China's Last Emperor

...What after Deng...

...These retirements will leave room for the promotion of reformists loyal to Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang, the designated new Party general secretary...

...His rise to such political heights at the relatively young age of 49 has been a lasting lesson for Deng...

...It will be, he predicts, a medium-developed country with a per capita income of $4,000 annually...

...Laughter engulfed the knowing Chinese and Americans present...

...execution is one of the indispensable means of education...

...Nothing, at least, akin to the violence and enormous loss of life the Chinese experienced in the creation of the authoritarian Party-dominated regime that Deng is now imbuing with stability...

...In December 1986, at the height of the student demonstrations in Beijing, he told Party Central Committee members: "We have to take action against those who openly oppose socialism and the Communist Party...

...If our country were plunged into disorder and our nation reduced to a heap of loose sand, how could we ever prosper...

...The door to China will remain open—not because Deng Xiaoping wishes to re-create the capitalist system that was demolished here at the cost of tens of thousands of Communist troops, but because his country needs machines, computers, military hardware, and managerial skills from the United States, Western Europe and Japan...

...At the same time he has shown himself to be a shrewd tactician, ready to move to the Right or Left as the political moment demands, and this seems to have created an impression of evolution in his thinking...

...and that had a great impact on society as a whole...

...Deng cocked his head to the right in a characteristic gesture and a thin smile spread across his round face, as if he had delivered a one-liner...

...Hu's contemporary, Li Peng, could be named Prime Minister at the National People's Congress next spring...

...To show our determination, we would have to execute several more than two...

...The answer is, probably, nothing...

...A package of Panda cigarettes lies on a plain wooden table between the Chinese leader and guests...

...Things are different now and the effect would not be so great...

...In 1952 two persons were executed...

...In fact, throughout the dozen bloody years that began in 1937 Deng personally saw little if any combat with the Chinese Red Army, either against the Japanese invaders or Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces...

...He prefers to operate behind the scenes, as he has since he regained power and put Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang in positions of authority...

...is already a commonplace question among foreigners and Chinese...

...The reason the imperialists were able to bully us in the past was precisely that we were a heap of loose sand...

...He always dresses plainly for official events, wearing either a dark gray or blue Mao suit (more precisely, a Sun Yat-sen high-collared tunic...

...They forget those words were spoken shortly after the "Great Leap Forward" of the late 1950s that contributed to the starvation, by conservative estimate, of 20 million Chinese...

...He recalls his own career as he now strives to arrange a bloodless transition of power from his octogenarian generation of revolutionaries to men in their 50s and 60s...

...In short, an unpretentious man of the people...

...Having supported the disastrous move, Deng was simply trying to justify steps to reverse the damage and feed the hungry millions—a political and economic imperative...

...It was Deng who slapped down the students demonstrating for democracy in more than 20 Chinese cities late last year...

...The foreign press corps was shepherded out and the private part of the audience began...

...He told a meeting of the Communist Party military commission in 1984 that when "our national strength is greatly increased, it will not be too difficult for us to produce a few more atom bombs, missiles and other pieces of modern equipment, whether for air, sea or land...

...As chief of staff of the Armed Forces he commanded a then 4 million-man Army, the backbone of the Communist government...

...investment and technological assistance...

...He exudes a sense of power, even when standing lifelessly amid his aides, gazing into his private thoughts...

...He is still addicted to his specially made Panda brand cigarettes, but says he restricts his work day to fewer than six hours to conserve his energy and assure his well-being...

...The 59-year-old Li Peng, for example, has specialized in energy, industrial and education matters...

...That man, Deng Xiaoping, quietly celebrated his 83rd brithday in August at the seaside resort of Beidai he, seven hours east of Beijing...

...Last spring, talking with Czechoslovak Prime Minister Lubomir Strougal, Deng said: "We will demonstrate to mankind that socialism is the only solution and that it is superior to capitalism...

...Xiaoping...

...Only a few months before his rodeo act Deng had toppled Party boss Hua Guofeng, whom the revolutionary idol Mao Zedong once told, "With you in charge, I can rest easy...

...Thus in 1966, at the start of the Cultural Revolution, Deng had to write a "self-criticism" Io placate the Maoinspired Red Guards who accused him of being a "capitalist roader...

...None among the chosen successors will play his role again...

...Armand Hammer called him a "brilliant strategist, not only in politics but in business...

...Most often, a white enameled cuspidor is positioned at his left foot so that he can spit (as Chinese commonly do...

...In 1925, at age 21, he joined the fledgling Chinese Communist Party and was immediately sent to Moscow for a year of study...

...Deng handled the topic banteringly, referring to President Ronald Reagan's Iran-contra debacle...

...Indeed, apart from impaired hearing in his right ear, Deng has no known serious medical problems...

...Toughening their minds and bodies in vicious internal power struggles, they learned how to survive as others fell...

...Perhaps because of his abject self-critcism, Deng and his family were "sent to the countryside" (others, such as Liu Shaoqi, died as a result of mistreatment...

...The remarkably similar looking 58-year-old Hu Qili, a graduate of Beijing University, administers the Communist Party Secretariat, which is immersed in personnel affairs...

...Audiences with Deng will be reserved for uncommonly favored "old friends" of China...

...Deng smiled more broadly, fingered the package of Panda cigarettes, and leaned over in his chair so far that it seemed large enough for two...

...Guests are brought to the Great Hall of the People, a Soviet-built edifice ranging across the western edge of the huge Tiananmen Square, in convoys of Mercedes and Nissans led by Public Security Ministry cars flashing red lights...

...Just prior to Mao's death in 1976 Deng had suffered his second political fall, but he rebounded within a year and, at a Communist Party Central Committee meeting toward the end of 1978, re-established the power base that propelled him to where he is today...

...The reasons are hard to describe...

...Inside, overstuffed chairs are arranged in a horseshoe shape...

...The visiting entourage, once greeted, is led behind the art screen into the highceilinged meeting room...

...Usually Deng has a point to make during the first five minutes of an audience, which foreign reporters are allowed to hear and film...

...He does both, though, when he speaks at Chinese Party meetings and to fellow Communists...

...The 13th Party Congress could well be Deng's last...

...Socialism does not mean poverty," he is fond of saying...

...Foreign correspondents, photographers and TV camera crews have been assembled and checked half an hour before and herded to one side of an entrance to a Great Hall meeting room...

...He was a political commissar, attached to this or that front, engaged in propaganda and Party organizational work...

...I have consistently followed the fundamental principles of Marxism...

...As a matter of fact...

...Deng subsisted on a patch of land in a village outside Beijing and did manual work in a factory until 1973, when he was rehabilitated and brought back to the capital...

...Curiously, Westerners have been reluctant to take Deng at his word...

...Here he is talking to top Party leaders in January 1986 about China's crime problem: "Some of the perpetrators of serious economic or other crimes must be exécutai as required by law...

...The press corps follows like the tail of a meteor...

...It was Deng who praised General Wojciech Jaruzelski's imposition of martial law in Poland as a model for handling internal disorder...

...Deng further counts on China achieving the industrial capacity to equip its Armed Forces with state-of-the-art weaponry...

...A stonefaced Deng, riding in an open Red Flag limousine, slowly passed ranks of troops in Tiananmen Square, taking the salute while soldiers set up a roaring chant—"Xiaoping...

...He now credits Mao for his comeback...

...After the Communists took power in 1949, Deng moved up the political ladder rather rapidly...

...In the meantime, Deng Xiaoping will unquestionably remain the "senior leader," the gray eminence...

...This was a public relations triumph for the Chinese, who wanted to present an amiable, populist chief to the American people as he prepared to launch his "open door" policy of seeking U.S...

...One reason may be that Deng does not dwell on his commitment to Marxism and a Communist state in his audiences with foreigners...

...Almost invariably these sessions produce a paean of praise to Deng Xiaoping for boldly leading China into a new era...

...The trepidation evinced by the imperialists and revisonists toward the Cultural Revolution is ample proof that it is a good and absolutely correct movement," he confessed at the time...

...At the apex, Deng Xiaoping has settled into a chair on the right of his primary visitor, presenting his good ear and looking all the more diminutive as he leans against the arm of the bulky furniture...

...He will publicly run China until possibly the next Congress in 1992, when younger men like Hu Qili would take over the Party...

...One has to meet with some troubles and difficulties, " he tossed out in his heavily Sichuan-accented Chinese...

...He will continue to hold the official title of Party military affairs commission chairman, and might even retain a Politburo seat...

...Security agents with walkie-talkies coordinate the visitors' arrival so that as they proceed into the cavernous Great Hall and down a red carpeted pathway, Deng, flanked by aides, emerges from behind a large Oriental art screen to extend a hand of welcome...

...The reality is rather different back home, where Chinese last saw their leader at a public event on October 1,1984, the35th anniversary of the People's Republic of China...

...He remains in charge of the military, although the Army has been trimmed to a more economically efficient 3 million...

...Their tailored Western suits and educated speech reflect careers spent tinkering with an economic and political framework that leaders like Mao and Deng and dozens of others, mostly infirm or dead now, pounded together at the cost of millions of lives...

...To mark the occasion he was photographed cheerfully bathing in the warm sea—evoking memories of Mao Zedong swimming in the Yangtze River in his late years—a picture of health despite all he has been through...

...Shultz, playing straight man, picked it up: "Is that so...

...The end of the Deng Xiaoping era will bring to a close the revolutionary chapter of China's 20th-century history...

...Collectors cherish a tapestry of Mao placing a gentle hand on Hua's knee to anoint him as successor...

...Generally speaking, the problem now is that we are too soft on criminals...

...But the Deng Xiaoping who is sometimes seen in the West as a liberal reformer because of his economic policies is at heart a staunch political conservative...

...Time named Deng "Man of the Year" for 1985, declaring that he has "launched the world's most populous nation on an audacious effort to create what amounts to a new form of society...

...Xiaoping...

...Carrying off an episode no American television producer could resist, Deng Xiaoping attended a Texas rodeo in Houston, climbed aboard a replica of a stage coach and waved a white cowboy hat from the window as it circled the small arena...

...Mao Zedong Thought is still our guiding ideology...

...In contrast to Zhao Ziyang, or future leaders like Li Peng or Hu Qili, Deng has not hesitated to broadcast his vision of China in the year 2050...

...These men will manage the structure and philosophy they inherit board-ofdirectors style...

...Luck has played a recurrent role in Deng's lengthy career...

...I hadn't realized it...

...By 1954 Mao named him secretary-general of the Chinese Communist Party...

...And it is Deng who proclaims that the Communist Party must retain unchallenged leadership in China, and who scoffs at Western democratic systems as productive of chaos and confusion...

...The most favored scenario here has him, aging President Li Xiannian and, more important, Deng's sometime critic and contemporary Chen Yun vacating the five-member Politburo standing committee...

...A new collection of some of Deng's private statements—the expurgated texts of which were reviewed and approved by him personally—reveals aspects of the inner man...

...They carry themselves confidently, with sophistication and good manners...

...Until recently, I have not been aware of my attitude and still felt myself superior and infallible...

...Deng Xiaoping stands about four feet 11 inches...

...But there is no mistaking that Deng is the one in command...

...There is more than a trace of opportunism in Deng's career, as well as a record of hard use of power—whenever he has it...

...Consider, then, what Deng told Mike Wallace in a 60 Minutes interview: "I am a Marxist...

...In 1934-35 he made the 6,000mile Long March with Mao Zedong, ending up among the 8,000 survivors out of 85,000 troops and 15,000 Party and government officials...

...That transition is mostly what the 13th Communist Party Congress convening on October 25 will be about...

...Neither is known to have uttered a single personal thought in their careful public statements...

...During his late teens he got to spend several months in France on a work-study program...

...They tend to believe he is a closet capitalist, a characterization they read into his reforms...

...Foreign diplomats and politicians who have recently spent an hour with the Chinese leader describe him as relaxed, mentally alert and optimistic...

...It is an image orginally implanted in the American mind on his 1979 tour of the United States...

...Calling someone a pragmatist is generally taken to imply that he is not beholden to an ideology, Marxist or otherwise...

...While Zhao will have a mandate to carry on current reforms, at 69 he is considered a bridging figure...

...Deng has ruled over China for the last eight years as its "senior leader"— a vague label made necessary by his holding no title that suggests the power he wields...

...Following a series of tough internal battles, Deng apparently has struck a deal...

...Others of the same age, like National People's Congress Chairman Peng Zhen, who has also been critical of Deng, will be shunted aside too...

...Mark Hopkins, a speciaiisl in Soviet and Fusiera European affairs, has spent the last three years in China...

...it may simply be the trappings of position, the deference shown him by assistants and foreigners...

...Two anonymous interpreters, behind him and his interlocutor, speak into microphones, amplifying the exchanges in translation...

...The new men who will guide China into Ihe next century are cut from cloth of corporate managers...

...When Secretary of State George ? Shultz visited recently, the ostensible opening small talk dealt with the abrupt dismissal last January of Deng's erstwhile protégé, former Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang...

...The image of Deng reported to the outside world is that of a modest, selfless servant, devoted to the aspirations of 1 billion Chinese eager to rid themselves of the legacy of the Great Cultural Revolution and become rich through the workings of a socialist market economy...

...It is presumed, however, that he will have Zhao assume the role of authoritative spokesman...

...as long as it can catch mice, it's a good cat...

...Deng has habitually reverted to state force in order to meet China's problems, yet within the Communist Party itself he has pressured his contemporaries to jettison outdated concepts of power...

...They shun Mao tunics, the symbol of the egalitarian-driven Chinese Revolution...

...Aprolonged neglect of Mao Zedong Thought in the past has now developed into a salient opposition to it...

...We also have had such problems...

...THE TWO FACES OF DENG XIAOPING China's Last Emperor BY MARK HOPKINS Beijing The rich, the powerful and the famous stream into China these days, hoping against hope for an audience with a short, self-effacing, aging man recognized as pre-eminent among the handful of Chinese Comunist revolutionaries who have survived an extraordinarily brutal history...

...Many in the West have therefore called him a "pragmatist," citing a now famous remark he made back in 1962: "It doesn't matter whether it is a black cat or a white cat...

...Audiences with Deng Xiaoping unerringly follow a set pattern, whether with Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, Armand Hammer, endless delegations of Japanese politicians, Margaret Thatcher, the king of Nepal, Helmut Kohl, or Time magazine's corporate executives...

...The Long March "badge"—something like a medal of honor in Chinese political and military circles—has since served him well...

...The Old Guard had a very different political maturation...