Modern
China is largely the creation of the will of two men. The first is Mao Zedong,
who is very well known in the West and famous for winning the Chinese Civil
War, resisting Japanese occupation, forging the Chinese Communist Party as the
ruling class of the country, failing in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural
Revolution, and succeeding in becoming worshipped as a hero by many modern
Chinese. The second man, however, is not as well known in America. Deng
Xiaoping fought alongside Mao and ruled alongside him for several years before
coming into power himself. Yet he may have had a more lasting impact. While
Mao’s successors were out of power within five years, Deng’s stayed in power
and his reforms have been longer lasting than many of Mao’s. Deng ought to be
known for opening China to the world, ending the Cultural Revolution,
Rebuilding Chinese industry and science, maintaining the strength of the
Communist Party for generations to follow, managing the migration of hundreds
of millions of Chinese people from farms to cities, failing to prevent the
excesses of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and successfully passing off
leadership to a generation of reformers who would allow market-based solutions
to bring China into the 21st century. Deng had built on Mao’s
accomplishments, especially the unified country thanks to victory in the civil
war, the strong tuling party structure, and the somewhat modern industry.
Deng was
a gradualist in his approach. Several times in his career and as leader of
China he would go forward three steps and then go back one or two. He followed
the political winds, knowing when to push and knowing when to allow things to
slow down. He cleverly pushed for economic reforms before political reforms,
perhaps being responsible for China avoiding the collapse that came to the
Soviet Union in 1991 among other Communist countries.
How Deng Came to Power
Deng rose
and fell several times in his career, the final time before his rise to the
Premier was from 1973-75 when Mao all but named him successor and made him the
director of day-to-day operations of the country. However, he strayed too much
from Mao’s opinions on policy, was criticized, and removed from power, back under
house arrest just like during the Cultural Revolution. After Mao’s death in
1976, he would be back. Shortly before Mao died, he would realize how much of a
failure the Cultural Revolution was. He fired Zhou Enlai from office earlier, a
long-time friend of Deng’s and an attempted reformer. When Zhou died, the party
tried to avoid any major memorials or outpourings of emotions since he was no
longer in good standing, however, the people of Beijing thought otherwise, and
millions demonstrated to show support to the deceased Zhou and place wreaths at
his grave. When Mao died, he named an otherwise weak politician, Hua Guofeng as
his successor. He was able to maintain his position for a few years, but
besides Mao (who was dead), Hua lacked much genuine support among the leadership.
Within a few years, he was out and Deng was on top again, this time to stay.
Deng’s Leadership Style
“If Mao
were like an emperor above the clouds, reading history and novels and issuing
edicts, Deng was more like a commanding general, checking carefully to see that
his battle plans were properly staffed and implemented,” writes Vogel. Deng
read massive amounts of information each day and was obviously at an extremely
high level of intelligence. Like other Chinese leaders, he expected that his
subordinates would take the blame for his failures and that he would get the
credit for success. He advocated for a philosophy of focusing on long term
goals first and then determining the solutions to short term problems. This was
so that the guiding philosophy would make all things coherent. Unlike Mao, Deng
wanted to uncover unpleasant truths. He wasn’t interested in who came from a “better
class background,” or so much the ideological purity of his movement. Rather,
he was interested in results and promoting people of worth. He liked to use
folksy sayings to explain his policies. To explain that the ideological arguments
didn’t matter as much as the economic results, he would say, “it doesn’t matter
if the cat is black or white as long as it catches the mouse.” To brush away
the criticism that the reforms would cause inequality in China he said, “some
people can get rich first.” To illustrate the experimentation he was doing with
economic liberalization, he said that he was, “groping for stones while
crossing the river.” Deng did not give so much orders as he did explanations.
He found it easier than giving direct instructions.
The Changes Deng Made in China
Thanks to
increasing trade with the world through large ships in the Pacific, there was a
rush of people to the coasts, where better jobs could be found under the new
Deng regime, especially in Guangdong and Fujian. By the late 1980’s, people
were rushing to all the major cities throughout China and Hong Kong businessmen
started to speak more Mandarin than Cantonese. In fact, throughout China
language started to become more and more standardized as people began to
interact at a national level.
There was
a revolution in farming in China under Deng. Under Mao, peasant families were
forced into collective agriculture groups and could not keep their surpluses,
giving them no incentive to produce more food, keeping those prices high. Deng,
however, allowed them to create “household units,” meaning that your family
could produce and/or sell something without government interference. The
northern areas did not change so much, as they still needed collective groups
of peasants to be able to afford large tractors that are necessary in that
climate, but southern areas quickly adapted to Deng’s liberalization.
While
Russia changed its economic system rapidly on the advice of some experts. Deng
was much more cautious and gradual and it paid off. He needed to build institutions
“with structures, rules, laws, and trained personnel adapted to the local
culture and local conditions.” It led to the creation of large businesses
outside of the state, though still under the careful watch of the Communist Party.
Often, when people more conservative in the party wanted to restrict growth out
of fear that it would get out of control, Deng was able to point to successes
to counter them. So if a business got to big and an official wanted to cut it
down to size, Deng would use their logic against them, as, after all, it must
have been a very successful business to grow that big. As the leader of the Party,
the government, and the army, Deng just kept plowing ahead.
Tiananmen Square, 1989
Perhaps
because the 1976 demonstrators were later deemed to be patriotic by Deng, the
1989 demonstrators in Tiananmen Square expected the same. They would not get the
same rehabilitation. While the 1976 demonstrators were supporters of reform,
Zhou Enlai, and Deng. The 1989 protestors were against Deng. They were
protesting due to the rapidly inflating economy, and that many were losing the
economic security once provided by government jobs. Ironically, many of them
were university students, only able to attend thanks to Deng’s changes. They
were upset that the government still used political officers to assign them
their jobs instead of letting them choose what jobs to apply for. The political
officers were especially hated because they often abused their power of
assignment. While prices had been stable for 30 years, inflation skyrocketed to
30% between 1987-88. Many people had benefitted from the old system and found
themselves now falling behind the new entrepreneurs that thrived in Deng’s
China. Deng had also somewhat lost touch with this people. At this point a very
old man with few contacts outside the party leadership, he depended on his
family to tell him the mood f the people, but even they had become insulated.
There was
a major debate over how to respond to the protests, which went from April to
June. Li Peng advocated for a very hard line and severity. Zhoa Ziyang felt
like the protestors were not bad and just needed to be reasoned with. Deng
sided with Li Peng and when some suggested that Westerners would heavily
criticize the action (as there was a large media presence due to the visit of
Mikhail Gorbachev), Deng said, “Westerners would forget,” a big miscalculation.
50,000
troops were sent in but were surprisingly stopped by the protesters who
barricaded roads into Beijing. They were only able to eventually enter by
walking in wearing plainclothes, riding bicycles as if they were relaxed, and
putting on other disguises, sneaking in using small groups rather than large
divisions of soldiers. The soldiers shot at hotel windows where they knew there
were reporters to keep them away from recording the events. Deng said the
following about how they should approach the situation: “First, we should observe
the situation coolly. Second, we should hold our ground. Third, we should act
calmly. Don’t be impatient. It is no good to be impatient. We should be calm,
calm, and again calm, and quietly immerse ourselves in practical work to accomplish
something—something for China.” It’s as good a summary as any of how Deng
approached problems. When he was criticized by the United States, he said, “…
we have to see what kind of actions the United States will take.” Essentially, actions
speak louder than words.
Conclusion
Deng deserves
much more recognition as an extremely successful ruler of China. He was not foolhardy
or cruel like Mao and he had just as clear a long-term vision. Deng’s vision
actually worked though. While Mao’s successors were pushed out shortly after
his death, Deng’s successors continue to rule China over twenty years after his. While Mao had considered one’s redness (their
political commitment to Communism) as the most important thing, Deng preferred
to gauge their merit. Deng presided over the change of the country from a rural
to an urban society, the biggest transformation in Chinese politics since Han unification
in 221 BCE. Businessmen are flocking to a country where few rules stop them
from doing as they please, yet government officials are happy to help them out.
I interpreted Deng as an incredibly savvy and smart leader who, through the
force of his will, was hugely successful in transforming China. This book is an
amazing window into the transformation of “revolutionary” China into the modern
China that is today’s rising power. Deng was present for and directing that
transformation, making his biography a perfect historical vantage point.
Miscellaneous Facts:
- The “Long March,” the Communist retreat from the Guomindang led by Chiang Kai-Shek, took one year as the Communists travelled 6,000 miles west, starting with 86,000 troops and ending with 10,000. Chiang was forced to negotiate and allow a ceasefire when he was kidnapped by the warlord Zhang Xueling.
- In 1973, thanks to the Cultural Revolution filling universities with unqualified children from good class backgrounds (poor farmers and soldiers), when a US delegation visited Peking University, they concluded that its level of teaching was of a U.S. Junior Technical College.
- In 1965, Malaysia was worried about having too much influence from ethnically Chinese people, so they kicked out Singapore, which was 75% ethnic Chinese, and gave it independence.
- After 2,200 years of history of relations between China and Japan, Deng was the first Chinese leader to go to Japan.
- In 1980, there were 3.5 million TVs in China and by 1985, there were over 40 million.
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