DENG Xiaoping Dèng Xiǎopíng 邓小平 1904–1997 Statesman

◀ Democratic Progressive Party Comprehensive index starts in volume 5, page 2667.

Deng Xiaoping survived upheavals in the Chi- (1931–1934) to be with Mao Zedong. (The Jiangsi Soviet nese Communist Party and in his own career was an independent government established by Mao and to become the paramount leader of China dur- Zhu De, one of the early Red Army military rulers, in ing the 1980s. He helped China become one of Jiangxi Province in southeastern China, after the Guo- mindang [GMD] led purge of Communist activists in the fastest-growing economies in the world, Shanghai in 1927.) During the war against the Japanese and kickstarted the process of Opening Up from 1937 to 1945, Deng occupied a number of positions and Reform, from 1978 which continues to the as political commissar in the Eight Route Army, one of present day. After years of autocratic rule un- the Communist’s main forces. He continued his military der Mao Zedong, Deng moved China in a new career during the Civil War against the GMD from 1946 economic direction while avoiding a complete to 1949. rupture with the past. After the civil war Deng’s loyalty to the party was re- warded when he was appointed vice premier. He primar- ily worked in the ministry of finance, where he formulated economic policy. During a period in the 1950s now widely eng Xiaoping, eldest son of a prosperous land- regarded as one of reconstruction and consolidation, he lord, was born in Paifang village, Sichuan proved himself as a capable administrator. He worked, in Province in 1904. But by 16, he had already left particular, with Liu Shaoqi, and Zhou Enlai, the Chinese home. He joined the Communist Party soon after its for- Premier from 1949, to improve productivity in the coun- mal founding in China, in 1923, and, like many of his con- tryside, still the home to the vast majority of Chinese peo- temporaries, used a work-study program to go to France, ple. But a more assertive role by Mao Zedong in economic living there for six years, and working, for a period, at the policy making from 1957 onwards, followed by a fall out Renault Factory on the outskirts of Paris. He was to spend with the USSR, and a purge of intellectuals and rightists, most of his time here, however, preoccupied with political led to the disastrous period of the Great Leap Forward. activism, becoming familiar with many future leaders of Deng was to be one of the main leaders, after this policy the CCP when it came to power. After his stay in France was admitted to be a mistake, in 1962–1963 in clearing up Deng went to Moscow, where he trained further as a po- the mess that had been created, instigating, under Presi- litical activist and organizer, though he only spent a brief dent Liu Shaoqi, a series of reforms that looked remark- period there. ably like those which reappeared from 1978, a system of After working as a Communist Party organizer in farmers having more freedom to grow different kinds of southwestern China, Deng moved to the Jiangsi Soviet crops; something approaching a primitive agricultural

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Chinese vice premier Deng Xiaoping applauds as President Jimmy Carter stands behind a podium at the White House, Wash- ington, D.C. 29 January 1979. Deng had a promi- nent role in negotiating with Richard Nixon during the American president’s visit to China in 1972. U.S. News & World Report Magazine Pho- tograph Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photo- graphs Division Wash- ington, D.C. produce free market even made a brief appearance. But office again in 1975. But the death of Mao in 1976, and the by 1965, Mao’s unease at what he regarded as capitalist decision by the then Chairman of the Party, and Mao’s tendencies in Liu, and by association in Deng, meant that chosen successor Hua Guofeng to arrest the radical lead- they were already under a cloud. Deng was one of high- ers, meant that once more Deng was returned to power, est ranking victims of the Cultural Revolution from 1966 this time making a reappearance during a football match onwards, condemned for being a revisionist and capitalist in 1977. He was appointed a Vice Premier the same year, roader, and removed from his position as General Secre- a position he served in until 1982. But despite his lack- tary of the Party in 1967. While spared Liu Shaoqi’s grim ing the formal titles of leadership, he was, from the 1978 fate of literally being deprived of medical treatment till he Third Plenum of the Tenth Party Congress, to all intents died of cancer, Deng’s son, Deng Pufang, at that time a and purposes the paramount leader of China. He worked, student at Qinghua University, was thrown from the third within a group of senior leaders, to steer China away from story of a building and disabled for life. Deng himself was the ideological and economic excesses of Maoism, dis- sent down to the countryside, spending much of the early mantling in the early 1980s most of the apparatus of Mao- 1970s in a tractor factory in Jiangsu. But in 1973, after the ist rule, and centralized economic control, and ushering Tenth Party Congress, and the fall of Mao’s own chosen in a period of bold reform. Such moves had him on the successor Lin Biao in 1971, Deng was rehabilitated. The front page of Time Magazine twice as Man of the Year. Party needed his administrative skills too much, and his His influence in causing China to liberalize its economy great mentor, Zhou Enlai, who was already ill with the while remaining a Communist Party controlled state are cancer that would finally kill him in 1975, needed Deng still being worked through to this day, with China, as a at his side. direct result of his reforms, becoming one of the world’s One of the most remarkable features of Deng’s ca- major economies. reer was his being unique in returning from the politi- This era was to end in June 1989 with the Tiananmen cal graveyard not once, but twice. Savagely attacked by Square Incident. Deng was many things, but he remained the group of extreme leftist leaders around Mao during a faithful Communist Party servant to the last, and he his final days, the Gang of Four, he was removed from saw the attempts to topple the Party from power as akin

Professor Winberg Chai and Deng Xiaoping in 1986.

to treason. Even though he had ostensibly retired from meeting in 1994, and dying in 1997, only a few months be- all formal positions of power by 1989, including Chair of fore one of his other major contributions, the successful the Central Military Commission, it is clear from papers return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty to the PRC, reportedly showing the deliberations of the Central Lead- occurred in June that year. Deng is now called the “chief ers during the period, and subsequently smuggled out of architect of China’s economic reforms” and although his China and published in the West, that Deng’s say was historic contribution is not as dramatic as that of Mao decisive in ordering the put down of the demonstrators, Zedong’s, it may well prove to be both more profound in many of them students, by the People’s Liberation Army its historic effects, and a great deal longer lived. (PLA). It was a role for which he was to be internationally Kerry BROWN condemned, and which changed the rest of the world’s attitude towards him. Deng’s final political contribution was to undertake Further Reading the Southern Tour in 1992, at a time when the liberaliza- MacFarquhar, R. (Ed.). (1997). The politics of China: The tion of China’s economy, and its openness to foreign in- eras of Mao and Deng. New York: Cambridge Univer- vestment, looked under threat. His defense of the need to sity Press. continue and deepen the reforms, which were to culmi- Yung, Benjamin. (1998). Deng: A political biography. Ar- nate in China’s entry to the World Trade Organization in monk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. 2001, saved China slipping back into a more introspective, Zhang Wei-Wei. (1996). Ideology and economic reform un- isolated position. From 1992 to 1997, Deng was largely in- der Deng Xiaoping, 1978–1993. New York: Columbia visible, making one final brief public appearance at a Party University Press.

Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Tour ▶