Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997)

DENG XIAOPING WAS a Chinese communist, paramount leader, and political thinker whose reformist ideas and administrative abilities enabled mainland China to overcome the Maoist economic stagnancy and to develop one of the largest and fastest-growing economies in the world. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1924 and took an active part in antiKuomintang (nationalist capitalist party) struggle. After the Communists gained power in 1949, he occupied high offices in Chinese leadership. He was known as a skillful manager and a very convincing pragmatist. “It doesn't matter what color the cat is. It is of the utmost importance that it mouses well,” Deng said of private ownership in agriculture. He was repressed twice during the Maoist Cultural Revolution but came back after Mao Zedong's death in 1976 and hustled aside Mao's successor, Hua Guofeng, by posting his own comrades as the top officials.

The reforms Deng was able to put into practice from 1979 to 1994 envisaged decollectivization and implementing a family-contracting system in agriculture, approving profit as the decisive factor in industry performance and attracting private capital including foreign investments. It took 10 years before Deng's motto took root: that to get rich is not only glorious but revolutionary as well.

The main long-term aim of the Chinese people, according to Deng, is to turn China into a strong, prosperous, democratic, and modern socialist state. The path to this aim consists of three steps. The first step (1980–90) involved doubling the gross domestic product (GDP) and solving the feeding and clothing problems of the [Page 129]Chinese people. The second step (1991–2000) was aimed at surpassing $1 trillion GDP with $1,000 per capita and achieving the “relative flourishing.” These tasks have been fulfilled successfully as of 2004, but not without serious tensions. The student and dissident movement (widely known as Tiananmen Square protesters) has been harshly repressed with thousands people murdered and arrested on Deng's orders in 1989. The military was used against those who demanded reaching the formally declared goal of democratization quicker than it was officially scheduled. “China is too big a ship to afford zigs,” Deng asserted.

For Deng, the stability in the country of 1.2 billion people was the main criterion of correctly realized national interests. From Deng's point of view, China should follow the authoritarian-pluralist model for several decades. The third step is planned for 2000–50 and envisions achieving the developed countries' level of wealth and implementing the main tasks of the Four Modernizations (of agriculture, industry, science and technology, and the military). The latter entails the policy of economic effectiveness and openness, including free economic zones of development.

One of Deng's achievements was the 1984 agreement with Britain that Hong Kong would be handed over to China in 1997, as Britain's 99-year lease was expiring. Deng agreed that China would not interfere with Hong Kong's capitalist system for 50 years. This “one country, two systems” approach was developed by Deng to entice Taiwan into a reunion with mainland China. Success crowned his ambition in Hong Kong and the former Portuguese colony of Macao (Aomin), but not in dealing with hard-line Taiwan.

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