Word: deng
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Equally at risk are the political and institutional reforms which Deng has initiated over the past eight years. He had sought to put an end to class struggle in favour of economic development, the century-old search for national wealth and power. But a struggle between "bourgeois" and "socialist" ideas is now inevitable. Can it be contained by newborn and fragile "legal" norms? And how will Deng sustain his opening to the West, the alleged source of China's "spiritual pollution?" As important, Deng's preemptory behaviour in the present crisis has fractured the image of a new, un-Maoist...
LIKE MAO ZEDONG BEFORE HIM, Deng Xiaoping has been forced to abandon a hand-picked successor and loyal supporter for committing grave political errors. Deng should have the personal prestige, like Mao again, to ride out this considerable reverse. But the history of Mao's cultural revolution should warn Deng that the demotion of Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang may have started the rot not stopped...
...appointment of Premier Zhao Ziyang to succeed Hu ad interim is designed to symbolize a continued commitment to reform. For the moment Deng has only conceded the need to restore discipline among the students in particular and the intellectual community generally. But this means a reemphasis on ideological orthodoxy. The "hundred flowers" of intellectual diversity and academic speculation may be cut down, as they were 30 years ago in an "anti-rightist campaign...
...COURSE, THERE ARE profound differences between the programs of Deng and Mao which give Deng's a better chance for survival. The cultural revolution unleashed an orgy of violence and civil strife which Deng is committed to avoid, an understandable objective in a land of a billion people and hence Hu's fall. Moreover, Mao's call for the spiritual transformation of his subjects into selfless collectivists flew in the face of human nature and Chinese reality. Deng's agricultural reforms, by contrast, have unleashed peasant energies, generated massive increases in outputs and doubled rural living standards...
Others see less calculation behind Peking's moves. "The Deng style of decision making is very easygoing," says Andrew Nathan, a China expert at Columbia University. "To use a metaphor from pool, he takes a shot at the setup and sees where the balls go." Peking may have quieted the restive students for a while. But it is probably only a matter of time before, once again, the dragon of democracy pokes its head through Deng's window...