Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (57 page)

Confident of his authority at home in Beijing and familiar with many of the people whom he was meeting, Deng could relax and share his natural charm and spontaneity. When crowds assembled to see him, Deng, aware that he was touching the hearts of his listeners, responded with the ebullience of a politician who knew he was winning over his audience.

Deng's main guide to Japan was Liao Chengzhi, with whom he had worked closely for many years in Beijing on Japanese, Hong Kong, and overseas Chinese affairs. Liao, who was four years younger than Deng, was enormously popular among the Japanese; they knew he was born in Japan, had lived there through primary school, had attended Waseda University, and for decades had hosted Japanese visitors to Beijing. Liao's father, Liao Zhongkai, had been one of the leading candidates to succeed Sun Yat-sen until 1925 when he was assassinated by rivals. Liao Chengzhi, like Deng, had participated on
the Long March and had become an alternate member of the Central Committee in 1945. No Chinese leader before or since could compare to Liao in terms of his intuitive understanding of Japan, close personal friendships, and high political position within China. He was the perfect companion for Deng on his visit.

Deng was aware as he toured Japan's modern factories that good technology required effective management and that good management was in turn related to a broad national system. He expressed interest in learning from Japan's experience in moving from a government-directed closed economy in World War II to a more open dynamic economy in the 1950s. He knew that the Japanese government had played a central role in Japan's modernization while managing to escape the rigidities of socialist planning. But Deng was also fascinated by the modern technology that he saw in factories, in public transport, and in construction projects. He wanted to find a way to bring modern technology and modern management to China. And Japanese businessmen, especially those who had spent time in China before or during World War II, were prepared to be generous to China.

Deng paid courtesy calls on former prime minister Tanaka Kakuei, Speaker of the House of Representatives Hori Shigeru, and Liberal Democratic Party leader Ohira Masayoshi, then moved on to the Diet for a reception. Tanaka was then under house arrest for the Lockheed scandal and many Japanese were avoiding him. In spite of this, Deng, at his own request, was driven to Tanaka's home, where he remarked that one of the reasons he had come to Japan was to express his appreciation to old friends who had made a personal effort on behalf of improved Sino-Japanese relations. He wanted to thank former prime minister Tanaka for his contribution to friendship between the two countries and for signing the Joint Proclamation between China and Japan.
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Deng said that although Tanaka had come to China when Deng was in the “Peach Garden” (banished to Jiangxi), “We can't forget what you did for our relationship.” Deng then gave a formal invitation to Tanaka to visit China as a guest of the government. Later that day Tanaka told reporters that the union of China and Japan in the Treaty of Peace and Friendship was the best thing that had happened since the Meiji Restoration. Tanaka said that of all the foreign leaders whom he had met, Zhou Enlai had created the greatest impression, and “today in the visit of Deng Xiaoping I have the same feelings as I had when I met Zhou Enlai.”
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By 1978, most Japanese citizens who had played a role in keeping up contacts with China in the 1950s and 1960s had passed away. In the evening of
October 24, at the Akasaka State Guest House, Deng and his wife, Zhuo Lin, welcomed the few who were still alive as well as surviving family members, primarily the widows and children of deceased politicians who had maintained relations with China during those difficult years. Deng apologized for not having time to visit each one of them personally and said that, like Zhou Enlai (who had lived in Japan from 1917 to 1919), he wanted to say to his Japanese friends that “when we drink water, we cannot forget those who dug the well.” He added that even in the days before normalization, they all had believed a day would come when normal relations would be achieved. Even if some could not be there to share the joys of the day, their efforts would not be forgotten: their names would remain permanently in the records of good relations between the two countries, encouraging the two nations to continue to move forward.
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Deng added that these individuals, as well as their widows and children, were China's friends, giving the Chinese “confidence that the good relations between the people of our two countries will be passed down from generation to generation.” Deng then invited those in the audience to visit China frequently.
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Many listeners were moved to tears.

That afternoon, Nissan's chairman Kawamata Katsuji accompanied Deng on an hour-long tour of the company's Zama plant, which had just introduced robots on the manufacturing line, making it arguably the most automated automobile factory in the world. After watching the production line and learning that the plant produced ninety-four cars per worker per year, Deng remarked that this was ninety-three cars a year better than China's best, the First Automobile Works in Changchun. When he finished touring the Nissan factory, Deng declared, “Now I understand what modernization is.”
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On the next day, Deng met again with Prime Minister Fukuda, attended a luncheon sponsored by Keidanren, the leading Japanese business federation, and in the late afternoon held a press conference for Japanese reporters, met with Japanese residents of Chinese ancestry, and hosted a banquet. At the Keidanren luncheon, a record 320 top company executives were in attendance, surpassing the previous record of three hundred guests during Queen Elizabeth's visit.
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In China Deng had never held a press conference, but on that day he became the first Chinese Communist leader to hold a Western-style press conference in any location. Some four hundred reporters attended at the Japan Press Center. Deng opened with a short presentation on the dangers of countries seeking hegemony and on the importance of Japan and China working together to resist such efforts. But Deng, sensitive to the strong neutralist
sentiment in Japan, insisted that the Chinese wished to resolve international issues peacefully; in fact, they needed a peaceful environment in order to modernize. At this point, Deng opened the floor for questions. When a reporter asked about ownership of the Senkaku Islands, the audience became tense, but Deng replied that the Chinese and Japanese held different views, used different names for the islands, and should put the issue aside so that later generations, who would be wiser than those present, could solve the problem. The audience was visibly relieved and impressed with Deng's wise answer. Finally, when asked about the horrible things Mao had done to his country during the Cultural Revolution, Deng answered, “These were not just Mao's mistakes, they were all our mistakes. Many of us made mistakes; we lacked experience and had poor judgment.” He added, “We are very poor. We are very backward. We have to recognize that. We have a lot to do, a long way to go and a lot to learn.”
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In answering a question about the four modernizations, Deng declared that China had set a goal of making a breakthrough by the end of the twentieth century. To achieve this, China needed the correct political atmosphere and the correct policies; the Chinese would not be like an “ugly person who tries to make herself beautiful just by putting on nice clothes.” He went on to say, “We must admit our deficiencies. We are a backward country and we need to learn from Japan.” When asked his impressions of his visit, he expressed appreciation for the excellent hospitality. He said that he had been received very cordially by the emperor, by the Japanese business community, and by Japanese people from different walks of life. He also said that he had had excellent talks with Fukuda and that top Chinese and Japanese leaders should meet every year. Although his trip was brief, he said, he wanted good relations between Japan and China to continue forever. The Japanese deeply wanted to hear such a message and at the end of his talk those present stood and applauded for several minutes.
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How could a Communist leader, holding his first press conference, score such a triumph? In part, the answer can be found in Deng's long experience in explaining problems to many different groups in China. But his success also stemmed from his familiarity with Japanese issues and opinions, his confidence in talking about Chinese policies, his frankness in acknowledging China's problems, his obvious goodwill toward Japan, and his relaxed, colorful language. In addition, there was widespread recognition among those who attended the press conference that Deng's visit to Japan was a historic moment. The Japanese people hoped that the visit, with its apologies for past
injustices and pledges to help China modernize, would launch a new era in which the two nations would work together in peace.
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The next day, Inayama Yoshihiro, chairman of New Japan Steel and president of the Japan-China Economic Association of business leaders who traded with China, accompanied Deng on a hovercraft (a kind of speedboat not yet known in China) across Tokyo harbor to the Kimitsu Steel Factory. Kimitsu was an automated steel factory that alone produced about half as much steel as China was then producing in all of its plants together. After observing the facility, Deng immediately declared his desire to build a Chinese steel plant modeled after Kimitsu. Actually the plans for Baoshan, modeled after Kimitsu, had already begun taking shape.

From Tokyo, Deng took the
shinkansen
(bullet train) to Kyoto and also visited nearby Nara and Osaka. At a hotel in the Kansai area, Deng walked by a room with festivities and caught a glimpse of a woman in a beautiful white dress. When he asked what was going on and learned that a wedding celebration was in progress, he asked if he could see, and the happy couple, pleased that their wedding had become an international news story, happily posed for pictures with Deng to the great amusement of the onlookers.

Deng toured eighth-century Kyoto, whose city plan, art, and architecture were modeled after those of the Tang capital of Chang'an. There he met the Kyoto governor, the mayor of Kyoto city, and regional business leaders. From Kyoto he traveled by special train to Nara, which was also based on Chinese models and built even earlier than Kyoto. In Nara, he visited the great Todaiji Temple, built in the style of Southern Song temples, and lunched with Nara city officials.

From the ancient capital of Nara, Deng went to visit a state-of-the-art Matsushita electronics factory in Osaka (which also produced the Panasonic and National brands). There he met Matsushita Konosuke, who had started as a laborer making bicycle headlights in the 1920s and had grown with his enterprise until, by the time Deng arrived, it had became the world's leading electronics company. Like other Japanese business leaders, Matsushita was deeply remorseful over the great suffering that Japan had caused in China and he relayed his vision of helping to raise the living standards of the Chinese people by producing good, inexpensive television sets so that ordinary Chinese families, who at that time could not afford televisions, could buy them for their homes.
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At Matsushita, Deng saw the mass production of not only color televisions, but also fax machines and microwaves, neither of which had been introduced
in China. Deng, who knew Matsushita's reputation, called him the “god of management” and urged him to teach the Chinese all the latest technologies. Matsushita explained to Deng what apparently Deng's advisers had not, that private companies like his earned their living by the technologies they had developed and so they would be reluctant to pass on the latest secrets. Matsushita factories went up rapidly in China, and the company did teach the Chinese technology that within a decade would help China to realize Matsushita's dream of having affordable television sets for the Chinese public.
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In the evening, Deng dined with Osaka government leaders and with the daughter of the late Takasaki Tatsunosuke, whom he requested to see to express his respect and appreciation for her father's contribution. Her father had worked with Liao Chengzhi to reach the 1964 Liao-Takasaki trade agreement, which had established trade offices in each country and had allowed controlled Sino-Japanese trade and exchanges of journalists even before the normalization of relations in 1972.

Japanese public television (NHK) coverage of Deng's factory visit showed an exuberant, observant, and confident Deng Xiaoping, curious and enthusiastic but not obsequious about all the superior Japanese technology he was seeing. Had he been too deferential, he would have been vulnerable to charges of fawning over things foreign. Deng must have struck the right chord, for after his trip, Chinese schoolchildren were taught that he had given the perfect answer to reporters' questions about what he thought of the
shinkansen
train. Deng had answered simply, “It is very fast”—that is, he acknowledged the value of foreign technology without sacrificing Chinese pride.

The words and actions of the Japanese leaders during Deng's trip also played well to the Japanese home audience. Even decades later, young Japanese labeled the generation of senior leaders who had hosted Deng as statesmen
(omono)
—that is, unlike their successors who had been preoccupied with financial details and petty political squabbles. The leaders who welcomed Deng (Prime Minister Fukuda, Foreign Minister Sonoda, Keidanren head Doko Toshio, business host Inayama Yasuhiro, and Matsushita Konosuke) were indeed bold planners and builders: they had guided a desolate, defeated nation with not enough to eat as it flowered into a vital nation that in 1978 was still growing rapidly. These senior Japanese leaders also had experienced World War II and knew personally what horrors Japan had caused. They knew that they never could repay China for the damages inflicted by
Japan, but they wanted to make it possible for the next generations to live in peace. They were prepared to share their experiences and their technical innovations to help China modernize in ways that went beyond their companies' profits. This was a generation of Japanese leaders to whom Deng could relate and from whom he could learn, as he worked to rebuild his country—a challenge that the Japanese had confronted as they recovered from the devastation of World War II.