Deng Xiaoping

Early life and family

Deng's ancestors can be traced back to Jiaying County (now renamed as Meixian), Guangdong, a prominent ancestral area for the Hakka people, and had settled in Sichuan for several generations. Deng's daughter Deng Rong wrote in the book My Father Deng Xiaoping (我的父亲邓小平) that his ancestry was probably, but not definitely, Hakka. Sichuan was originally the origin of the Deng lineage until one of them was hired as an official in Guangdong during the Ming dynasty, but when the Qing dynasty planned to increase the population in 1671, they moved back to Sichuan. Deng was born in Guang'an District, Guang'an on 22 August 1904 in Sichuan province.

Deng's father, Deng Wenming, was a mid-level landowner who had studied at the University of Law and Political Science in Chengdu, Sichuan. He was locally prominent. His mother, surnamed Dan, died early in Deng's life, leaving Deng, his three brothers, and three sisters. At the age of five, Deng was sent to a traditional Chinese-style private primary school, followed by a more modern primary school at the age of seven.

Deng's first wife, one of his schoolmates from Moscow, died aged 24 a few days after giving birth to their first child, a baby girl who also died. His second wife, Jin Weiying, left him after Deng came under political attack in 1933. His third wife, Zhuo Lin, was the daughter of an industrialist in Yunnan. She became a member of the Communist Party in 1938, and married Deng a year later in front of Mao's cave dwelling in Yan'an. They had five children: three daughters (Deng Lin, Deng Nan and Deng Rong) and two sons (Deng Pufang and Deng Zhifang). Deng quit smoking when he was 86.

Education and early career

Deng's given name was Xiansheng (先圣) meaning "ancient sage", a title of Confucius. When Deng first attended school, his tutor objected to him having the given name Xiansheng, instead calling him "Xixian" (希贤), which includes the characters "to aspire to" and "goodness", with overtones of wisdom.

In the summer of 1919, Deng graduated from the Chongqing School. He and 80 schoolmates travelled by ship to France (travelling steerage) to participate in the Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement, a work-study program in which 4,001 Chinese would participate by 1927. Deng, the youngest of all the Chinese students in the group, had just turned 15. Wu Yuzhang, the local leader of the Movement in Chongqing, enrolled Deng and his paternal uncle, Deng Shaosheng, in the program. Deng's father strongly supported his son's participation in the work-study abroad program. The night before his departure, Deng's father took his son aside and asked him what he hoped to learn in France. He repeated the words he had learned from his teachers: "To learn knowledge and truth from the West in order to save China." Deng was aware that China was suffering greatly, and that the Chinese people must have a modern education to save their country.

On 19 October 1920, a French packet ship, the André Lebon, sailed into Marseille with 210 Chinese students aboard including Deng. The sixteen-year-old Deng briefly attended middle schools in Bayeux and Châtillon, but he spent most of his time in France working, including at a Renault factory and as a fitter at the Le Creusot Iron and Steel Plant in La Garenne-Colombes, a north-western suburb of Paris where he moved in April 1921. Coincidentally, when Deng's later political fortunes were down and he was sent to work in a tractor factory in 1969 during the Cultural Revolution, he found himself a fitter again and proved to still be a master of the skill.

In La Garenne-Colombes Deng met future CCP leaders Zhou Enlai, Chen Yi, Nie Rongzhen, Li Fuchun, Li Lisan and Li Weihan. In June 1923 he joined the Chinese Communist Youth League in Europe. In the second half of 1924, he joined the Chinese Communist Party and became one of the leading members of the Youth League in Europe. In 1926 Deng traveled to the Soviet Union and studied at Moscow Sun Yat-sen University, where one of his classmates was Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of Chiang Kai-shek.

Return to China

In late 1927, Deng left Moscow to return to the Republic of China, where he joined the army of Feng Yuxiang, a military leader in northwest China, who had requested assistance from the Soviet Union in his struggle with other local leaders in the region. At that time, the Soviet Union, through the Comintern, an international organization supporting the Communist movements, supported the Communists' alliance with the Nationalists of the Kuomintang (KMT) party founded by Sun Yat-sen.

He arrived in Xi'an, the stronghold of Feng Yuxiang, in March 1927. He was part of the Guominjun's attempt to prevent the break of the alliance between the KMT and the Communists. This split resulted in part from Chiang Kai-shek's forcing them to flee areas controlled by the KMT. After the breakup of the alliance between Communists and Nationalists, Feng Yuxiang stood on the side of Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communists who participated in their army, such as Deng Xiaoping, were forced to flee.

Political rise

Although Deng got involved in the Marxist revolutionary movement in China, the historian Mobo Gao has argued that "Deng Xiaoping and many like him [in the Chinese Communist Party] were not really Marxists, but basically revolutionary nationalists who wanted to see China standing on equal terms with the great global powers. They were primarily nationalists and they participated in the Communist revolution because that was the only viable route they could find to Chinese nationalism."

Activism in Shanghai and Wuhan

After leaving the army of Feng Yuxiang in the northwest, Deng ended up in the city of Wuhan, where the Communists at that time had their headquarters. At that time, he began using the nickname "Xiaoping" and occupied prominent positions in the party apparatus. He participated in the historic emergency session on 7 August 1927 in which, by Soviet instruction, the Party dismissed its founder Chen Duxiu, and Qu Qiubai became the general secretary. In Wuhan, Deng first established contact with Mao Zedong, who was then little valued by militant pro-Soviet leaders of the party.

Between 1927 and 1929, Deng lived in Shanghai, where he helped organize protests that would be harshly persecuted by the Kuomintang authorities. The death of many Communist militants in those years led to a decrease in the number of members of the Communist Party, which enabled Deng to quickly move up the ranks.

Deng married Zhang Xiyuan, who died in 1930 during childbirth. The couple's daughter also died during her birth.

Military campaign in Guangxi

From 1929 to 1931, Deng served as the chief representative of the Central Committee in Guangxi, where he helped lead the Baise and Longzhou Uprisings. Both at the time and later, Deng Xiaoping's leadership during the rebellion has come under serious criticism. He followed the "Li Lisan Line" that called for aggressive attacks on cities. In practice, this meant that the rural soviet in Guangxi was abandoned and that the Seventh Red Army under Deng's political leadership fought and lost several bloody battles. Eventually, Deng and the other Communist leaders in Guangxi decided to retreat to Jiangxi to join Mao Zedong. However, after a costly march across rough terrain, Deng left the army leaderless without prior authorization to do so. A Central Committee post-mortem in 1931 singled out Deng's behavior as an example of "rightist opportunism and a rich peasant line". In 1945, several former commanders of the Seventh Red Army spoke out against Deng for his actions during the uprising, although Mao Zedong protected Deng from any serious repercussions. During the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards learned about the events of the Baise Uprising and accused Deng of desertion. Deng admitted that leaving the army was one of the "worst mistakes of [his] life" and that "although this action was allowed by the party, it was politically horribly wrong." Modern historians and biographers tend to agree. Uli Franz calls leaving the army a "serious error". Benjamin Yang calls it a "tragic failure and dark period in [Deng's] political life." On the other hand, Diana Lary places blame for the disaster more broadly on the "ineptitude" of both the local leaders and the CCP Central Committee.

At the Jiangxi Soviet

The campaigns against the Communists in the cities represented a setback for the party and in particular to the Comintern Soviet advisers, who saw the mobilization of the urban proletariat as the force for the advancement of communism. Contrary to the urban vision of the revolution, based on the Soviet experience, the Communist leader Mao Zedong saw the rural peasants as the revolutionary force in China. In a mountainous area of Jiangxi province, where Mao went to establish a communist system, there developed the embryo of a future state of China under communism, which adopted the official name of the Chinese Soviet Republic (CSR) and which included the Jiangxi Soviet.

In August 1931, Deng went to Ruijin, which became the capital of the CSR, and became secretary of its Party Committee in the summer of 1931. In the winter of 1932, Deng went on to play the same position in the nearby district of Huichang. In 1933 he became director of the Publicity Department of the Provincial Party Committee in Jiangxi.

As a supporter of Mao, Deng was criticized by elements of the Party which opposed Mao and was removed from his position in 1933. During Deng's 1933 political setbacks, his wife Jin Weiying deserted him for one of his political opponents.

The CSR reached its peak in 1933. The CSR had a central government as well as local and regional governments. It operated institutions including an education system and court system. The CSR also issued currency. It governed a population which exceeded 3.4 million in an area of approximately 70,000 square kilometers (although the isolated soviets were never connected into one contiguous piece of territory). The CSR was defeated by Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists, leading to the Long March.

Long March

Surrounded by the more powerful nationalist army, the Communists fled Jiangxi in October 1934. Thus began the epic movement that would mark a turning point in the development of Chinese communism. The evacuation was difficult because the Army of the nationalists had taken positions in all areas occupied by the Communists. Advancing through remote and mountainous terrain, some 100,000 men managed to escape Jiangxi, starting a long strategic retreat through the interior of China, which ended one year later when between 8,000 and 9,000 survivors reached the northern province of Shaanxi.

During the Zunyi Conference at the beginning of the Long March, the so-called 28 Bolsheviks, led by Bo Gu and Wang Ming, were ousted from power and Mao Zedong, to the dismay of the Soviet Union, became the new leader of the Chinese Communist Party. The pro-Soviet Chinese Communist Party had ended and a new rural-inspired party emerged under the leadership of Mao. Deng had once again become a leading figure in the party.

The confrontation between the two parties was temporarily interrupted, however, by the Japanese invasion, forcing the Kuomintang to form an alliance for the second time with the Communists to defend the nation against external aggression.

Japanese invasion

The invasion of Japanese troops in 1937 marked the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. During the invasion, Deng remained in the area controlled by the Communists in the north, where he assumed the role of deputy political director of the three divisions of the restructured Communist army. From September 1937 until January 1938, he lived in Buddhist monasteries and temples in the Wutai Mountains. In January 1938, he was appointed as Political Commissar of the 129th division of the Eighth Route Army commanded by Liu Bocheng, starting a long-lasting partnership with Liu.

Deng stayed for most of the conflict with the Japanese in the war front in the area bordering the provinces of Shanxi, Henan and Hebei, then traveled several times to the city of Yan'an, where Mao had established the basis for Communist Party leadership. While in Henan, he delivered the famous report, "The Victorious Situation of Leaping into the Central Plains and Future Policies and Strategies", at a Gospel Hall where he lived for some time. In one of his trips to Yan'an in 1939, he married, for the third and last time in his life, Zhuo Lin, a young native of Kunming, who, like other young idealists of the time, had traveled to Yan'an to join the Communists.

Deng was considered a "revolutionary veteran" because of his participation in the Long March. He took a leading role in the Hundred Regiments Offensive which boosted his standing among his comrades.

Resumed war against the Nationalists

After Japan's defeat in World War II, Deng traveled to Chongqing, the city in which Chiang Kai-shek established his government during the Japanese invasion, to participate in peace talks between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. The results of those negotiations were not positive and military confrontation between the two antagonistic parties resumed shortly after the meeting in Chongqing.

While Chiang Kai-shek re-established the government in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, the Communists were fighting for control in the field. Following up with guerrilla tactics from their positions in rural areas against cities under the control of the government of Chiang and their supply lines, the Communists were increasing the territory under their control, and incorporating more and more soldiers who had deserted the Nationalist army.

Deng played a major part in the Huaihai Campaign against the nationalists.

In the final phase of the war, Deng again exercised a key role as political leader and propaganda master as Political Commissar of the 2nd Field Army commanded by Liu Bocheng where he was instrumental in the PLA's march into Tibet. He also participated in disseminating the ideas of Mao Zedong, which turned into the ideological foundation of the Communist Party. His political and ideological work, along with his status as a veteran of the Long March, placed him in a privileged position within the party to occupy positions of power after the Communist Party managed to defeat Chiang Kai-shek and founded the People's Republic of China.

Political career under Mao

Local leadership

On 1 October 1949, Deng attended the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in Beijing. At that time, the Communist Party controlled the entire north, but there were still parts of the south held by the Kuomintang regime. He became responsible for leading the pacification of southwest China, in his capacity as the first secretary of the Department of the Southwest. This organization had the task of managing the final takeover of that part of the country still held by the Kuomintang; Tibet remained independent for another year.

The Kuomintang government was being forced to leave Guangzhou (Canton), and established Chongqing (Chungking) as a new provisional capital. There, Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo, a former classmate of Deng in Moscow, wanted to stop the advance of the Communist Party forces.

Under the political control of Deng, the Communist army took over Chongqing in late November 1949 and entered Chengdu, the last bastion of power of Chiang Kai-shek, a few days later. At that time Deng became mayor of Chongqing, while he simultaneously was the leader of the Communist Party in the southwest, where the Communist army, now proclaiming itself the People's Liberation Army, suppressed resistance loyal to the old Kuomintang regime. In 1950, the Communist Party-ruled state also seized control over Tibet.

In a 1951 speech to cadres preparing to supervise campaigns in the land reform movement, Deng instructed that while cadres should help peasants carry out nonviolent "speak reason struggle", they also had to remember that as a mass movement, land reform was not a time to be "refined and gentle". Expressing his view as a rhetorical question, Deng stated that while ideally no landlords would die in the process, "If some tightfisted landlords hang themselves, does that mean our policies are wrong? Are we responsible?"

Deng Xiaoping would spend three years in Chongqing, the city where he had studied in his teenage years before going to France. In 1952 he moved to Beijing, where he occupied different positions in the central government.

Political rise in Beijing

In July 1952, Deng came to Beijing to assume the posts of Vice Premier and Deputy Chair of the Committee on Finance. Soon after, he took the posts of Minister of Finance and Director of the Office of Communications. In 1954, he was removed from all these positions, holding only the post of Vice Premier. In 1956, he became Head of the Communist Party's Organization Department and member of the Central Military Commission.

After officially supporting Mao Zedong in his Anti-Rightist Movement of 1957, Deng acted as Secretary-General of the Secretariat and ran the country's daily affairs with President Liu Shaoqi and Premier Zhou Enlai. Deng and Liu's policies emphasized economics over ideological dogma, an implicit departure from the mass fervor of the Great Leap Forward. Both Liu and Deng supported Mao in the mass campaigns of the 1950s, in which they attacked the bourgeois and capitalists, and promoted Mao's ideology. However, the failure of the Great Leap Forward was seen as an indictment on Mao's ability to manage the economy. Peng Dehuai began openly criticizing Mao, while Liu and Deng maintained a more cautious tone, ultimately taking charge of economic policy as Mao ceased to be involved in the day-to-day affairs of the party and state. Mao agreed to cede the presidency (the de jure head of state position) to Liu, while retaining his leadership positions in the party and army.

In 1955, he was considered as a candidate for the PLA rank of Marshal of the People's Republic of China but he was ultimately not awarded the rank.

At the 8th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 1956, Deng supported removing all references to "Mao Zedong Thought" from the party statutes.

In 1963, Deng traveled to Moscow to lead a meeting of the Chinese delegation with Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev. Relations between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union had worsened since the death of Stalin. After this meeting, no agreement was reached and the Sino–Soviet split was consummated; there was an almost total suspension of relations between the two major communist powers of the time.

After the "Seven Thousand Cadres Conference" in 1962, Liu and Deng's economic reforms of the early 1960s were generally popular and restored many of the economic institutions previously dismantled during the Great Leap Forward. Mao, sensing his loss of prestige, took action to regain control of the state. Appealing to his revolutionary spirit, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, which encouraged the masses to root out the right-wing capitalists who had "infiltrated the party". Deng was ridiculed as the "number two capitalist roader".

Purged twice

Mao feared that the reformist economic policies of Deng and Liu could lead to restoration of capitalism and roll back the Chinese Communist Revolution. For this and other reasons, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966, during which Deng fell out of favor and was forced to retire from all his positions.

During the Cultural Revolution, he and his family were targeted by Red Guards, who imprisoned Deng's eldest son, Deng Pufang. Deng Pufang was tortured and jumped out, or was thrown out, of the window of a four-story building in 1968, becoming a paraplegic. In October 1969 Deng Xiaoping was sent to the Xinjian County Tractor Factory in rural Jiangxi province to work as a regular worker. He operated a lathe. In his four years there, Deng spent his spare time writing. He was purged nationally, but to a lesser scale than President Liu Shaoqi.

In 1971, Mao's second official successor and the sole Vice Chairman of the party, Lin Biao, was killed in an air crash. According to official reports, Lin was trying to flee from China after a failed coup against Mao. Mao purged all of Lin's allies, who made up nearly all of the senior ranks of the PLA, leaving Deng (who had been political commissar of the 2nd Field Army during the civil war) the most influential of the remaining army leaders. In the time that followed, Deng wrote to Mao twice to say that he had learned a lesson from the Lin Biao incident, admitted that he had "capitalist trends" and did not "hold high the great banner of Mao Zedong Thought", and expressed the hope that he could work for the Party to make up for his mistakes.

Mao sought Deng to take over for Zhou Enlai, who was seriously ill. On 14 August 1972, Mao wrote that Deng had made serious mistakes, but noted that Deng had been politically attacked for supporting Mao in 1933 and had been loyal. In February 1973, Deng returned to Beijing, after Zhou brought him back from exile in order for Deng to focus on reconstructing the Chinese economy. Zhou was also able to convince Mao to bring Deng back into politics in October 1974 as First Vice-Premier, in practice running daily affairs. He remained careful, however, to avoid contradicting Maoist ideology on paper. In January 1975, he was additionally elected Vice Chairman of the party by the 10th Central Committee for the first time in his party career; Li Desheng had to resign in his favour. Deng was one of five Vice Chairmen, with Zhou being the First Vice Chairman.

Leadership of China (1978–1989)

Paramount leader

Following Mao's death on 9 September 1976 and the purge of the Gang of Four in October 1976, Premier Hua Guofeng succeeded as Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and gradually emerged as the de facto leader of China. Prior to Mao's death, the only governmental position Deng held was that of First Vice Premier of the State Council, but Hua Guofeng wanted to rid the Party of extremists and successfully marginalised the Gang of Four. On 22 July 1977, Deng was restored to the posts of vice-chairman of the Central Committee, vice-chairman of the Military Commission and Chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army, making him the third-ranking member in Politburo Standing Committee, after Chairman Hua Guofeng and Ye Jianying.

By carefully mobilizing his supporters within the party, Deng outmaneuvered Hua, who had pardoned him. In February 1980, Deng successfully let his protege Zhao Ziyang to succeed Hua as the Premier of China. Some of Hua's supporters in the Politburo such as Wang Dongxing, Chen Xilian, Wu De and Ji Dengkui resigned at the same time. Later in June 1981, another of Deng's protege Hu Yaobang succeeded Hua to became the Chairman of the central committee, and Deng himself succeeded Hua as the Chairman of the central military committee. In contrast to previous leadership changes, Deng allowed Hua to retain membership in the Central Committee and quietly retire, helping to set the precedent that losing a high-level leadership struggle would not result in physical harm.

During his paramount leadership, his official state positions were Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from 1978 to 1983 and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (an ad hoc body comprising the most senior members of the party elite) of the People's Republic of China from 1983 to 1990, while his official party positions were Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1977 to 1982, Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party from 1981 to 1989 and Chairman of the Central Advisory Commission from 1982 to 1987. He was offered the rank of General First Class in 1988 when the PLA restored military ranks, but as in 1955, he once again declined. Even after retiring from the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in 1987 and the Central Military Commission in 1989, Deng continued to exert influence over China's policies until his death in 1997.

Important decisions were always taken in Deng's home at No. 11 Miliangku Hutong with a caucus of eight senior party cadres, called "Eight Elders", especially with Chen Yun and Li Xiannian. Despite Deng's recognition as paramount leader, in practice these elders governed China as a small collective leadership. Deng ruled as "paramount leader" although he never held the top title of the party, and was able to successively remove three party leaders, including Hu Yaobang. Deng stepped down from the Central Committee and its Politburo Standing Committee. However, he remained as the chairman of the State and Party's Central Military Commission and was still seen as the paramount leader of China rather than General Secretary Zhao Ziyang and Presidents Li Xiannian and Yang Shangkun.

Boluan Fanzheng

Deng 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, and restored the National College Entrance Examination (Gao Kao) which had been cancelled for ten years during the Cultural Revolution. Meanwhile, he was the impetus for the abolition of the class background system. Under this system, the CCP removed employment barriers to Chinese deemed to be associated with the former landlord class; its removal allowed a faction favoring the restoration of the private market to enter 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 chairman in 1981, despite the fact that Hua was Mao Zedong's designated successor as the "paramount leader" of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Republic of China. During the Boluan Fanzheng period, the Cultural Revolution was invalidated, and victims of more than 3 million "unjust, false, wrongful cases" by 1976 were officially rehabilitated.

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, it was not possible for him to continue Mao's hard-line "class struggle" policies and mass public campaigns. In 1981 the Central Committee of the Communist Party released a document entitled Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party 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 privately commented shortly after the publication that Mao was "seven parts good, three parts bad". The document also steered the prime responsibility of the Cultural Revolution away from Mao (although it did state that "Mao mistakenly began the Cultural Revolution") to the "counter-revolutionary cliques" of the Gang of Four and Lin Biao.

International affairs

Deng prioritized China's modernization and opening up to the outside world, stating that China's "strategy in foreign affairs is to seek a peaceful environment" for the Four Modernizations. Under Deng's leadership, China opened up to the outside world, to learn from more advanced countries. Deng developed the principle that in foreign affairs, China should keep a low-profile and bide its time. He continued to seek an independent position between the United States and the Soviet Union. Although Deng retained control over key national security decisions, he also delegated power to bureaucrats in routine matters, ratifying consensus decisions and stepping in if a bureaucratic consensus could not be reached. In contrast to the Mao-era, Deng involved more parties in foreign policy decision-making, decentralizing the foreign policy bureaucracy. This decentralized approach led to consideration of a number of interests and views, but also fragmentation of policy institutions and extensive bargaining between different bureaucratic units during the policy-making process.

In November 1978, after the country had stabilized following political turmoil, Deng visited Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore and met with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Deng was very impressed with Singapore's economic development, greenery and housing, and later sent tens of thousands of Chinese to Singapore and countries around the world to learn from their experiences and bring back their knowledge. Lee Kuan Yew, on the other hand, advised Deng to stop exporting Communist ideologies to Southeast Asia, advice that according to Lee, Deng later followed. In late 1978, the aerospace company Boeing announced the sale of 747 aircraft to various airlines in the PRC, and the beverage company Coca-Cola made public their intention to open a production plant in Shanghai.

On 1 January 1979, the United States recognized the People's Republic of China, leaving the (Taiwan) Republic of China's nationalist government to one side, and business contacts between China and the West began to grow.

In early 1979, Deng undertook an official visit to the United States, meeting President Jimmy Carter in Washington as well as several Congressmen. The Chinese insisted that former President Richard Nixon be invited to the formal White House reception, a symbolic indication of their assertiveness on the one hand, and their desire to continue with the Nixon initiatives on the other. As part of the discussions with Carter, Deng sought United States approval for China's contemplated invasion of Vietnam in the Sino-Vietnamese war. According to United States National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter reserved judgment, an action which Chinese diplomats interpreted as tacit approval, and China launched the invasion shortly after Deng's return.

Reform and opening up

At the outset of China's reform and opening up, Deng set out the Four Cardinal Principles that had to be maintained in the process: (1) the leadership of the Communist Party, (2) the socialist road, (3) Marxism, and (4) the dictatorship of the proletariat. Overall, reform proceeded gradually, with Deng delegating specific issues to proteges such as Hu Yaobang or Zhao Ziyang, who in turn addressed them under the guiding principle of "seeking truth from facts" - meaning that the correctness of an approach had to be gauged by its economic results. Deng described reform and opening up as a "large scale experiment" requiring thorough "experimentation in practice" instead of textbook knowledge.

In Deng's view, socialism could not be considered superior to capitalism unless it improved the lives of the people in material ways. During Reform and Opening-up, he criticized those he deemed as the ideologies of the Cultural Revolution for seeking "poor socialism" and "poor communism" and believing that communism was a "spiritual thing". In 1979, Deng stated, "Socialism cannot endure if it remains poor. If we want to uphold Marxism and socialism in the international class struggle, we have to demonstrate that the Marxist system of thought is superior to all others, and that the socialist system is superior to capitalism".

The Party's conservative faction, led by fellow party elder and political rival Chen Yun and other powerful veteran communist leaders opposed Deng's reforms and instead supported central planning (modelled after the First Five Year Plan), Stalin-style economic models that preached ideological orthodoxy, fearing that Deng's market-oriented reforms would lead to capitalism and societal instability. Chen and fellow party veteran, Chinese President Li Xiannian advocated for a highly restricted "birdcage economy", free from Western bourgeois ideas.

Deng quoted the old proverb "it doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white, if it catches mice it is a good cat", which summarizes his pragmatic "cat theory". The point was that capitalistic methods worked. Deng worked with his team, especially as Zhao Ziyang, who in 1980 replaced Hua Guofeng as premier, and Hu Yaobang, who in 1981 did the same with the post of party chairman. Deng thus took the reins of power and began to emphasize the goals of "four modernizations" (economy, agriculture, scientific and technological development and national defense). He announced an ambitious plan of opening and liberalizing the economy.

Return of Hong Kong and Macau

From 1980 onwards, Deng led the expansion of the economy, and in political terms took over negotiations with the United Kingdom to return Hong Kong, meeting personally with then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher had participated in the meetings with the hopes of keeping British rule over Hong Kong Island and Kowloon - two of the three constituent territories of the colony - but this was firmly rejected by Deng. The result of these negotiations was the Sino-British Joint Declaration, signed on 19 December 1984, which formally outlined the United Kingdom's return of the whole Hong Kong colony to China by 1997. The Chinese government pledged to respect the economic system and civil liberties of the British colony for fifty years after the handover.

Deng's theory of one country, two systems applied to Hong Kong and Macau and Deng intended to also present it as an attractive option to the people of Taiwan for eventual incorporation of that island, where sovereignty over the territory is still disputed. In 1982, Deng first explained the concept of one country, two systems in relation to Taiwan.

Deng's statements during the 1987 drafting of the Basic Law of Hong Kong showed his view of the principle in the Hong Kong context. At that time, Deng stated that the central government would not intervene in the daily business of Hong Kong, but predicted Hong Kong would sometimes have issues affecting national interests that would require the central government's involvement. Deng said, "after 1997, we shall still allow people in Hong Kong to attack the Communist Party of China and China verbally, but what if the words were turned into action, trying to convert Hong Kong into a base of opposition to the Chinese mainland under the pretext of 'democracy'? Then there's no choice but intervention." In June 1988, Deng stated that "Hong Kong's political system today is neither the British system nor the American system, and it should not transplant the Western ways in the future."

Population control and crime control

China's rapid economic growth presented several problems. The 1982 census revealed the extraordinary growth of the population, which already exceeded a billion people. Deng continued the plans initiated by Hua Guofeng to restrict birth to only one child, limiting women to one child under pain of administrative penalty. The policy applied to urban areas, and included forced abortions.

In August 1983, Deng launched the "Strike hard" Anti-crime Campaign due to the worsening public safety after the Cultural Revolution. Estimates have placed the number at 24,000 who were sentenced to death (mostly in the first "battle" of the campaign). A number of people arrested (some even received death penalty) were children or relatives of government officials at various levels, including the grandson of Zhu De, demonstrating the principle of "all are equal before the law". The campaign had an immediate positive effect on public safety, while controversies also arose such as whether some of the legal punishments were too harsh and whether the campaign had long-term positive effect on public safety.

Crackdown on dissent

Increasing economic freedom was being translated into a greater freedom of opinion, and critics began to arise within the system, including the famous dissident Wei Jingsheng, who coined the term "fifth modernization" in reference to democracy as a missing element in the renewal plans of Deng Xiaoping. Wei was later arrested and convicted of "counter-revolutionary" activities. In the late 1980s, dissatisfaction with the authoritarian regime and growing inequalities and corruption caused the biggest crisis to Deng's leadership, the prelude being the 1986 Chinese student demonstrations, which led to his protégé General Secretary Hu Yaobang's political downfall.

Crackdown of Tiananmen Square protests

The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, culminating in the June Fourth Massacre, were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in the People's Republic of China between 15 April and 5 June 1989, a year in which many other communist governments collapsed.

The protests were sparked by the death of Hu Yaobang, a reformist official backed by Deng but ousted by the Eight Elders and the conservative wing of the politburo. Many people were dissatisfied with the party's slow response and relatively subdued funeral arrangements. Public mourning began on the streets of Beijing and universities in the surrounding areas. In Beijing, this was centered on the Monument to the People's Heroes in Tiananmen Square. The mourning became a public conduit for anger against perceived nepotism in the government, the unfair dismissal and early death of Hu, and the behind-the-scenes role of the "old men". By the eve of Hu's funeral, the demonstration had reached 100,000 people on Tiananmen Square. While the protests lacked a unified cause or leadership, participants raised the issue of corruption within the government and some voiced calls for economic liberalization and democratic reform within the structure of the government while others called for a less authoritarian and less centralized form of socialism.

During the demonstrations, Deng's pro-market ally General Secretary Zhao Ziyang supported the demonstrators and distanced himself from the Politburo. Martial law was declared on 20 May by the socialist hardliner, Chinese premier Li Peng, but the initial military advance on the city was blocked by residents. The movement lasted seven weeks. On 3–4 June, over two hundred thousand soldiers in tanks and helicopters were sent into the city to quell the protests by force, resulting in hundreds to thousands of casualties. Many ordinary people in Beijing believed that Deng had ordered the intervention, but political analysts do not know who was actually behind the order. However, Deng's daughter defends the actions that occurred as a collective decision by the party leadership.

To purge sympathizers of Tiananmen demonstrators, the Communist Party initiated a one-and-a-half-year-long program similar to the Anti-Rightist Movement. Old-timers like Deng Fei aimed to deal "strictly with those inside the party with serious tendencies toward bourgeois liberalization", and more than 30,000 communist officers were deployed to the task.

Resignation and 1992 southern tour

Officially, Deng decided to retire from top positions when he stepped down as Chairman of the Central Military Commission in November 1989 and his successor Jiang Zemin became the new Chairman of the Central Military Commission and paramount leader. China, however, was still in the era of Deng Xiaoping. He continued to be widely regarded as the de facto leader of the country, believed to have backroom control despite no official position apart from being chairman of the Chinese Contract Bridge Association, and appointed Hu Jintao as Jiang's successor at the 14th Party Congress in 1992.

Because of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, 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 a tour of southern China, visiting Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and spending the New Year in Shanghai, using his travels as a method of reasserting his economic policy after his retirement from office. He said "Some people slander our socialist system as the Qin system, which is vexatious! Our system is not totalitarian, but democratic centralism. During the period of Chairman Mao, it was not the Qin system, but also democratic centralism. I would say that it is more like the system of France." The 1992 Southern Tour is widely regarded as a critical point in the modern history of China, as it saved the reform and opening up and preserved the stability of the society.

By the 14th Party Congress in October 1992, Deng and the reform faction has more influence than the conservative faction. After the 14th Party Congress, conservative Politburo Standing Committee members Yao Yilin and Song Ping both retired. Instead, Deng placed reformist Zhu Rongji into the Politburo Standing Committee. Deng also successfully abolished the Central Advisory Committee, which has become the base of conservative faction within the party by early 1990s. Following the abolition of Central Advisory Committee in October 1992, all party elders including Chen Yun, Bo Yibo and Song Renqiong are all fully retired from politics.

Deng made his last public appearance on 31 October 1993, as he took subway to visit several places in Beijing. He also made his last trip to Shanghai during Chinese New Year in February 1994, where he met with Shanghai party secretary Wu Bangguo and mayor Huang Ju. Deng's health deteriorated drastically in late 1994. In January 1995, Deng's daughter told the press that "A year ago, he could walk for 30 minutes twice a day, but now he cannot walk … He needs two people to support him." It was also reported that Parkinson's experts were sent to Beijing to help him in 1995. Deng generally preferred not to directly speak of dying, instead describing himself as "going to see the Premier", meaning Zhou Enlai. Deng was hospitalized on 12 December 1996 due to respiratory disease.

Death

Deng died on 19 February 1997 at 9:08 p.m. Beijing time, aged 92 from a lung infection and Parkinson's disease. The public was largely prepared for his death, as there had been rumors that his health was deteriorating. At 10:00 on the morning of 24 February, people were asked by Premier Li Peng to pause in silence for three minutes. The nation's flags flew at half-mast for over a week.

Deng's official obituary instructed Chinese people to study Deng Xiaoping's method of building socialism with Chinese characteristics. It praised his "scientific attitude and creative spirit in applying a Marxist stand" and his "viewpoints and methods to studying new problems and solving new problems". It also praised his 1992 southern tour.

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. After the funeral, his organs were donated to medical research. The remains were cremated at Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery and his ashes were subsequently scattered at sea from an airplane by his wife, Zhuo Lin. For the next two weeks, Chinese state media ran news stories and documentaries related to Deng's life and death, with the regular 19:00 National News program in the evening lasting almost two hours over the regular broadcast time.

Deng's successor, Jiang Zemin, maintained Deng's political and economic philosophies. Deng was eulogized as a "great Marxist, great Proletarian Revolutionary, statesman, military strategist, and diplomat; one of the main leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, 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". Some elements, notably modern Maoists and radical reformers (the far left and the far right), had negative views, however.

Deng's death drew international reaction. 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, 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 Chrétien called Deng a "pivotal figure" in Chinese history. The Kuomintang chair in Taiwan also sent its condolences, saying it longed for peace, cooperation, and prosperity. The Dalai Lama voiced regret that Deng died without resolving questions over Tibet.

Legacy

Deng was recognized officially as "the chief architect (总设计师) of the reform and opening up 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.

Deng's view that "development is the absolute principle" continues to shape the Chinese approach to governance. At the Fourth Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee, Jiang Zemin and the third generation of leaders stated, "Development is the Party's top priority in governing and rejuvenating the country." Likewise, Deng's emphasis on development as the absolute principle also shaped Hu Jintao's Scientific Outlook on Development and Xi Jinping's Chinese Dream, which emphasizes development as China's core task.

Memorials

Memorials to Deng have been low profile compared to other leaders, in keeping with Deng's image of pragmatism. Rather than being embalmed, as was Mao, he was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea. There are some public displays, however. A bronze statue was erected on 14 November 2000, at the grand plaza of Lianhua Mountain Park in Shenzhen. This statue is dedicated to Deng's role as a planner and contributor to the development of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. The statue is 6 metres (20 ft) high, with an additional 3.68-meter base, and shows Deng striding forward confidently. Many CCP high level leaders visit the statue. In addition, in coastal areas and on the island province of Hainan, Deng appeared on roadside billboards with messages emphasizing the reform and opening up or his policy of one country, two systems.

A bronze statue to commemorate Deng's 100th birthday was dedicated 13 August 2004 in the city of Guang'an, Deng's hometown, in southwest China's Sichuan. Deng is dressed casually, sitting on a chair and smiling. The Chinese characters on the pedestal were written by Jiang Zemin, then General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman of the Central Military Commission.

Deng Xiaoping's Former Residence in his hometown of Paifang Village in Sichuan has been preserved as an historical museum.

In Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, there is a six-lane boulevard, 25 metres (82 ft) wide and 3.5 kilometres (2 mi) long, the Deng Xiaoping Prospekt, which was dedicated on 18 June 1997. A two-meter high red granite monument stands at the east end of this route. The epigraph is written in Chinese, Russian and Kyrgyz.

The documentary, Deng Xiaoping, released by CCTV in January 1997, presents his life from his days as a student in France to his "Southern Tour" of 1993. In 2014, CCTV released a TV series, Deng Xiaoping at History's Crossroads, in anticipation of the 110th anniversary of his birth.

Assessment

Deng has been called the "architect of contemporary China" and is widely considered to have been one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. He was the Time Person of the Year in 1978 and 1985, the third Chinese leader (after Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Soong Mei-ling) and the fourth time for a communist leader (after Joseph Stalin, picked twice; and Nikita Khrushchev) to be selected.

Deng is remembered primarily for the reform and opening up he initiated while paramount leader of the People's Republic of China, which pivoted China towards a market economy, led to high economic growth, increased standards of living of hundreds of millions, expanded personal and cultural freedoms, and substantially integrated the country into the world economy. More people were lifted out of poverty during his leadership than during any other time in human history, attributed largely to his reforms. For this reason, some have suggested that Deng should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Deng is also credited with reducing the cult of Mao Zedong and with bringing an end to the chaotic era of the Cultural Revolution. Furthermore, his strong-handed tactics have been credited with keeping the People's Republic of China unified, in contrast to the other major Communist power of the time, the Soviet Union, which collapsed in 1991.

However, Deng is also remembered for human rights violations and for numerous instances of political violence. As paramount leader, he oversaw the Tiananmen Square massacre; afterwards, he was influential in the Communist Party's domestic cover-up of the event. Furthermore, he is associated with some of the worst purges during Mao Zedong's rule; for instance, he ordered an army crackdown on a Muslim village in Yunnan which resulted in the deaths of 1,600 people, including 300 children.

Moreover, Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms initiated the path toward a market economy which ultimately led to the conditions for the accelerating privatization and restructuring of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the mid-to-late 1990s. This period, carried out by his successors who were acting on the momentum of his policies, involved a much more aggressive and systemic dismantling of the inefficient state-owned sector, which resulted in massive layoffs collectively known as Xiagang (下岗: step down from the post) as the state reneged on its promises of permanent employment and welfare benefits. While these reforms improved enterprise efficiency, they also culminated in the significant deterioration of labor rights and rising inequality in the subsequent decades.

Works

Deng Xiaoping (1995). Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping: 1938–1965. Vol. I (2nd ed.). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. ISBN 7-119-01456-0. Archived from the original on 25 February 2020. Retrieved 7 May 2020.

— (1995). Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping: 1975–1982. Vol. II (2nd ed.). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. ISBN 7-119-00167-1. Archived from the original on 25 February 2020. Retrieved 7 May 2020.

— (1994). Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping: 1982–1992. Vol. III (1st ed.). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. ISBN 7-119-01689-X. Archived from the original on 25 February 2020. Retrieved 7 May 2020.

— (2014). Deng Xiaoping Wenji (1949–1974) 邓小平文集(一九四九——一九七四年). Beijing: People's Publishing House. ISBN 978-7-01-013823-7.

— (1984). Build Socialism with Chinese Characteristics (1984) 建设有中国特色的社会主义 (1984) (PDF). Beijing: People's Publishing House. ISBN 0-8351-1553-4. Retrieved 14 January 2025.