GDP by the number of people collecting social security, they count bodies working and retired, as if GDP per capita were not rising. This approach only works where there is no GDP growth. GDP per capita in China doubled in the past eight years, and quadrupled in the past thirteen years.

The feudal thinking was that something like 4-2-1 is a problem. The standing committee of the Politburo of the communist party of China knows that the problem was too little economic growth, and too many children for each peasant family. If they thought your way, they really would be worse off.