Word: deng
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...party's legitimacy," says one government official, "will come from the success of its policies. As the country becomes stronger, so too will the party." As Leader Deng sees it, that means retiring many of the older officials and replacing them with better-educated, better-qualified young technocrats. Yet rebuilding the party remains an uphill struggle. Despite infusions of fresh blood, nearly half of its members have no more than an elementary education and at least 10% are illiterate. Many are unprepared to deal with directives from government and party headquarters that put a premium on efficiency and management skill...
...highest levels, Deng has tried to ensure that his reforms will outlast him by weeding out opponents or gently moving them to the sidelines. In 1981 he eased out Party Chairman and Premier Hua Guofeng, Mao's choice for the succession, and installed in Hua's place General Secretary Hu Yaobang. The premiership, which Hua also held, went to Zhao Ziyang, the former governor of Sichuan. Last July, Propaganda Chief Deng Liqun, who had missed no opportunity in recent years to reaffirm "the purity of Communism," was ousted from his post. Deng Xiaoping has defanged other neo-Maoists, or "whateverists...
This month's party conference is expected to consolidate that process by strengthening the position of the younger Deng supporters of the "third echelon," including Hu Qili and former Youth Leader Wang Zhaoguo. Overall, these personnel changes have been accomplished with notably less of the factional fighting and intrigue that have attended so many of China's ideological transitions in the recent past...
That may be a point well taken. Even if Deng and his colleagues maintain control at the top, they still face opposition at the regional and local levels. This is all the more so because China is a huge country that tends toward fractiousness at any sign of uncertainty in Peking. "Already," says a foreign diplomat, "we are seeing signs of provinces erecting trade barriers against goods from other areas." Economic improvement varies from region to region, and vested interests have begun to assert themselves. Chongqing, the country's largest city, was criticized last spring by Peking for refusing...
...Deng and his reformist allies have displayed an impressive blend of self-criticism and self-confidence in their attempts to balance a measure of freedom with control, unity with diversity, experimentation with tradition. Their success at opening to the outside world a country that has long lived behind walls both great and small has been remarkable. The people have seized their new opportunities with the spirit and skill shown by the industrious Overseas Chinese. But the very success of reform could invite trouble as the initial heady effects of the transition subside. "Suppose in 15 or 20 years they haven...