Word: deng
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China's top leadership, now that Deng Xiaoping is gone, looks like the ducks on a quiet pond in Zhongnanhai, the palatial government compound in Beijing. The ducks swim along serenely and smoothly. But below the surface their legs are paddling furiously, spreading unseen turbulence. They may or may not change places in their parade, but everyone watching knows that real effort goes into...
China has perhaps become too complex to be run by the old men in Beijing. Unfortunately, Deng left no system of governance to move China from the rule of men to the rule of laws. The country's government is based not on a constitution but on a fluid dynamism where power shifts with personalities and personal alliances. While the Chinese people have learned to fear the depredations of megalomaniacs, they are also afraid that their country will fall apart without a demigod at the helm...
...outside world is just as ambivalent. No matter how prepared China was for Deng's passing, there will be new tensions inside the country, and that promises continued tensions between Beijing and Washington. Even with Deng, says a senior State Department official, "it was a difficult relationship to manage. The prickliness on the Chinese side won't change." U.S. analysts think Jiang is unlikely to advance into greater intimacy with the U.S., yet economic progress depends on keeping the relationship active and friendly...
That's not exactly the image Beijing is promoting. The official line is that the transition from the Deng era to that of President Jiang Zemin happened years ago and is locked firmly in place: Jiang was Deng's chosen successor, and he has handily gathered up the reins of power. Well, it would not be China or the Communist Party if that were true. Even under the red emperors Mao Zedong and Deng, as with the real emperors of the past, there were constant plots and purges. But Chinese and Western experts do generally agree that none of Jiang...
...expected. The portly technocrat, a former mayor and party boss of Shanghai, has been a national figure only since 1989, and he is regularly dismissed as a lightweight and a weather vane who swings with the political winds. In fact he has shown a lot of political savvy since Deng called him to Beijing in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre. With Deng's help he took on all the posts that matter: President, General Secretary of the party, chairman of the Central Military Commission. But Jiang did not let it rest at titles. He went on to build...