Often referred to simply as "Comrade Xiaoping", Deng Xiaoping is
revered in China as a leader who changed the course of the world by
steering the country's class-orientated revolutionary struggle into
tangible economic development.
Although considered as "the general architect of China's
economic reform and socialist modernization", Deng Xiaoping
modestly shied away the cult of personality that was all too often
enjoyed by his predecessor Mao Zedong.
Deng died from a lung infection and Parkinson's disease on Feb.
19, 1997, at the age of 92. Even ten years after his death, many of
his countrymen still adore him as a saint.
"I miss Grandpa Deng a lot," said Feng Daishu while fertilizing
lettuce in his kale yard in the outskirts of Chengdu, in Deng's
home province of Sichuan.
Without Deng's "opening-up" policy, the 64-year-old vegetable
farmer said that he could have ended up becoming homeless, begging
in the street.
"When he passed away, I almost cried my heart out," Feng said.
"I felt I had lost a family member."
Indeed, before economic reforms were carried out in 1978, Feng
was as poor as a church mouse. Feng remembered how he barely had
some pennies to rub together. "I had to borrow money in order to
buy a new bucket," he said. "It cost only two yuan (US$0.25)!"
Deng's reforms replaced Chairman Mao's "collectivization" with
the privatization of farmland, giving the land confiscated during
the "Great Leap Forward" in the 1950s back to the farmers. As long
as they regularly delivered a proportion of staple crops to the
government, the farmers were free to grow whatever crops they
wanted.
"Now my family of three can make a comfortable living on our
kale yard. We earned more than 20,000 yuan (US$2,500) last year,"
Feng said, laughing from cheek to cheek.
Feng holds Deng in high esteem, lamenting the 10th anniversary
of his death he remarked. "Grandpa Deng made our rice bowl full,
and pockets deep as well. He bailed us farmers out from
poverty."
"It's really sad he's gone," he said. "We are enjoying the rice
he helped us grow. He's the savior of the farmers."
Without a doubt, Deng was a pragmatic leader with a vision of a
modern nation.
Cai Jinwei, a well-established cinema-photographer, noted that
Mao saved China once by founding the People's Republic of China
in1949 and overthrowing imperialism, feudalism, and
bureaucratic-capitalism.
A veteran communist at the age of 79, Cai commented that during
Mao's era, however, people were living a simple life, in part
because Mao's rigid political ideology dragged the country into
numerous political movements. "At the time, you might have money,
but you couldn't get what you needed or wanted."
"Back then," he recalled, having a small plate of peanut on your
dinner table was a wild wish. You had to wait till the Spring
Festival," he said. "Then you could get a quarter of a kilo with a
food coupon from the government."
In Cai's view, it wasn't until Deng's opening-up policy that the
people at large started to believe an affluent life was possible
and reachable. He said. "What made Deng great was his innovation,
creativity, and honesty."
When Deng realized the fact that the Soviet-model of socialism,
practiced in China for 30 years under Mao, had not improved
people's livelihood, he pioneered a new form of socialism, dubbed
socialism with Chinese characteristics. Along with this, Deng
initiated a series of economic reforms toward socialist market
economy.
Before Deng, many communist or socialist ideologues regarded the
market economy as an evil brainchild of capitalism, whereas the
planned economy was the correct road to socialism.
"Deng was a wise man. He didn't care much about -isms, he was
happy to use any doctrine, as long as they brought about real
benefits to the people. "That's what a good leader should be like,"
Cai said. "Deng will live forever with the people who have already
benefited from and, in the future, will benefit from his
legacy."
The creation of the socialist market economy widened the road
for China's development, increasing the responsibility of local
authorities, and freeing the entrepreneurial spirit of the
citizens, thus allowing a wide variety of small-businesses to
flourish.
Qi Xiaojing, 39, is just one of the millions of people that
benefited from Deng's reforms. He had worked for a state-owned
bank, and is the owner of five small businesses in one of Beijing's
busiest commercial areas.
He recalled how motivated he felt to have his own business after
reading Deng Xiaoping's speeches, published in Beijing Youth Daily
after Deng's visit to the country's south in 1992.
At the time, China's reform and opening-up program were at a
crucial juncture. In the tour, Deng delivering a series of speeches
aimed to clarify the muddled idea of whether the development of
special economic zones was capitalist or socialist in
nature.
Deng's speeches had a profound impact upon Qi. Many people like
Qi had quit their jobs in state-owned enterprises, but the idea of
jumping ship was strongly opposed by family members. Qi's parents
were concerned that state policy might be changed and then he would
lose everything, including his decent monthly pay of 2,000 to 3,000
yuan at that time.
Much to his parents' approval, Qi reluctantly stayed at the bank
while keeping an eye on national policy toward private business. Qi
noticed that between 1997 and 2000 private business grew and
developed drastically, encouraged by the government.
In 2000, Qi resigned from the bank and opened a bar in the
Houhai area of Beijing. There were very few bars in the area then,
but Qi sensed with his peculiar business savvy that it would become
a hot spot for bars in the future as a result of Deng's opening-up
policy.
Noting that private business was gaining more respect and
recognition, Qi opened three more bars in the area over the past
two years.
"Now I feel I'm really participating in the country's economic
development," he said.
"The district government organizes a policy briefing with
private business owners every year, informing us of the development
direction and policy analysis," he added.
While China's economy continues its unprecedented growth, social
problems such as wealth distribution, widening income gap,
corruption, land requisition, and an overall degradation of the
environmental landscape, are becoming alarmingly severe.
Some conventional socialist ideologues attribute the problems to
Deng's socialist market economy, claiming that China is falling
into chaos once again.
"Some of the current social problems existed before Deng and
some emerged in post-Deng era. These problems only suggest that his
reforms have not yet been fully realized," said Ding Yuanzhu from
the Macroeconomic Research Institute under the National Development
and Reform Commission.
"However, we can not expect economic reforms to resolve all
problems, whether social, political or economical," Ding said.
In fact, Ding noticed, Deng Xiaoping had left a legacy of both
the accomplishment of reform, and some resultant social problems.
"The former was a foundation for the post-Deng leadership to better
administrate the country, and the latter is an opportunity for them
to make a new political achievement," he said.
Indeed, Deng said that there was no definite road map for
economic reform. "We must cross the river by feeling the stones
with our feet," Deng said.
The opened door cannot be closed any more, even if opening-up
results in problems to some extent. Ling Fei, 51, a freelance
artist trained in France, believed such a move would be disastrous,
claiming that an attributing factor behind China's previous lack of
significant economic development was that "we closed the country
outside international intercourse."
"The development of China is impossible if it stands aloof from
other countries," he said.
Ling said Deng's opening-up policy has helped China blend into
the modern world, and into the mainstream of international
relations.
In other words, he said, whenever China speaks today, the
international sits back and listens, thanks to Comrade
Xiaoping.
(Xinhua News Agency February 19, 2007)