Deng Xiaoping is arguably the most important political leader in the second half of the 20th century, and his influence on future generations continues to expand.
His resume is impressive.
To say the least, if it were not for Deng Xiaoping’s personal strength and the political risks he assumed, China would not have embarked on the path of accelerated economic development in 1978.
If China’s economy had not developed at an average annual growth rate of 10% in the decades after Deng Xiaoping’s re-emergence in 1977, the world today would be very different.
It can be said that Deng Xiaoping, who was less than 1.5 meters tall, had a huge impact on the world economic history.
Deng Xiaoping’s ups and downs
In 1904, Deng Xiaoping was born in a landlord family in Sichuan Province. As a staunch Marxist-Leninist and a tough field commander and political commissar, he was promoted step by step in the Chinese Communist Party system.
Although it was Mao Zedong who commanded the army to win the bloody civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, it was Deng Xiaoping, a former protégé of Mao Zedong, who pushed a country with a quarter of the world‘s population into a new era.
The historical evaluation of Deng Xiaoping is much more benevolent than Mao Zedong. The extremely destructive political campaigns launched by Mao Zedong, including the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, brought great suffering to the country.
Deng Xiaoping himself was also a victim of these movements. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, he was removed from the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and his reputation was not restored until 1973 under the protection of then Premier Zhou Enlai. However, after Zhou Enlai’s death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping was “purged” again.
Mao Zedong passed away shortly after Zhou Enlai’s death, and his followers, the “Gang of Four”, were smashed. This allowed Deng Xiaoping to hold on to his position amidst successive waves of political turmoil and stick to a line amid years of revolutionary turmoil.
Reuters
)Getting rich is glorious
There is no doubt that Deng Xiaoping is an authoritarian figure who believes in the absolute power of the Chinese Communist Party. His deeds to future generations will always be accompanied by a stain, that is, authorizing the use of force against the democratic demonstrators on Tiananmen Square in 1989. It is believed that hundreds of people died in that campaign and many more were put in prison.
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However, without justifying the excesses of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, Deng Xiaoping’s full contribution to China cannot be overstated—he made China transition from an economically backward country to a modern superpower.
His extraordinary achievements are too numerous to list, but during his efforts to put China on the path of “reform and opening up,” three dates have to be mentioned.
He used the words “reform” and “opening up” to summarize his method of freeing China from the revolutionary past and embarking on another route.
The three dates are:
1978: The leadership position of Deng Xiaoping established at the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
In modern Chinese history, this meeting was regarded as the starting point of a large-scale transformation. This meeting relaxed China’s economy and removed the “Bamboo Curtain” that shielded China from the outside world.
in 1980: In a speech, Deng Xiaoping put forward the “great task” facing China in the last 20 years of the 20th century and beyond. The importance of this speech is often overlooked in history.
These tasks include quadrupling the gross national product by 2000. Although this vision once attracted ridicule, after Deng Xiaoping initiated reforms, China quickly achieved this goal, including the implementation of agricultural de-collectivization and liberalization of enterprises. Family class restrictions.
1992: Deng Xiaoping, who was 90 years old and in poor health, embarked on the “Southern Tour” to inspect southern China, reinvigorating the reform process that had fallen into a trough after the Tiananmen Square incident.
Also purged after the Tiananmen Square massacre was the then reformist leader Zhao Ziyang, who served as the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Premier of the State Council. However, Deng Xiaoping ruthlessly chose not to protect this backward-mover who had been raised by him.
Historians view Deng Xiaoping’s southern tour not only as his last fight, but also as his most enduring contribution to China’s rapidly growing power and influence.
In all of this, it is important to remember that in 1978, China’s economy was about the same size as Italy. In 2021, China’s economic scale based on nominal GDP is already the world‘s second largest economy after the United States, and will surpass the United States in the next two to three years. At the same time, China has lifted 800 million people out of poverty. In human history, we have never seen anything like this.
Of course, Deng Xiaoping did not achieve all of this on his own. He accepted what Mao Zedong wanted to suppress in order to maintain control of the party and the country, that is, the extraordinary energy and enterprising spirit of the Chinese people.
Deng Xiaoping’s various slogans, such as “It is glorious to get rich”, seized this opportunity and indeed helped unleash the full potential of the Chinese people.
No longer keep a low profile
This is not to say that Deng Xiaoping’s achievements will not be compromised in any way, nor does it mean that China’s rapidly growing power and influence will continue to develop without hindrance.
China’s continued economic transformation is like a difficult performance, because the Chinese leadership wants to maintain its position in an unpredictable world when American power fades. China’s economy is far from reaching the level where domestic consumer demand can cushion the ups and downs of exports. For the CCP leadership after Deng Xiaoping, this is a challenging era.
Reuters: Reinhard Krause, File
)Deng Xiaoping himself is likely to be skeptical of the personality cult that appears in Chinese society today towards the supreme leader Xi Jinping. In his 1980 “Great Task” speech, Deng Xiaoping warned against such signs.
This stems from his personal experience under the tyrannical Mao Zedong. In that speech, Deng Xiaoping emphasized the importance of collective leadership because he knew that unchecked power would lead to corruption.
There is no doubt that Deng Xiaoping’s advice has been left behind. As China’s power and influence grows, China should “keep a low profile” or “hide its power and bide its time”. Over the years, this sentence has been interpreted in various ways, and some regarded it as Deng Xiaoping’s warning that China should avoid arbitrary interference, or a trick, that is, Beijing is accumulating strength in secret without attracting attention.
Under Xi Jinping’s style of Chinese nationalism, this approach has been abandoned. As China becomes stronger, this may be inevitable, but at least it can be discussed whether the shrewd Deng Xiaoping will support this approach that may be opposed to many other parts of the world.
Tony Walker is the President’s Chair Researcher of La Trobe University. This article was first published in “Dialogue”. This is part of the “Guess the Game Changers” (Guess the Game Changers) character introduction program. “Guess the Game Changers” is a Q&A session in the ABC national radio network RN’s Saturday Extra program. Hosted by Geraldine Doogue. Welcome to listen at 7:30 am every Saturday.
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