Word: deng
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Politically and culturally, that fight has waxed and waned. China is still a one-party dictatorship and Deng has no intention of letting it become anything else. Rights taken for granted in the U.S., such as freedom of speech and assembly, are strictly controlled; some limited freedom of religion has been granted. Even so, a revised constitution adopted in 1982 marked a step toward making China a society governed by law rather than the whim of party officials...
...other ways, too, the dictatorship is less oppressive. Deng has permitted a popular press to spring up. Hundreds of new publications have appeared all over China; they cannot criticize policy, but they print lurid exposés of prostitution, pornography, corruption and black-marketeering by party officials (indeed, they sometimes seem to report little else). Culturally, Deng in 1983 permitted officials to start a crackdown on writers and artists, in the guise of a campaign against "spiritual pollution," probably as a gesture toward conservatives concerned that the pace of change was too rapid. But Deng speedily announced that the campaign...
...year-old structure into 32 cubicles, and its courtyard is dotted with drying pepper bunches and ears of corn. In the center of these crowded communal quarters stand three rooms unused except by the 60 or so visitors who turn up daily to see the birthplace of Deng Xiaoping. But even the smattering of photographs and old furniture on display in the farmhouse's "cultural center" constitutes more of a memorial than China's leader would like. When asked how he wanted his ancestral home in Paifang used, Deng replied, "Just keep it as it was, and let the peasants...
...that Deng does not relish self-promotion is an understatement. He has never held any of the official titles usually associated with national leadership. "People wanted me to be Chairman of the party, but I told them I was too old for that," Deng recently told a TIME-sponsored Newstour. "Then people wanted me to take the post of President, and I said no, I wouldn't do that." The Chinese press refers to him simply as "paramount leader." But that modesty is hardly for lack of a life that has been interesting, both in the usual sense...
...Deng's long career has been a biographer's dream, a tumultuous charge through war and revolution, exhilarating political triumphs and equally humiliating downfalls, personal achievements and family tragedies. Through it all, drawing on seemingly limitless reserves of energy and wily resilience, the tenacious 4-ft. 11-in. politician has managed not only to endure but to prevail. Today, one year into his ninth decade, he stands at the zenith of his power as leader of the world's most populous nation and as progenitor of what he proudly calls its "second revolution...