Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (133 page)

Deng's successors have found that those who lack these benefits have become more vocal. The increased mobility of the population requires protections that a single work unit cannot provide, and the government budget and numbers of well-trained medical professionals are not yet sufficient to meet the growing demand. With the abolition of the rural collective, there is no rural unit to provide first aid and elementary public health services. With the privatization of housing and the pressure placed on state enterprises to compete in a more open-market environment, even the welfare provided by large work units is not always adequate. The challenge for Chinese leaders, then, is to expand the number of qualified medical personnel, upgrade facilities, and develop a system of health care and social security that protects the entire population, including the people living in poverty in remote areas—all within the constraints of the national budget.
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And because it will take many decades to develop a system that meets these goals, an additional challenge is to distribute the resources and facilities that are currently available in a way that appears fair and reasonable.
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REDEFINING AND MANAGING THE BOUNDARIES OF FREEDOM.
Perhaps the most troubling problem that Deng faced was setting boundaries of freedom that would satisfy the demands of the intellectuals and general public
and at the same time enable leaders to maintain public order. After the Tiananmen tragedy, the public has generally been afraid to demand more freedoms, but such intimidation will not last forever. In the meantime, the growth in the number of publications and the dramatic expansion of Internet and mobile phone use have made it vastly more difficult for the party to control the spread of ideas officials judge to be dangerous.

Deng's successors fear, just as Deng had, that tolerating the expression of divergent views will unleash a torrent of public expressions of hostility, which will again, like in 1989, lead to demonstrations that disrupt public order. The challenge for government leaders is to find boundaries that people find reasonable enough to accept, and then find ways to enforce these accepted boundaries. Given the growing sophistication of modern communications and the creativity of those who seek to evade controls, can government leaders find a way to shape public perceptions and prevent turmoil?

CONTAINING CORRUPTION
. During his tenure, Deng had advocated punishment for prominent cases of corruption, but he also was willing to look the other way when local officials quietly bent the rules in order to promote the four modernizations and accelerate economic growth. The problem for Deng's successors is that officials at every level have found ways to receive incomes beyond their regular salaries. Public officials, medical doctors, and employers often receive “red envelopes” with money. Officials who grant permits for land acquisitions for new projects and for construction receive not only direct payments, but also shares in the company, property at below market price, lavish dinners, and luxurious cars. Officials, both in the military and civilian institutions, make payments to superiors who make promotion decisions. And young people pay the army recruiter to be allowed to join the military. The challenge for high-level officials is that such practices are now so widespread, and so many officials or members of officials' families are involved, that tackling the problem is extremely difficult.

PRESERVING THE ENVIRONMENT
. In Deng's era, poverty was so widespread and the desire for economic growth so strong that economic growth took precedence over preventing pollution—although Deng did take a personal interest in promoting reforestation and expanding park areas. Since Deng's time, however, as industry has expanded greatly, and as environmental concerns such as coal smoke, water shortages, river pollution, acid rain, environmentally related health problems, and contaminated food have grown along with public consciousness about them, officials are confronted with
how to change those practices that cause serious environmental damage. Some of the most difficult problems have arisen in poor areas where mining and the use of coal and other resources cause great environmental damage but the economic pressures to continue these practices are great. How too will China respond to complaints from other countries now that it is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the number of motor vehicles on Chinese roads is growing by several million each year, and the growth of heavy industry is likely to increase the use of coal?

MAINTAINING THE GOVERNMENT'S LEGITIMACY TO RULE.
Mao achieved his legitimacy to rule by winning the civil war, expelling the foreign imperialists, and unifying the country. Deng gained legitimacy by bringing about order after the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, by dealing pragmatically with the serious issues facing the country, and by achieving rapid economic growth. How will Deng's successors establish their own legitimacy in this new age?

Deng's successors are under pressure for not being more successful in stopping China's widespread corruption and for not doing more to resolve the problems of inequality. And it may be even harder in the future to combat these problems: given global economic fluctuations, China faces the potential of an economic slowdown before a substantial portion of the population has had the chance to enjoy the benefits of the earlier rapid growth period. To prepare for this possibility, Chinese leaders will have to look beyond fast economic growth for legitimacy and accelerate progress on some of the issues that the public is most concerned about: reducing corruption and inequality, providing a reasonable level of universal medical care and welfare, and finding a way to show that public opinion is being respected in the selection of officials.

China as a Superpower: Deng's Legacy

China's extraordinarily rapid growth, which began under Deng and further accelerated with his departing final effort, his southern journey, has raised the question of how China will behave as the size of its economy rivals that of the United States. What would Deng do if he were alive?

Concerning territorial disputes, Deng believed in setting them aside and allowing wiser people to resolve them peacefully, at a later time. The big picture to him was not to get excited about border issues; what was important was to maintain overall good relationships with other countries.

Deng believed that it was in China's interest to have harmonious relations with its neighbors and to concentrate on peaceful development. He strengthened relations with Europe beginning with a quick trip to France in 1974 and a state visit the following year. He not only improved relations with Japan in 1978 and made the first visit in history by a Chinese leader to Japan, but he also supported the development of cultural relations so there would be a stronger positive relationship between the two nations overall. He normalized relations with the United States and made a triumphant visit to America to strengthen U.S.-China relations. He opened trade with South Korea and paved the way for normalization of relations that followed shortly after his southern journey. One of his crowning achievements was to restore normal relations with the Soviet Union in 1989 after thirty years of strained relations. In short, he improved China's relations with every major nation.

Deng, as the first Chinese leader to address the UN General Assembly in 1974, said that China would never become a tyrant and that if it ever oppressed and exploited other nations, the world, and especially the developing countries, should expose China as a “social imperialist” country and, in cooperation with the Chinese people, overthrow the Chinese government. In August 1991, upon receiving the news that Soviet leader Gennady Yanayev had staged a coup against Gorbachev, Wang Zhen sent a telegram to the party center proposing that they lend support for Yanayev's coup. Deng replied
“taoguang yanghui, juebu dangtou, yousuo zuowei.”
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(Incorrectly translated by some Westerners as “avoid the limelight, don't take the lead, bide your time.” What it means is “avoid the limelight, never take the lead, and try to accomplish something.”) In Deng's view, China should not get involved in other countries' domestic affairs.

In the years after Deng, as China gained strength, some Chinese security specialists, as well as some of their American counterparts, debated whether once China became strong it should continue biding its time or take a more forceful stance. After some months of debate in 2010–2011, during which time some Chinese leaders were ready to behave more aggressively, the debate was resolved in favor of China continuing to maintain harmonious relations with other countries. One cannot predict how future generations of Chinese leaders will respond to the issue, but there is no question what Deng would say if he were still alive. He would say that China should never behave like a hegemon that interferes in the internal affairs of another nation. Rather, it should maintain harmonious relations with other countries and concentrate on peaceful development at home.

Chen Yun

The careers of Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun were deeply intertwined since the early 1930s, when they both served in the Communist underground in Shanghai under Zhou Enlai.
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Since then, and until 1980, they had generally been allied on the same side in inner-party struggles. The two had gone together in 1953 to ask Mao Zedong to blow the whistle on Gao Gang in an effort to prevent what would have been the biggest split in the party in the 1950s. Chen Yun and Deng had also both been pushed aside but not destroyed by Mao in the mid-1960s. But beginning in 1981–1982, fissures began to appear in the two leaders' long relationship. Deng and Chen Yun began to disagree over the speed of growth and after 1984, when Deng began pushing urban reform as well as faster growth, their differences became sharper. They each became spokesmen for broader groups of high-level party officials, becoming known as “two tigers on one mountaintop.”

Chen Yun and Deng continued to work with each other for the good of the party and they both endeavored to keep their differences from becoming public, but these differences became the basic fault lines of the intra-party politics of the 1980s, especially after 1984. Chen Yun remained more concerned about barging ahead too quickly; he was less willing to take risks, more determined to prevent inflation, more sympathetic to the Soviet Union, less ready to form deep ties with the capitalist countries, less willing to expand the role of markets, and more determined to follow regular party procedures. Deng was more prepared to experiment, to work outside the party framework, to open widely to the West, and to move boldly. In crossing the river, Chen Yun and Deng both searched for stepping stones, but Chen Yun wanted to make sure each stepping stone was secure before putting any weight on it.

Chen Yun enjoyed deep respect within the party, not only because of his extraordinary economic successes, but also because of his long service in high positions, his contribution in helping Mao to be accepted by the Soviet Union in the mid-1930s,
his work to build up the Chinese personnel system in Yan'an, his role in establishing the Communist urban administration system as the Communist armies occupied certain areas on the way to conquering the whole country, and his efforts to restrain Mao from the excesses of the Great Leap Forward. Although some considered him too conservative and cautious, he was generally respected for his political judgment, his independent analytic abilities, and his principled dedication to the party. High-level officials who worried that Deng might charge ahead too rapidly without consulting other high officials looked to Chen Yun for support, while in the late 1980s those who wished to experiment boldly with markets regarded Chen Yun as an adversary. Even if Deng had wanted to push Chen Yun aside, it is doubtful that he could have done so. As frustrating as they sometimes found each other after 1984 as their paths continued to diverge, they managed to coexist.

In sharp contrast to Deng, who came from a landlord family, Chen Yun was born into poverty. His father died when he was two, his mother died two years later, and then he was cared for by his maternal grandmother, who died when he was seven. He then lived with his mother's brother until age fourteen, when a teacher arranged that he be apprenticed to the Commercial Press in Shanghai, where he worked in the printing plant and then became a shop clerk.

The Commercial Press, the largest publisher of scholarly books in China, was a center of Chinese intellectual life, and Chen Yun took advantage of the opportunity to educate himself. He read books, attended lectures, and joined in discussions about the outside world. As he made estimates of how much the capitalists at the top of the Commercial Press earned, he calculated how much the capitalists were exploiting the workers. His calculations resonated with the Communist explanation of imperialism. His formative years were as a shop clerk in Shanghai and he never lost his passion against imperialists or his fear that the evil capitalists he observed there might someday return. On May 30, 1925, when British police fired into Shanghai crowds and killed several Chinese, Chen Yun joined in the demonstrations and, before the end of the year, at age twenty, he had joined the Communist Party. He gave speeches and wrote articles about how China was suffering from imperialism and how workers were suffering at the hands of capitalists.