Issues in East Asian Studies
Deng Xiaoping is the Chinese revolutionary and politician, unofficially – he is the head of the country. This man became known throughout the world due to his political and economic ideas. He played a very important role in the development of the country. Since the late 1970s and the early 1990s, he proclaimed the policy of economic reform and the building of socialism with the "Chinese characteristics." During his campaign, the Celestial Empire became a strong and developed state. He put forward the idea of China and Taiwan's unification on the principle of "one country – two systems". In the world, he was recognized as an outstanding Chinese reformer of the 20th century. During the years of the stormy party activity, Deng Xiaoping had to go through ups and downs. He was appointed to the most senior positions and removed; he was sent to the province and returned to the center. But it was impossible to cope without him. He was not only an experienced and wise leader who knew the answers to many questions, he knew the secret of how to make the country prosperous and he succeeded in it. However, Xiaoping's personality still remains one of the most controversial.
Short Biography. Deng Xiaoping was born in a rich family, but his was irritated with the wealth close to the poverty. He was born in Guang'an County, Sichuan Province, and he wanted to see the world from an early age (Goodman 10). According to Goodman, he was 15 years old when he arrived in France among other top Chinese students. He needed money for the life, so he worked in different places, but he did not give up the study. There, in France, he became acquainted with the teachings of Marx and other communist ideology (Goodman xx). Upon returning home in 1921, Xiaoping joined the Communist Youth League of China, and in 1925 went to the USSR for two years to study the experience of building socialism in a country of workers and peasants; he was a student at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (Vogel 36). Returning home, he was engaged in party work. He was transferred to the army in order to strengthen the morale of the revolutionary soldiers. Almost until 1949, he served as the political commissar, then he was elected as a member of the Central Committee, and he served 10 years as general secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1956 (Goodman xx-xxi).
In 1966, Mao Zedong announced the "cultural revolution" and Comrade Deng was removed from the posts he was sent as an ordinary worker at the Tractor Plant (Goodman 8). Red Guards were preparing to destroy him. It would seem that career ended, but Zhou Enlai, the 1st Chinese Premier who was ill with cancer, recollected his comrade and appointed him as his successor (Vogel 26). In 1973, Deng Xiaoping was restored to the party work. Zhou Enlai died in 1976, and his Comrade Deng was removed and sent to the province by Mao Zedong once again (Vogel 26). Only after the death of the "great helmsman" and after the defeat of the revisionist groups, Deng Xiaoping managed to recover in the party and take the leadership of the country into his own hands. There was no one who would have the experience, knowledge, and desire, despite all the difficulties, to lift the country out of chaos. He, being only at the level of vice-premier of the State Council, abandoned the empty slogans and the unwanted party propaganda and proposed to start the broad economic reforms called "Beijing Spring" (Goodman 595). Despite all the difficulties and contradictions, China moved. The coastal regions of China, such as Shanghai, turned into a thriving industrial center. This experience had a great influence on the development of the whole country.
Deng Xiaoping's "Four Modernizations". In 1978, Deng Xiaoping began his famous reform: he dismissed the commune, gave the ground for rent, introduced the free trade, open area, where there were "the laws of the capitalist economy" (Goodman 219). From 1978, "the country achieved a compound economic growth rate of 9.4 percent according to the World Bank" (Xiaomang 52). Soon Chinese goods filled the shelves of many countries, e.g. the US market. The Chinese economy was galloping ahead with gigantic speed: the large-scale industry developed, creating favorable conditions for foreign investment. China adopted the latest technical advances and the infrastructure changed completely: i.e. the growing cities and skyscrapers, hotels and stadiums. Large forces were thrown on the reform of education and science. "Since the reform in 1978, overall living standards of the Chinese people have improved obviously, especially in the large cities and coastal industrial areas" (Xiaomang 52). China turned into a powerful nuclear and space power state. All this was the main merit of Deng Xiaoping.
Nevertheless, he remains a dictator who brooked no attacks on the Party and the government. In 1989, when the students were demanding the introduction of a multiparty system, Deng Xiaoping said that there was no need to be afraid of the victims and ordered to harshly suppress the demonstration (Vogel 617). "He thus presents the student protesters as opponents against state plans, or enemies of state rule, suggesting that rather than the state, the demonstrators are the ones to bear the burden of legitimating protest rights" (Hung 167). The soldiers received an order to shoot to kill. Corpses were bulldozed. After the massacre, Deng Xiaoping went on television and joyfully told his fellow citizens that the anti-government rebellion had been completely suppressed (Vogel 618). Hence, the stages of the "four modernizations" should be considered in more detail.
Four Modernizations. After the death of Mao Zedong in the internecine power struggle, the "Gang of Four" was the first to fail: they were the nominees of the "cultural revolution" led by the Helmsman Jian Qin's widow, and during the Plenum of the CPC Central Committee in 1978, Mao's heir, i.e. the former Minister of State Security Hua Guofeng, was forced to concede (Vogel 78). Then the program of socio-economic modernization of China proposed by the Chief of Staff of the PLA Deng Xiaoping won. Its aim was to create the "socialism with Chinese characteristics" by reforming agriculture, industry, science, and national defense areas (i.e. the "four modernizations") (Xiaomang 53). During the first phases of the reforms (1978-1984), "the communes" were replaced by a family row, free markets were restored, and the purchasing prices for agricultural products increased (Vogel 446). "Commune industrial workshops had relied on manual labor and primitive machinery, almost all of which, except for tractors and water pumps, was made locally" (Vogel 446). Referring to the PLA's failed armed conflict with Vietnam in February 1979, Deng Xiaoping, who had headed the Military Council of the CCP, sharply reduced the appropriations for the needs of the army and significantly reduced its number while ordering the troops and the industry to promote the restructuring of the economy. The results of the reforms were so fast that it surprised the world: "400 million tons of grain were collected in 1984 (now it is more than 500 million tons)", which provided a huge population (1.3 billion Persons) with a minimum necessary food (Goodman 129).
The 12th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) caused criticism of the personality cult of Mao Zedong and errors in the last period of his rule and adopted the strategy of modernization of society in September 1982 (Vogel 129). It was to be realized in three stages: i.e. a fourfold increase in the gross output of industry and agriculture, achieving average income of the people before 2000; to raise China to the level of medium-developed countries up to 2021 (the 100th anniversary of the CPC); and finally turn China into a modern highly developed state before 2049 (the 100th anniversary of China) (Vogel 78-79). The adoption decree "On the reform of the economic system" of the next plenum of the CPC Central Committee in October 1984 began the second stage of reforms in the country characterized by the expansion of economic independence of enterprises, reducing the scope of policy planning, the establishment of a rational pricing system, the implementation of the principle of distribution according to work, and the active introduction of achievements NTP (Hung 178). In 1987, there was 300 thousand private companies and more than 20 million sole entrepreneurs which managed to double the GDP of China (Hung 179). The field of foreign was carried out by the "open door policy" – i.e. to attract the foreign investment and the creation of special economic zones and open economic regions (today 5 and 14 cities). The economic growth in the 80's accounted for 12-18% annually (Hung 181). However, the implementation of the "four modernizations" was not without complications, the main problem was that the introduction of the radical reforms, as the market relations did not actually affected the political system. A slight rise in anti-China opposition movement under the influence of Gorbachev's "perestroika" was used by the part of the orthodox-minded leadership of the CPC on its 13th Congress (October-November 1987) to charge Deng Xiaoping and his supporters of "bourgeois liberalism" (Vogel 558). "But he persisted in saying that it was important to resist “bourgeois liberalization,” a term that he, Deng Liqun, and Deng Xiaoping himself would use throughout the 1980s to criticize those leaders whom they considered too enamored with the freedoms in the West" (Vogel 559).
The events of April-June 1989 showed that Deng Xiaoping and his supporters reformers were political conservatives who were prone to dictatorship and repression. According to Amnesty International, in 1991, there were approximately "20 thousand death penalties", while in the middle of 90s, there were "16 million prisoners in Labor camps" (Goodman 206). Due to illness, persecution and exile in India, the Tibetan population declined to almost 1 million people; there was an active resettlement of Han people, leaving Tibetans a minority in their own country (Hung 187). "More than a millennium earlier Tibetans had claimed a geographical area almost as large as China, and as Tibetan territory had contracted over time, small communities of Tibetans had remained behind in several Chinese provinces" (Vogel 478). However, the 14th Congress of the CPC in October 1992 declared a policy of transition to a "socialist market economy" and integration into the world market. A special attention was paid to mobilizing factor of intensive development of the economy - the acceleration of STP, energy, etc.
Deng Xiaoping mainly dealt with the implementation of the guidance adopted by China in January 1975 for the implementation of the course of the "Four Modernizations" - agriculture, industry, defense, science and technology. But above all, he embarked on a "comprehensive streamlining" of the undermined administrative and economic life because of the "cultural revolution", putting forward the task of creating an efficient production management structure, reforming the system of relations between the center and places on the basis of the transfer of some powers to grass-roots organizations, the simplification of the military and administrative device, the restoration the regulatory framework, the introduction of a system of responsibility for the management of enterprises, and enforcing the principle of distribution according to work (Hung 186-187). "The communications industry in general and the publishing industry in particular will play very important roles during the next phase of development. Providing information for the business-to-business sector and supplying textbooks at all levels of education will be crucial for the country’s development" (Xiaomang 53). All of these solutions became an integral part of the developed China's modernization program in the future, which gives reason to the Chinese researchers to consider this year to be the beginning of the formation and testing in practice the basic ideas of Deng Xiaoping's reform and open policy, especially his central idea of the priority of economic development formulated by him in the 50s: "Deng had the chance to see the logic of major decisions and to consider the broader framework of fundamental changes, experiences that would serve him well as he endeavored to rebuild China’s economic and political framework in the 1980s" (Vogel 41). The aim of the socialist modernization was to remove China up to the level of moderately developed countries in per capita income and on this basis to achieve the welfare of the citizens in the middle of the 21st century. The path of modernization is a rapid economic growth, high-quality renewal of the economy, and increase of its effectiveness on the basis of scientific and technological potential. Based on the fact that science is "the main productive force", he attributed it to the development of the most important tasks of economic construction, at the same time calling for the borrowing of foreign advanced scientific and technological achievements (Hung 187). Deng Xiaoping's statement of the problem for the development of science and technology was associated with an increase in the role of intellectual work in the implementation of modernization and general provisions of the intelligentsia in society. Government basis was socialism, because it made it possible to ensure the necessary concentration of material and human resources for the accelerated socio-economic development and the achievement of welfare, not allowing to concentrate the main part of social wealth in the hands of a small part of society. But socialism in China was built taking into account national specificities, which consisted in the "historical backwardness" due to the socio-economic, in the shortage of arable land and other resources needed to ensure normal living conditions and development of the country with a billion people (Vogel 541). Therefore, since the beginning of the development strategy of modernization, Deng Xiaoping abandoned the dogmatic repetition adopted in the USSR, and the canons of socialist construction led the search for the construction of his own model of socialism with the Chinese characteristics. Taking into account the fact that overcoming the backwardness of China could take a long time, it was decided in principle theoretical position that China was at the primary stage of socialism, which would last until the middle of the 21st century (Goodman 128).
According to Deng Xiaoping's theory, development and peace are the main trends that determine the state of contemporary international relations, the preservation of which is to ensure the success of the modernization of China. One might say that Xiaoping is a pioneer and the first person in the history of China, who created such a large-scale transformation. The experience of twenty years of reforms shows that Deng Xiaoping was able to lead the country out of the state of political, social, and economic backwardness and to the beginning of its progressive development. Deng Xiaoping's reforms were carried out in the most difficult conditions, but he was able to lead the country out of a state of backwardness in the path of socialist modernization. Since the peasants constitute the majority of the population of China, Deng Xiaoping launched the reform in the village, giving farmers the freedom to dispose the products of their labor.
Conclusions
Deng Xiaoping and his "Four Modernizations" changed China forever and brought it to a whole new level of development. There is a lot of information regarding the illegal and inhumane activities of Xiaoping, but nevertheless, his merit in the development of the Chinese nation is immense. The most important of his merit is the philosophical understanding of opportunities for growth of the productive forces of the country, which has been successfully put into practice. The core of the political ideology of Deng Xiaoping is the political stability as a guarantee of the success of modernization. Deng has reached a new level of understanding of socialism, the core of which became the liberation and development of productive forces, while the system of organization is aimed at ridding society of exploitation, the polarization property and achieving welfare. Of course, Xiaoping's "Four Modernizations" are one of the most important events in the history of China's development.
Works Cited
Goodman, David. Asia: Deng Xiaoping and the Chinese Revolution: A Political Biography. London, US: Routledge, 2002. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 23 July 2016.
Hung, Ruth Y. Y. "How Global Capitalism Transforms Deng Xiaoping." Boundary 2 41.2 (2014): 165-196. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 July 2016.
Xiaomang, Feng. "Cultural System Reform And Publishing Industry Transformation In China." Publishing Research Quarterly 20.3 (2004): 52-57. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 23 July 2016.
Vogel, Ezra F.Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. Cambridge, US: Harvard University Press, 2011. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 23 July 2016.
