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Deng Xiaoping

, Political Leader

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Born: 22 August 1904
Birthplace: Paifang, Sichuan province, China
Died: 19 February 1997 (respiratory failure)
Best Known As: Leader of China, 1978-89

One of the old guard of the Chinese Communist Party, Deng Xiaoping became the party's Secretary General in 1954, but was purged by Chairman Mao in 1966 for his strong objections to the excesses of the Great Leap Forward. By 1974 Deng had been "rehabilitated" and returned to power. After Mao's death, Deng was the de facto leader of China until he finally expired in 1997. He was succeeded by his protege Jiang Zemin.

Deng lived and studied in Paris from 1920-26.

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Political Biography: Deng Xiaoping

(Teng Hsiao-p'ing)

(b. Sichuan Province, 24 Aug. 1904; d. 19 Feb. 1997) Chinese; de facto leader of China 1978 – 97 Deng's political career is one of remarkable ups and downs. Initially a close comrade of Mao Zedong, he was subsequently purged twice under Mao. However, he returned to take de facto control of the political structure and implement a series of radical reform in 1978. For much of the 1980s he was feted in the West as a great leader as he moved China away from its Maoist past to a more Western and market-orientated economic system, until his reputation became tarnished with the massacre of student demonstrators in Beijing in June 1989.

Deng was the youngest of a small group of young Communists who were sent on a work-study programme in France by the Communist International. Deng was prominent in the radical student and labour movement in Lyon, and with Zhou Enlai recruited young Chinese in Europe to the Communist cause. Returning to China, Deng supported Mao's view that the peasantry were a positive revolutionary force, and was subsequently heavily criticized by Li Lisan — the first and mildest of his official condemnations. A veteran of the Long March, Deng also served as a political commissar in the second Field Army in his native south-west China.

After a brief period in charge of the south-west region after 1949, Deng was brought into the central political apparatus where he served as party secretary-general. Despite his impressive leadership credentials, Deng's rapid promotion to central leadership owed much to Mao's patronage. It is sometimes forgotten that Deng was once a very strong supporter of Mao, particularly during the formative years of the Great Leap Forward. However, when the Great Leap collapsed into the great famine, Deng changed his view, or at least changed his allegiances. Together with Liu Shaoqi and the economist Chen Yun, Deng oversaw the retreat from the Great Leap from 1961 to 1966, and the reinstatement of more orthodox Leninist political and economic disciplines. Deng argued that if a policy was successful in generating economic recovery, then it should be accepted and not subjected to tests of political correctness. If market mechanisms helped bring about recovery, then market mechanisms were good. This was anathema for Mao, and the start of bitter conflict between the two.

Even though Mao, as chairman of the party, remained theoretically in control, he later claimed that Deng did not consult him once during this period, and that Deng would sit with his deaf ear to Mao at party meetings. Mao also suspected that Deng and Liu had deliberately obstructed his socialist education movement of 1962 – 4, and that these two men were the single biggest obstacle to the implementation of true (i.e. Maoist) socialist principles in China. Thus, when Mao launched the Cultural Revolution to purify the party of these heretical influences, Deng was designated as the second worst class enemy in the party (behind Liu Shaoqi).

Deng suffered massive humiliation and hardship during the Cultural Revolution, as did the rest of his family (his son, Deng Pufang, was paralysed by a "fall" from a window). However, his treatment was partly tempered by Zhou Enlai's intervention, and Zhou played a leading role in ensuring Deng's rehabilitation in 1973. From 1973 to February 1976, Deng worked as the deputy to the ailing Premier Zhou Enlai, who saw Deng as a crucial counter-balance to the radical Maoist Gang of Four. The extent to which Deng owed his position to Zhou's patronage became clear in 1976. Once Zhou died in February, the left moved to oust Deng. When a spontaneous mass demonstration occurred in Tiananmen Square in April in support of Zhou (and by implication Deng), Deng was accused of orchestrating a counter-revolutionary movement. The demonstration was brutally suppressed, and for a second time in ten years, Deng was purged.

Deng found a safe haven in the south under the protection of the military leader, Wei Guoqing. After Hua Guofeng's succession to Mao, the clamour for Deng's rehabilitation grew ever louder. Whilst other leaders lobbied for Deng's return, Deng wrote an open letter to the Central Committee explaining that he only wanted to serve under Hua. On a popular level, the Democracy Wall movement in Beijing raised difficult questions about Hua's own Cultural Revolution record and called for a new polity. It is notable that once Deng returned to power he acted to weaken those forced that had helped his own rehabilitation — he reshuffled China's military leaders (including Wei Guoqing) to cut them off from their power bases, and closed down the Democracy Wall.

From 1978, Deng oversaw the radical reformation of the basis of the Chinese economy. For much of this period, Deng acted without any formal position of power. He instead acted as the crucial power broker behind the scenes, making and breaking factional alliances to maintain the reform momentum. Even his closest colleagues were dispensable if they got in the way of greater goals. Thus, Deng promoted both Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang to central leadership, but allowed both men to fall from grace when their actions threatened party unity and undermined the reform process.

The fall of Zhao Ziyang in 1989 accompanied the Tiananmen massacre of 4 June. This event perhaps more than anything epitomized Deng's vision of reform in China. The whole point of reform was to bolster the party's grip on power. Economic reform was essential in that it increased the party's popularity, but political reform that threatened the party could not be countenanced. Those elements of Deng's leadership that the West so supported were part of the same strategy that resulted in the human rights abuses that the West so despised. The party's continued grip on power despite the problems generated by reform and events in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe show that in his own terms, Deng's leadership has so far been a great success.

Biography: Deng Xiaoping

Deng Xiaoping (Teng Hsiao-p'ing) (1904-1997) became the most powerful leader in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in the 1970s. He served as the chairman of the Communist party's Military Commission and was the chief architect of China's modernization and economic reforms during the 1980s.

Born in Guangan, Sichuan Province, in 1904, Deng joined the Chinese Communist party (CCP) in 1924 while on a work-study program in France. Before returning to China in 1926 he went to Moscow, where he studied for several months.

During the fabled Long March of 1934-1935 Deng served first as director of the political department, and then as the political commissar, of the First Army Corps. After the war with Japan began in 1937 Deng was appointed political commissar of the 129th Division, one of the three divisions in the reorganized Communist Eighth Route Army, which was commanded by Liu Bocheng, also a native of Sichuan. The forces under the two Sichuanese grew into a large military machine and became one of the four largest Communist army units during the war. It was renamed the Second Field Army in 1946 when the civil war began. In the critical Huai-Hai battles in East China during November 1948-January 1949, Deng served as the secretary of a special five-man General Front Committee to coordinate the strategy of participating Communist troops and direct the military actions. In 1949-1950 the Second Field Army took Southwest China, and Deng became the ranking party leader there in the early 1950s.

Deng rose quickly in the leadership hierarchy after his transfer to Peking in 1952. He became CCP secretary-general in 1954 and a member of the Politburo the following year after he supervised the purge of two recalcitrant regional leaders. During the Eighth CCP Congress in 1956 Deng was elevated to the six-man Politburo Standing Committee and appointed general secretary, heading the party secretariat. By then, he had become one of the half dozen most powerful men in China.

Exile and Return

By many accounts Deng was an able, talented, and knowledgeable man. He was nicknamed "a living encyclopedia" by his colleagues. Chairman Mao Tse-tung, the architect of the PRC, allegedly pointed Deng out to Khrushchev of the U.S.S.R. and said, "See that little man there? He is highly intelligent and has a great future ahead of him." Deng visited the Soviet Union several times in the 1950s and the 1960s, as he was closely involved in Sino-Soviet relations and their dispute over the international Communist movement.

Mao and Deng parted ways in the 1960s as they disagreed over the strategy of economic development and other policies. Deng's pragmatism, embodied in his well-known remark, "It does not matter whether they are black cats or white cats; so long as they catch mice, they are good cats," was heresy to Mao's ears. Mao also resented Deng for making decisions without consulting him - he scolded Deng in a 1961 party meeting: "Which emperor did this?" In 1966 Mao launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) and mobilized the youthful Red Guards to purge the "capitalist powerholders" in the party, such as Deng. From 1969 to 1973, Deng and his family were exiled to a "May 7 cadre school" in rural Jiangxi to undergo reeducation, in which he performed manual labor and studied the writings of Mao and Marx. Deng's elder son, Deng Pufang, was permanently crippled in an assault by Red Guards.

In the spring of 1973 Deng was brought back to Peking and reinstated a vice-premier in the wake of a major realignment of political forces, which resulted from the demise of Defense Minister Lin Piao and the purge of Lin's followers. Deng's ability and expertise were highly valued in the Chinese leadership and he quickly assumed important roles. In late 1973 he carried out a major reshuffle of regional military leaders and was elevated to the Politburo. In April 1974 he journeyed to New York to address a special United Nations session, in which he expounded Mao's theory of the "Three Worlds."

As Premier Chou Enlai was hospitalized after May 1974, the burden of leadership and administration increasingly fell on Deng's shoulders. In January 1975 Deng was elevated to a party vice-chairman, the senior vice-premier, and the army chief of staff. However, Deng's eagerness to carry out "four modernizations" and the political reforms alienated Mao and other radicals led by Mao's wife Chiang Ch'ing (Jiang Qing).

Thus, soon after Premier Chou died on January 8, 1976, Deng became the target of attack in the Chinese media, and on April 7 the party Politburo passed a resolution at Mao's urging to oust Deng from all leadership posts. After Mao's death in September 1976 Deng's allies prevailed and Deng was reinstated in July 1977, the opposition of new Party Chairman Hua Guofeng not withstanding.

After Deng's political comeback and in his struggle for ascendency thereafter, his foremost task was to destroy the cult of Mao and to downgrade Mao's ideological authority. Another powerful measure of de-Maoization was to put the "Gang of Four" on public trial, which began in Peking on November 20, 1980. These four radical leaders, including Mao's widow Chiang Ch'ing, were the late chairman's most ardent supporters and the prime movers behind the GPCR, on which they rode to power. The trial symbolized the triumph of veteran officials, led by Deng, who had fallen victim to the radical crusade between 1966 and 1976.

Moreover, Deng also used the trial as the coup de grace against Chairman Hua Guofeng. Although Hua was not a defendant, he did collaborate with the radicals before Mao's death. In a central committee plenum in June 1981 Hu Yaobang, Deng's protege, replaced Hua as the party chairman.

Reform Leader

Deng's economic policies required opening China to the rest of the world in order to attract foreign investment and to educate students abroad in the latest technologies. Accordingly, the People's Republic of China in 1978 signed a Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Japan. In 1979, Deng obtained his nation's official recognition from the United States. Sino-Russian relations were gradually improved over the next decade, and he achieved the long-cherished goal of recovering the British colony of Hong Kong through an agreement scheduled for implementation in 1997.

These diplomatic successes supplemented and eased major changes in the domestic economy. Deng found China's industrial progress impeded by the imbalances of the Cultural Revolution, which stressed investment in heavy industry while virtually ignoring, consumer production, agriculture, transportation, and energy production. As a result, wages and farm prices were too low, and consumer goods were in short supply.

To combat this situation, Deng reduced capital investment in heavy industry, increased prices paid by the state to farmers, and arranged a series of bonuses to raise workers' incomes. Farmers were encouraged to sell more produce privately, and a rapid growth of free markets for farm produce occurred. The communal labor system was virtually eliminated from the rural communes, and fields were leased to farm families on terms that allowed them more autonomy in determining what crops to plant. Agricultural production increased dramatically while, at the same time, a significant proportion of the rural population transferred its activities from farming to various kinds of light industry and trade. More free markets sprang up for distribution of these products, and some state-owned factories were placed under the control of their managers, who were instructed to take into account the profitability and market conditions for their products.

Fought to Maintain Political Stability

Throughout these reforms, Deng insisted upon maintaining China's socialist system. As ever greater reliance was placed on market forces to determine prices, it became increasingly difficult to balance socialist principles with capitalist effects. The reforms resulted in a generally improved standard of living but produced inequalities that were greatly resented. Inflation in the 1980s, a serious problem for the first time in a generation, accompanied increased unemployment and ever-growing disparities in living standards. Deng's inability to reform the blatant corruption and enrichment of many party and government officials and their families created new tensions.

Such tensions fed the long-smoldering discontent of academics who had opposed the party's dictatorship from the beginning and fueled repeated popular demands, especially among students, for a greater degree of democracy in China. In 1979, some of Deng's supporters had openly opposed his dictatorship and called for a democratic political system, and it was Deng himiself who led the suppression of their democracy movement, imprisoned some of their leaders, and banned unofficial organizations and publications. Again in December of 1986, widespread unauthorized student demonstrations were repressed by the government. Hu Yaobang was blamed for this movement, forced to resign, and became a hero to the students. Zhao Ziyang replaced him as head of the party.

Deng's insistence through the 1980s on maintaining China's socialist system while putting his economic reforms into place had by 1989 forced him into an untenable corner of contradictions; he was presiding over increasing economic disparities in an ostensibly socialist society. The opposition's discontent ripened that year into plans for renewed student demonstrations on the 70th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement. When Hu Yaoband died in April, the demonstrators' leaders incorporated into their plans memorials that resembled their 1976 protests following Chou Enlai's death.

Focusing on demands for greater democracy, a series of student demonstrations at Tiananmen Square coincided with Mikhail Gorbachev's official state visit to Beijing and proved a serious embarrassment to China's leaders - one made worse by world-wide television coverage. The democracy movement quickly spread to other cities, threatening both social stability and Communist party leadership.

Deng, who began his political career 70 years earlier on one side of the May Fourth Movement of 1919, now found himself on quite another as party leaders began to weigh the possibility of compromise with the students. He chose, instead, confrontation. Restructuring his alliances, he forced Zhao Ziyang's resignation and relied on his old military friends to suppress the demonstrations. The violence that followed on June 4, 1989, is believed to have killed hundreds of demonstrators in Beijing alone.

Final Years

Worldwide condemnation of the massacre in Tiananmen Square and the uneasy domestic peace that followed brought a tightening of controls over the Chinese people, but did not shake Deng from his dedication to the Communist party's dictatorship nor his pursuit of modernization and economic reform.

From time to time, Deng compromised with other leaders, slowed down the pace of reform, or shifted priorities to placate his critics, but this did not seriously effect Deng's control of the regime's direction. Recognizing his advanced age, Deng sought to assure continuation of his "open door" policy and other political and economic reforms by putting CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang, Premier Zhao Ziyang, and many other like-minded younger officials in positions of responsibility. In November of 1989, Deng resigned his last official position as head of the Central Military Commission. However, he retained paramount authority and continued to guide Chinese policy from his retirement.

The failed Soviet coup in August 1991 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Communist party reinforced Deng's belief that the fate of China, as well as that of Chinese communism, depended heavily on the state of China's economy. Deng understood well that economic reform meant turning loose forces that might eventually topple the Communist party but believed strongly in the party's ability to deliver economic growth and rising incomes. Deng's commitment to change and chastisement of those who dared oppose him forced many hard-line conservative elders to retire and cleared the way for Communist party to fully embrace his reforms. In 1992 the 14th Party Congress signalled the acceptance of Deng's ideas by making a socialist market economy a national goal for the year 2000.

In his last years Deng instigated debate within the Communist party on the need to balance economic reform with political stability, but was unable to impose a convincing plan for stability after his death. As Deng's health slipped into precipitous decline, the powerful patriarch became farther removed from his duties of daily decision-making. His last public appearance was during lunar new year festivities in early 1994, and on February 19, 1997 he died at age 92.

Deng Xiaoping 邓小平

General Secretary of the Communist Party of China
In office 1956 – 1967
Preceded by	Zhang Wentian
Succeeded by	position abolished
Chairman of the Central Military Commission of CCP
In office 1981 – 1989
Preceded by	Hua Guofeng
Succeeded by	Jiang Zemin

Born	August 22 1904(1904--) Guang'an, Sichuan
Died	February 19 1997 (aged 92) Beijing
Nationality	Chinese
Political party	Communist Party of China

Childhood

Deng was born Deng Xiansheng (simplified Chinese: 邓先圣; traditional Chinese: 鄧先聖) on August 22, 1904 in Paifang village in Xiexing township, Guang'an County, Sichuan Province. While in school he adopted the name of Deng Xixian (邓希贤). He was educated in France, as were many notable Asian revolutionaries (such as Ho Chi Minh and Zhou Enlai), where he discovered Marxism-Leninism.

His first wife, Zhang Xiyuan, one of his schoolmates from Moscow, died when she was 24, a few days after giving birth to Deng's first child, a baby girl, who also died. His second wife, Jin Weiying, left him after he came under political attack in 1933. His third wife, Zhuo Lin, was the daughter of an industrialist in Yunnan Province. She became a member of the Communist Party in 1938, and a year later married Deng in front of Mao's cave dwelling in Yan'an. They had five children: three daughters (Deng Lin, Deng Nan, Deng Rong) and two sons (Deng Pufang, Deng Zhifang).

Early career

In the summer of 1919, Deng Xiaoping graduated from the Chongqing Preparatory School. He and 80 schoolmates, participating in a work-study program for Chinese students, boarded a ship for France (traveling steerage) and in October arrived in Marseilles. Deng, the youngest of all the Chinese students, had just turned 15^[1]. He spent most of his time in France working, first at the Le Creusot Iron and Steel plant in central France, then later as a fitter in the Renault factory in the Paris suburb of Billancourt, as a fireman on a locomotive and as a kitchen helper in restaurants. He barely earned enough to survive. He also briefly attended middle schools in Bayeux and Chatillon.

In France, under the influence of his seniors (Zhao Shiyan, Zhou Enlai among others), Deng began to study Marxism and did political propaganda work. In 1921 he joined the Chinese Communist Youth League in Europe. In the second half of 1923 he joined the Chinese Communist Party and became one of the leading members of the General Branch of the Youth League in Europe. During 1926 Deng studied at Moscow in the then-USSR. He returned to China in early 1926.

In 1928 Deng led the Baise Uprising in Guangxi province against the Kuomintang government. The uprising soon failed and Deng went to the Central Soviet Area in Jiangxi province.

He was a veteran of the Long March, during which Deng served as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. While acting as political commissar for Liu Bocheng, he organized several important military campaigns during the war with Japan and during the Civil War against the Kuomintang. In late November 1948, Deng led the final assault on KMT forces under the direct command of Chiang Kai-shek in his native Sichuan. The city of Chongqing fell to the PLA on December 1 and Deng was immediately appointed mayor and political commissar. (Chiang Kai-shek, who had moved his headquarters to Chongqing in mid-November fled to the provincial capital of Chengdu. This last mainland Chinese city to be held by the KMT fell December 10 and Chiang fled to Taiwan on the same day.) When the PRC was founded in 1949 Deng was sent to oversee issues in the Southwestern Region, and acted as its First Secretary. He was instrumental in holding "talks" with "Tibetan leaders", ensuring some "support for China's eventual annexation of Tibet" (No source sited) ^{[dubious – discuss]}.

Political Ascension

As a supporter of Mao Zedong, Deng was named by Mao to several important posts in the new government, including Secretary General of the Communist Party, soon after the formation of the People's Republic of China.

Chinese poster saying: "Thoroughly pulverize the Liu-Deng reactionary line!", 1967 ("Liu" referring to Liu Shaoqi)

After officially supporting Mao Zedong in his Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957, Deng became General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and ran the country's daily affairs with then President Liu Shaoqi. Amid growing disenchantment with Mao's Great Leap Forward, Deng and Liu gained influence within the CCP. They embarked on economic reforms that bolstered their prestige among the party apparatus and the national populace. Deng and Liu advocated more pragmatic policies, as opposed to Mao's radicalist ideas.

Mao grew apprehensive that the prestige Deng and Liu gained from these efforts could lead to himself being reduced to a mere figurehead. For this amongst other reasons, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966, during which Deng fell out of favor and was forced to retire from all his offices. He was sent to the Xinjian County Tractor Factory in rural Jiangxi province to work as a regular worker. While there Deng spent his spare time writing. He was purged nationally, but to a lesser scale than Liu Shaoqi.

During the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping and his family were targeted by Red Guards, Red Guards imprisoned Deng's son, Deng Pufang. Deng Pufang was tortured and forced out of the window of a four-story building, becoming a paraplegic.

Nonetheless, when Premier Zhou Enlai fell ill from cancer, Deng Xiaoping became Zhou's choice for a successor, and Zhou was able to convince Mao to bring Deng Xiaoping back into politics in 1974 as Executive Vice-Premier, in practice running daily affairs. However, the Cultural Revolution was not yet over, and a radical political group known as the Gang of Four, led by Mao's estranged wife Jiang Qing, competed for power within the Communist Party. The Gang saw Deng as their greatest challenge to power. Zhou Enlai died in January 1976, to an outpouring of national grief, and Deng lost firm support within the party. After delivering Zhou's official eulogy at the state funeral, Deng was purged again at the instigation of the Gang of Four, though the decision of the Politburo to relieve him of all his posts because of "political mistakes" was unanimous.

Re-emergence of Deng

Deng gradually emerged as the de-facto leader of China in the few years following Mao's death in 1976. Prior to Mao's death, the only official position he held was that of Executive Vice-Premier of the State Council. By carefully mobilizing his supporters within the Chinese Communist Party, Deng was able to outmaneuver Mao's anointed successor Hua Guofeng, who had previously pardoned him, and then oust Hua from his top leadership positions by 1980-1981.

In contrast to previous leadership changes, Deng allowed Hua to retain membership in the Central Committee until November 2002, to quietly retire, and helped to set a precedent that losing a high-level leadership struggle would not result in physical harm.

Deng then repudiated the Cultural Revolution and, in 1977, launched the "Beijing Spring", which allowed open criticism of the excesses and suffering that had occurred during the period. Meanwhile, he was the impetus for the abolishment of the class background system. Under this system, the CCP put up employment barriers to Chinese deemed to be associated with the former landlord class, its removal therefore effectively allowed Chinese capitalists to join the Communist Party.

Deng gradually outmaneuvered his political opponents. By encouraging public criticism of the Cultural Revolution, he weakened the position of those who owed their political positions to that event, while strengthening the position of those like himself who had been purged during that time. Deng also received a great deal of popular support.

As Deng gradually consolidated control over the CCP, Hua was replaced by Zhao Ziyang as premier in 1980, and by Hu Yaobang as party chief in 1981. Deng remained the most influential CCP cadre, although after 1987 his only official posts were as chairman of the state and Communist Party Central Military Commissions.

Originally, the president was conceived of as a figurehead head of state, with actual state power resting in the hands of the premier and the party chief, both offices being conceived of as held by separate people in order to prevent a cult of personality from forming (as it did in the case of Mao); the party would develop policy, whereas the state would execute it.

Deng's elevation to China's new number-one figure meant that the historical and ideological questions around Mao Zedong had to be addressed properly. Because Deng wished to pursue deep reforms, to continue Mao's hard-line "class struggle" policies and mass public campaigns was unreasonable. In 1982 the Central Committee of the Communist Party released a document entitled On the Various Historical Issues since the Founding of the People's Republic of China. Mao retained his status as a "great Marxist, proletarian revolutionary, militarist, and general", and the undisputed founder and pioneer of the country and the People's Liberation Army. "His accomplishments must be considered before his mistakes", the document declared. Deng personally commented that Mao was "seven parts good, three parts bad." The document also stirred away the prime responsibility of the Cultural Revolution from Mao, although it did state that "Mao mistakenly began the Cultural Revolution", the "counter-revolutionary cliques" of the Gang of Four and Lin Biao were directed the majority of the blame.

Opening up

Deng Xiaoping meeting with Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to President Carter, in 1979

Under Deng's direction, relations with the West improved markedly. Deng traveled abroad and had a series of amicable meetings with western leaders, and became the first Chinese leader to visit the United States in 1979 to meet with President Carter at the White House. Shortly after this meeting, the U.S. broke diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan) and established them with the People's Republic of China, and the People's Republic of China in turn launched an offensive into Vietnam, known as the Sino-Vietnamese War, resulting in an estimated 40,000 to 200,000 fatalities.

Sino-Japanese relations also improved significantly. Deng used Japan as an example of a rapidly progressing economic power that sets a good example for China's future economic directions.

Another achievement was the agreement signed by Britain and China on December 19, 1984 (Sino-British Joint Declaration) under which Hong Kong was to be handed over to the PRC in 1997. With the end of the 99-year lease on the New Territories expiring, Deng agreed that the PRC would not interfere with Hong Kong's capitalist system for 50 years. A similar agreement was signed with Portugal for the return of colony Macau. Dubbed "one country-two systems", this fairly unprecedented approach has been touted by the PRC as a potential framework within which Taiwan could be reunited with the Mainland in more recent years.

Deng, however, did little to improve relations with the Soviet Union, continuing to adhere to the Maoist line of the Sino-Soviet Split era that the Soviet Union was a superpower equally as "hegemonist" as the United States, but even more threatening to China because of its geographical proximity.

Changing China: Economic Reforms

Deng Xiaoping (Teng Hsiao-p'ing), 1978 Person of the Year for TIME magazine.

Main article: Socialism with Chinese characteristics

Main article: Chinese economic reform

Improving relations with the outside world was the second of two important philosophical shifts outlined in Deng's program of reform termed Gaige Kaifang (lit. Reforms and Openness). The domestic social, political, and most notably, economic systems would undergo significant changes during Deng's time as leader. The goals of Deng's reforms were summed up by the Four Modernizations, those of agriculture, industry, science and technology and the military. The strategy for achieving these aims of becoming a modern, industrial nation was the socialist market economy. Deng argued that China was in the primary stage of socialism and that the duty of the party was to perfect so-called "socialism with Chinese characteristics." This interpretation of Chinese Marxism reduced the role of ideology in economic decision-making and deciding policies of proven effectiveness. Downgrading communitarian values but not necessarily the ideology of Marxism-Leninism himself, Deng emphasized that "socialism does not mean shared poverty". His theoretical justification for allowing market forces was given as such:

“

Planning and market forces are not the essential difference between socialism and capitalism. A planned economy is not the definition of socialism, because there is planning under capitalism; the market economy happens under socialism, too. Planning and market forces are both ways of controlling economic activity."^[2]

”

Unlike Hua Guofeng, Deng believed that no policy should be rejected outright simply because it was not associated with Mao, and unlike more conservative leaders such as Chen Yun, Deng did not object to policies on the grounds that they were similar to ones which were found in capitalist nations.

This political flexibility towards the foundations of socialism is strongly supported by quotes such as:

“

We mustn't fear to adopt the advanced management methods applied in capitalist countries (...) The very essence of socialism is the liberation and development of the productive systems (...) Socialism and market economy are not incompatible (...) We should be concerned about right-wing deviations, but most of all, we must be concerned about left-wing deviations."^[3]

”

Although Deng provided the theoretical background and the political support to allow economic reform to occur, it is in general consensus amongst historians that few of the economic reforms that Deng introduced were originated by Deng himself. Premier Zhou Enlai, for example, pioneered the Four Modernizations years before Deng. In addition, many reforms would be introduced by local leaders, often not sanctioned by central government directives. If successful and promising, these reforms would be adopted by larger and larger areas and ultimately introduced nationally. Many other reforms were influenced by the experiences of the East Asian Tigers.

This is in sharp contrast to the pattern in the perestroika undertaken by Mikhail Gorbachev in which most of the major reforms were originated by Gorbachev himself. The bottom-up approach of the Deng reforms, in contrast to the top-down approach of perestroika, was likely a key factor in the success of the former.^{[citation needed]}

Deng's reforms actually included the introduction of planned, centralized management of the macro-economy by technically proficient bureaucrats, abandoning Mao's mass campaign style of economic construction. However, unlike the Soviet model, management was indirect through market mechanisms.

Deng sustained Mao's legacy to the extent that he stressed the primacy of agricultural output and encouraged a significant decentralization of decision making in the rural economy teams and individual peasant households. At the local level, material incentives, rather than political appeals, were to be used to motivate the labor force, including allowing peasants to earn extra income by selling the produce of their private plots at free market.

In the main move toward market allocation, local municipalities and provinces were allowed to invest in industries that they considered most profitable, which encouraged investment in light manufacturing. Thus, Deng's reforms shifted China's development strategy to an emphasis on light industry and export-led growth.

Light industrial output was vital for a developing country coming from a low capital base. With the short gestation period, low capital requirements, and high foreign-exchange export earnings, revenues generated by light manufacturing were able to be reinvested in more technologically-advanced production and further capital expenditures and investments.

However, in sharp contrast to the similar but much less successful reforms in Yugoslavia and Hungary, these investments were not government mandated. The capital invested in heavy industry largely came from the banking system, and most of that capital came from consumer deposits. One of the first items of the Deng reforms was to prevent reallocation of profits except through taxation or through the banking system; hence, the reallocation in state-owned industries was somewhat indirect, thus making them more or less independent from government interference. In short, Deng's reforms sparked an industrial revolution in China.

These reforms were a reversal of the Maoist policy of economic self-reliance. China decided to accelerate the modernization process by stepping up the volume of foreign trade, especially the purchase of machinery from Japan and the West. By participating in such export-led growth, China was able to step up the Four Modernizations by attaining certain foreign funds, market, advanced technologies and management experiences, thus accelerating its economic development.

Deng attracted foreign companies to a series of Special Economic Zones, where foreign investment and market liberalization were encouraged.

The reforms centered on improving labor productivity as well. New material incentives and bonus systems were introduced. Rural markets selling peasants' homegrown products and the surplus products of communes were revived. Not only did rural markets increase agricultural output, they stimulated industrial development as well. With peasants able to sell surplus agricultural yields on the open market, domestic consumption stimulated industrialization as well and also created political support for more difficult economic reforms.

There are some parallels between Deng's market socialism especially in the early stages, and Lenin's New Economic Policy as well as those of Bukharin's economic policies, in that both foresaw a role for private entrepreneurs and markets based on trade and pricing rather than central planning.

An interesting anecdote on this note is the first meeting between Deng and Armand Hammer. Deng pressed the industrialist and former investor in Lenin's Soviet Union for as much information on the NEP as possible.

Crackdown of the Tiananmen Square Protests

The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 began mid-April 1989, following an official visit by Soviet Communist Party Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev, and triggered by the death of Hu Yaobang, the former party General Secretary. Hu was widely seen as a liberal-minded person and was forced to resign from his position by Deng Xiaoping and other influential leaders of the Politsburo.

Although the government declared martial law on May 20, the demonstrations continued. After deliberating among Communist party leaders, the use of military force to resolve the crisis was ordered, and Zhao Ziyang was ousted from political leadership. Soldiers and tanks from the 27th and 28th Armies of the People's Liberation Army were sent to take control of the city. These forces were confronted by Chinese students in the streets of Beijing and the ensuing violence resulted in both civilian and army deaths.

Estimates of civilian deaths which resulted vary: 400-800 (New York Times [1]), 1,000 (NSA), and 2,600 (Chinese Red Cross). Student protesters maintained that over 7,000 were tortured and killed. Following the violence, the government conducted widespread arrests to suppress, torture and kill the remaining supporters of the movement, limited access for the foreign press and controlled coverage of the events in the mainland Chinese press. The violent suppression of the Tiananmen Square protest caused widespread international condemnation of the PRC government. Deng Xiaoping, along with other hardliners, especially Li Peng, were generally blamed for the events. Critics accused Deng of suppressing any signs of political freedom that would undermine the direction of his economic reforms.

Deng's involvement in the events proved that he still possessed certain dictatorial powers. Deng and subsequent governments continue to justify crackdown on protests as a measure to enforce social stability for effective economic progress, these crackdowns involved torture, rape and mass murder. In Richard Evan's "Deng Xiaoping and the Making of Modern China" there are some hints as to how conflicted and confused elements in the government may have been. (1) After Tiananmen, Deng in a speech to officers praises the security forces "who had died 'as heroes' in the conflict and then offered his sympathy to the wounded... Yet he did not say a word about the conduct of the operations by their commanders or about orders ... received from above." (2) "A story from a party source that Deng called in Li Peng and Yang Shangkun at about the time of his address to the generals and told them that they had bungled the military operation appallingly." (3) "When the time came to replace Zhao Ziyang as general secretary, it was not Li Peng, who had decreed martial law and had been seen on television giving orders to the population on the evening of 3 June, but Jiang Zemin, the party secretary and mayor of Shanghai, who was chosen to succeed him."

For years after the crackdown, opponents of Deng, centered mainly around college campuses, would anonymously burn and smash little glass bottles as a gesture of contempt toward him, especially on the crackdown anniversary. (The word for little bottle sounds exactly like Xiaoping (Chinese: 小平; pinyin: xiǎopíng) in Chinese.)

After resignation and the 1992 Southern Tour

Officially, Deng decided to retire from top positions when he stepped down as Chairman of the Central Military Commission in 1989, and retired from the political scene in 1992. China, however, was still in the era of Deng Xiaoping. He continued to be widely regarded as the "paramount leader" of the country, believed to have backroom control. Deng was recognized officially as "The chief architect of China's economic reforms and China's socialist modernization". To the Communist Party, he was believed to have set a good example for communist cadres who refused to retire at old age. He broke earlier conventions of holding offices for life. He was often referred to as simply Comrade Xiaoping, with no title attached.

Because of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Deng's power had been significantly weakened and there was a growing formalist faction opposed to Deng's reforms within the Communist Party. To reassert his economic agenda, in the spring of 1992, Deng made his famous southern tour of China, visiting Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and spending the New Years in Shanghai, in reality using his travels as a method of reasserting his economic policy after his retirement from office. On his tour, Deng made various speeches and generated large local support for his reformist platform. He stressed the importance of economic construction in China, and criticized those who were against further economic and openness reforms. Deng's catchphrase "To Get Rich Is Glorious," unleashed a wave of personal entrepreneurship that continues to drive China's economy today. He stated that the "leftist" elements of Chinese society were much more dangerous than "rightist" ones. Deng was instrumental in the opening of Shanghai's Pudong New Area, revitalizing the city as China's economic hub.

His southern tour was initially ignored by the Beijing and national media, which were then under the control of Deng's political rivals. President Jiang Zemin showed little support. Challenging their media control, Deng penned several articles supporting reforms under the pen name "Huang Fuping" in Shanghai's Liberation Daily newspaper, which quickly gained support amongst local officials and populace. Deng's new wave of policy rhetoric gave way to a new political storm between factions in the Politburo. President Jiang eventually sided with Deng, and the national media finally reported Deng's southern tour several months after it occurred. Observers suggest that Jiang's submission to Deng's policies had solidified his position as Deng's heir apparent. On the backstage, Deng's southern tour aided his reformist allies' climb to the apex of national power, and permanently changed China's direction toward economic development. In addition, the eventual outcome of the southern tour proved that Deng was still the most powerful man in China. ^[4]

Deng's insistence on economic openness aided in the phenomenal growth levels of the coastal areas, especially the "Golden Triangle" region surrounding Shanghai. Deng reiterated that "some areas must get rich before others", and asserted that the wealth from coastal regions will eventually be transferred to aid economic construction inland. The theory, however, faced numerous challenges when put into practice, as provincial governments moved to protect their own interests. The policy contributed to a widening wealth disparity between the affluent coast and the underdeveloped hinterlands.

Death and reaction

Deng Xiaoping's ashes lie in state in Beijing, February 1997. The banner reads Memorial Service of Comrade Deng Xiaoping

Deng Xiaoping died on February 19, 1997, at age 92 from a lung infection and Parkinson's disease, but his influence continued. Even though Jiang Zemin was in firm control, government policies maintained Deng's ideas, thoughts, methods, and direction. Officially, Deng was eulogized as a "great Marxist, great Proletarian Revolutionary, statesman, military strategist, and diplomat; one of the main leaders of the Communist Party of China, the People's Liberation Army of China, and the People's Republic of China; The great architect of China's socialist opening-up and modernized construction; the founder of Deng Xiaoping theory". ^[5]

Although the public was largely prepared for Deng's death, as rumors had been circulating for a long time, the death of Deng was followed by the greatest publicly sanctioned display of grief for any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong himself. However, in contrast to Mao's death, Deng's death in the media was announced without any titles attached (Mao was called the Great Leader and Teacher, Deng was simply "Comrade"), or any emotional overtones from the news anchors that delivered the message. At 10 A.M. on the morning of February 24, from all walks of life in the entire nation, people were asked by Premier Li Peng to pause in silence in unison for three minutes. The nation's flags flew at half-staff for over a week. The nationally televised funeral, which was a simple and relatively private affair attended by the country's leaders and Deng's family, was broadcast on all cable channels. Jiang Zemin's emotional eulogy to the late reformist leader declared, "The Chinese people love Comrade Deng Xiaoping, thank Comrade Deng Xiaoping, mourn for Comrade Deng Xiaoping, and cherish the memory of Comrade Deng Xiaoping because he devoted his life-long energies to the Chinese people, performed immortal feats for the independence and liberation of the Chinese nation." Jiang vowed to continue Deng's policies. After the funeral, Deng was cremated, he donated his organs to medical research, and his ashes were subsequently scattered at sea, according to his wishes. For the next two weeks, Chinese state media ran news stories and documentaries related to Deng's life and death, with the regular 7PM National News program in the evening lasting almost two hours over the regular broadcast time.

Domestically, again in contrast to Mao's death, during which people wept on the streets, the reaction to Deng's death was largely calm, with no stock market crashes, no business closures, no wearing special armbands of grief, and no interruption to life in general. Certain segments of the Chinese population, notably the modern Maoists and radical reformers (the far left and the far right) both had negative views on Deng. In the year that followed, songs like "Story of the Spring" by Dong Wenhua, which were created in Deng's honour shortly after Deng's Southern Tour in 1992, once again were widely played.

There was a significant amount of international reaction to Deng's death. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Deng was to be remembered "in the international community at large as a primary architect of China's modernization and dramatic economic development". French President Jacques Chirac said "In the course of this century, few men have, as much as Deng Xiaoping, led a vast human community through such profound and determining changes"; British Prime Minister John Major commented about Deng's key role in the return of Hong Kong to Chinese control; Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien called Deng a "pivotal figure" in Chinese history. The Taiwan presidential office also sent its condolences, saying it longed for peace, cooperation, and prosperity. The Dalai Lama voiced regret.^[6]

Legacy

As a pivotal figure in modern Chinese history, Deng Xiaoping's legacy is very complex and opinion remains divided. Deng changed China from a country obsessed with mass political movements to a country focused on economic construction. In the process, Deng was unrelenting of the political clout of the Communist Party of China, as evidenced by the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests. Although some criticize Deng for his actions in 1989, China's significant economic growth in the 1980s and 1990s was largely credited to Deng's policies. Put into sharp contrast with Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika, Deng's economic socialist market economy socio-economic model was a largely novel concept.

The same policies, however, left a large number of issues unresolved. These issues, including unprofitable state-owned enterprises, regional imbalance, urban-rural wealth disparity, official corruption, and the resurfacing of evils within a more liberal society, were exacerbated during Jiang Zemin's term (1993-2003). Although some areas and segments of society were notably better off than before, the re-emergence of significant inequality did little to legitimize the Communist Party's founding ideals, as the party faced increasing social unrest. Deng's emphasis in light industry, compounded with China's large population, created a large cheap labour market which became significant on the global stage. Favouring joint-ventures over domestic industry, Deng allowed foreign capital to pour into the country. While some see these policies as a fast method to put China on par with the west, Chinese nationalists criticize Deng for embracing too many foreign ideas to the point where domestic industries are now insignificant.

Deng was an able diplomat, and he was largely credited with the successes of China in foreign affairs. Deng's time as China's leader saw agreements signed to return both Hong Kong and Macao to Chinese sovereignty. Deng's era, set under the backdrop of the Cold war, saw the best Sino-American relations in history. Some Chinese nationalists assert, however, that Deng's foreign policy was one of appeasement, and past wrongs such as war crimes committed by Japan during the World War II were forgotten to make way for economic partnership.

Memorials

When compared to the memorials of other former CCP leaders, those dedicated to Deng have been relatively low profile, in keeping with Deng's pragmatism. Deng's portrait, unlike that of Mao, has never been hung publicly anywhere in China. Likewise, he was cremated after death, as opposed to being embalmed like Mao.

There are a few public displays of Deng in the country. A bronze statue of Deng was erected on November 14, 2000, at the grand plaza of Lenhuao Mountain Park (simplified Chinese: 莲花山公园; traditional Chinese: 蓮花山公園; pinyin: liánhuā shān gōngyuán) of Shenzhen. This statue is dedicated to Deng's role as a great planner and contributor to the development of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, starting in 1984. The statue is 6 meters high, with an additional 3.68 meter base. The statue shows Deng striding forward confidently. In addition, in many coastal areas and on the island province of Hainan, Deng is seen on large roadside billboards with messages emphasizing economic reform or his policy of One Country, Two Systems.

Another bronze statue of Deng was dedicated August 13, 2004 in the city of Guang'an, Deng's hometown, in southwest China's Sichuan Province. The statue was erected to commemorate Deng's 100th birthday. The statue shows Deng, dressed casually, sitting on a chair and smiling. The Chinese characters for "Statue of Deng Xiaoping” are inscribed on the pedestal. The original calligraphy was written by Jiang Zemin, then Chairman of the Central Military Commission^[7].

In Bishkek, capital of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, there is a 6-lane boulevard, 25 meters wide and 3.5 km long, the Deng Xiaoping Prospekt, which was dedicated on June 18, 1997. A 2 meter high red granite monument stands at the east end of this route. The epigraph in memory of Deng is written in Chinese, Russian and Kirghiz ^[8]^[9]^[10].

Assassination attempts

Based on the Chinese government's own admission, Deng Xiaoping is the senior Chinese leader who had experienced the most numerous assassination attempts. According to the recent declassified information after Hu Jintao came to power, there were seven attempts on Deng's life from 1960s to 1980s and most of the cases remain unsolved, and all of them rooted by the Maoists' opposition to Deng's reform:

In December 21, 1969, Deng Xiaoping was exiled to an abandoned infantry school at a place named Wangcheng Hill in Xinjian County of Jiangxi province for his house arrest under the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee's executive order #1. On the morning of December 23, 1969, a band of militia stormed and machine gunned the compound. However, the militia mistook the guards' residence for that of Deng and many of them were killed when the guards returned fire. The incident was later blamed on Lin Biao, but in the early 1980s, it was decided that Lin Biao was not involved. The case remains unsolved today.
On February 21, 1973, an Ilyushin Il-14 was sent from Beijing to Jiangxi to take Deng Xiaoping back to Beijing to resume his work, but on the same day, an urgent order from Beijing instructed Deng to take train instead, with additional protection of a squad personally led by the chief-of-staff of the local military district. It was reported that this change of plan was conducted by Zhou Enlai to protect Deng, and the Ilyushin Il-14 Deng originally planned to take exploded above Anhui on its way back. This case wa