Word: deng
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...ranks and vestments are intended to enhance morale in an army whose power and prestige have been diminished by Chinese leaders determined to de- emphasize military might in favor of agricultural and industrial reform. After consolidating his power in 1978, Deng Xiaoping used a mixture of cajolery, cash incentives and hard-knuckle politics to oust military officers from top provincial and party posts. Since 1985, 1 million men and women, including 455,000 officers, have been mustered out. Though still 3.5 million strong, the PLA has lost its position as the world's largest military organization to the 5.2 million...
...reductions have been helped by Deng's successful economic revitalization. "Luckily, the army is not so attractive to the farm boys as it once was," says a Western diplomat in Beijing. "Today they are earning good money on the farms." To make ends meet, the generals have been forced to become entrepreneurs themselves, selling weapons to foreign countries to bring in extra cash. Western leaders have criticized them for selling Silkworm missiles to Iran and CSS-2 medium-range missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, to Saudi Arabia...
China's top military leaders have not always gone along with Deng's changes. Last year Deng, 83, was forced to remove his chosen successor, Hu Yaobang, from his most important offices partly because he was seen as antimilitary. His successor, Zhao Ziyang, is also a reformer, but one who is apparently acceptable to the PLA. When the new ranking system takes effect in the fall, Zhao is considered a strong candidate for promotion to senior general, the highest military grade...
...read about the economic modernizations touted by Deng Xiopang--they were the subject of occassional newspaper stories and magazine articles, though they had never received the amount of media coverage accorded to glasnost in the Soviet Union or the new economic hegemony of Japan...
...Beijing, Aquino held discussions with Deng Xiaoping and General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. She also visited the southern village of Fujian, from which her great-great-grandfather emigrated 182 years ago. Aquino met some 50 relatives and paid homage to her forebears in the family's ancestral temple...