CHAPTER 7: WHOSE IDENTITY, WHOSE CONSTRUCTS AND WHOSE INTEREST? THE SYNTHESIS OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY DATA IN
4.10 Deng Xiaoping and China
As aforesaid, Deng Xiaoping was one of the high-ranking CCP officials to have been purged, more than once in his case, by Mao during the Cultural Revolution (see Fontana 1982). Deng had a chequered relationship with Mao. His economic ideas, deemed reformist in retrospect, were at variance with communist economics as understood by Mao. The highest position he held during Mao’s lifetime was of Vice Premier to Zhou En-Lai. After Zhou’s death, Mao appointed Hua Guofeng as Premier overlooking Deng. Deng was restored in the high echelons of the CCP by
44 Ezra F. Vogel’s (2011) exhaustive biography of Deng states that even though Deng was wont to write what Mao was comfortable with during the Chairman’s lifetime, he remained unwavering in his skepticism towards the Cultural Revolution. Vogel also speculates that the years that Deng spent in the political wilderness, during his banishment, gave him ample time and a vantage position to mull over the reforms that China needed and how to apply them.
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Hua and, with the help of his supporters, Deng outwitted Hua and had him stripped of his top positions in the Party and government in 1981. The innocuous manner with which Deng relieved Hua of his duties set a precedent for future transfers of power: that those who would retire or be made to resign would not be treated in the highhanded manner that was characteristic of the Mao era. Though Deng made monumental changes after Mao, he seemed to have inherited Mao’s personal hold on power (see Zhao 1993). For example, just as Mao appointed Hua Guofeng as his successor, Deng also picked Jiang Zemin as leader of the CCP without consulting with the Politburo (Nathan 2003).45 However, it was his reformation of the Chinese economy that brought Deng the praise he still enjoys more than two decades after his death.
In promoting the Four Modernizations, Deng prioritized the economy arguing that “what we have to do now is to put all our efforts into developing the economy. That is the most important thing, and everything else must be subordinated to it.” This was akin to Hutchison’s (2001) argument that post-Mao China replaced revolutionary priorities with national interests.46 These national interests included repairing the economy which had been severely hurt by the Cultural Revolution. Deng Xiaoping was aware of how difficult it would be for China, as a relatively poor nation at the time, to spread revolution. His argument was that it was only after China had attained the benefits of the Four Modernizations47 that it could fulfill its “contributions to mankind, and especially to the Third World” (Deng 1994). Thus, China’s immediate interests had to be economic and pragmatic growth. This was in tandem with the motto “less talk, more action”, an indirect emphasis of tangible development and less emphasis on ideological rhetoric.
An interesting fact about Mao’s China is that it used the term “revisionist” as a sobriquet for those whose ideologies differed from its own ideologies. However, it could be argued that by doggedly wanting to change the status quo of politics and economics in the international system, Mao’s China was essentially revisionist. The economic reforms that Deng introduced after assuming authority presented China as a status quo country. Deng successfully took over leadership of the CCP at the 11th Central Committee Congress of the CCP in 1978. Thus
45 This form of succession has changed in the CCP and a thorough explanation will be given in the sections to come.
46 It is also a telling detail that Deng’s statement was to the Military Commission of the CCP’s Central Committee.
He argued that China’s military could only fulfil its goals and development only after China has grown its economy.
However, the real possibility that Mao understood and constructed national interests in a different way cannot be totally ruled out.
47Agriculture, industry, education, and science and defence.
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economic reform in China is often traced to 1978 (e.g. Ellman 1986; Bettelheim 1988; Stevens 1996) with Deng Xiaoping as its principal architect (Zhao 1993).
During Mao’s years, the economy followed a strict Maoist line, characterized by central planning, which in essence meant pandering to Mao’s whims. Deng favoured a more mixed economy. He sought to improve the “four modernizations”: agriculture, industry, education, and science and defence (Lumumba-Kasongo 2011). Charles Bettelheim (1988:15) argues that post- Mao economic reform was transitioning “from a soviet type of state capitalism towards private capitalism.” In the same vein, Gittings (2005:251) states that China after Mao had been transformed into a “quasi capitalist state.” It should be noted, however, that rhetorically, post- Mao China still maintained that it was communist. Its economic reforms, which were visible to other international players made China “a communist modernizer acceptable to the capitalist world” (Goodman 1994:1). Deng received personal praise for tilting China’s economy towards a more acceptable plane (McNamara 1995). Some of the big economic changes that China under Deng embarked on were the establishment of Special Economic Zones (Yusheng 2013) (an initiative that China has introduced to Africa and Zambia in particular), the “relaxation in 1983 of the tax and tariff rules applicable to foreign investments, and the opening of a number of coastal cities to foreign investment in 1984” (Ellman 1986:421).
Expectedly, China toned down its zeal in exporting communist ideologies to other nations. Its relations with foreign powers also improved, especially with the United States. James Mann (2000:103) argued that Sino-American relations improved to the extent that “human rights was considered a suitable subject for high-level American diplomacy with the Soviet Union, but not with China.” This was a major improvement, considering that divergent views on human rights have been the crux of relations between the United States and China. The identity that China was taking up through its economic reforms was also symbolic of China’s evolving interests. No longer interested in spreading world revolution, China wanted to be part of the international system and to benefit from it. One of the major demonstrations of China’s willingness to subsume communist ideology under more pressing matters was its stance on Hong Kong, which was to be handed back to China in July of 1997. A thoroughly capitalist colony, Hong Kong was understandably agitated about what might happen to its economic ethos after the British handed it back to communist China. To avert an awkward repossession, Deng crafted the “one country,
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two systems” formula suggesting that mainland China would not impose a communist economy on Hong Kong after the British withdrawal.48
A prosperous Hong Kong was good for mainland China’s economy and it had to be taken into consideration that Hong Kong ranks high among investment destinations in the world. Deng was well aware of the direct relationship between economic success and influence in the world system. While Mao’s China was more vocal on trying to change the status quo, its economic status did not offer it the requisite influence needed for a country to meaningfully change international politics. The clout that China enjoys in, and the challenge it poses to, the current international system is a direct consequence of the economic success that the country has attained (Shuja 1999; Jing, Humphrey and Messner 2008; Hsiao 2012). The presence that China has in the world also means a change on diplomacy. Thus, certain aspects of China’s politics have also evolved from 1978. The role of the military has somewhat been limited and that of diplomats enhanced. More importance has been attached to foreign policy.49 Decentralization was encouraged and helped “major localities to establish their own international cooperation networks” (Cabestan 2009:64).
However, certain aspects of China’s politics still rankle the West, especially with its ambiguous understanding of human rights and democracy. Yusheng (2013) states the despite the ideological changes that Deng introduced in China, he still maintained that the CCP be the sole de jure political party, based on the Soviet template. The good repute that China had painstakingly cultivated was temporarily shattered with the crackdown on the Tiananmen protest. The highhanded manner with which protesters were dealt was redolent of the Maoist era.