Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (110 page)

Assured that Deng Xiaoping was behind him, on May 13, 1987, Zhao Ziyang gave a speech that both implicitly criticized Deng Liqun and in effect
marked the end of the campaign against bourgeois liberalization. A few weeks later, on July 7, Deng Xiaoping also did not object when Zhao abolished the Research Office of the party Secretariat that Deng Liqun had earlier used as his base to support party orthodoxy. This change in the political atmosphere that strengthened Zhao and weakened Deng Liqun paved the way for Zhao to prepare for a more enlightened agenda at the 13th Party Congress.
¹⁰⁷

On July 10, Li Rui, who had worked briefly as a secretary to Mao Zedong in the 1950s, sent a letter to Deng Xiaoping containing a detailed critique of Deng Liqun. Li Rui reported that during the Yan'an period Deng Liqun had inappropriately used his position to investigate Li Rui in order to repeatedly interview Li Rui's wife, whom he then courted. Li went on to criticize Deng Liqun for his attacks on good officials.
¹⁰⁸

But while Deng Liqun was under fire, Zhao too was feeling some heat from conservatives who saw him as a threat to conservative economic and political policies. Zhao later recalled that although he had relatively good relations with the conservatives until that point, after Zhao eliminated Deng Liqun's base (the Research Office under the Secretariat), his relations with Chen Yun and Li Xiannian suffered.
¹⁰⁹
Zhao also reported that after the 13th Party Congress these conservative leaders feared that Zhao might use his leadership mandate at the congress to pursue “political system reform.”
¹¹⁰

The 13th Party Congress: Zhao Ziyang Takes Charge

Aware that Mao, like many emperors, had caused great damage by remaining in office until his death, Deng was determined to establish a new pattern in which top leaders served with term limits and then retired. In Deng's case, however, retirement would have a caveat attached. Even after the 13th Party Congress, as Zhao Ziyang revealed to Gorbachev in May 1989, there was a secret agreement among high-level leaders that although Deng had retired, he retained the right to have the final say on important matters.

Senior officials in Deng's age cohort knew that when Deng retired, they would be expected to retire as well. In 1985, when Deng began referring to his possible retirement, a number of senior officials urged him to remain on. Like authoritarian rulers in other countries where the timing and procedure for succession are not clearly specified, Deng and his peers had reason to suspect that some impatient younger officials were preparing for, or at least eagerly awaiting, their retirement, perhaps even before they were ready. On November 11, 1986, at a small group meeting convened to plan for the 13th Party Congress, Hu Qili mentioned that Deng and a large group of senior
officials would be retiring. When Bo Yibo heard him say this, his face reddened and he said, “So you want us all to die sooner?”
¹¹¹
Hu Qili politely responded that he hoped they would continue on. Wang Zhen, not known for hiding his feelings, was in effect speaking for other officials when, in another incident, he exploded at Hu Yaobang for preparing for the retirement of the senior officials.
¹¹²

At the 13th Party Congress, held October 25 to November 1, 1987, Deng gave up all his party and government positions, resigning from the Central Committee, the Politburo, and its Standing Committee. He retained his positions as chairman of the CMC and as chairman of the State Military Commission.
¹¹³
Other senior leaders had no choice but to retire from their official positions as well. Chen Yun was allowed to replace Deng as head of the CMC, and responsibility for front-line leadership was passed to Zhao Ziyang.

The 13th Party Congress was Zhao's congress. Deng knew that for a successor to exercise effective leadership, he needed considerable room to maneuver. Unless Deng judged that there was an emergency, Zhao would be in charge. After removing Hu Yaobang, Deng gave Zhao a relatively free hand to plan for and later lead the 13th Party Congress. Zhao's speech on May 13 thus marked not only the end of the campaign against bourgeois liberalization, but also the beginning of Zhao's leadership during the half-year of concentrated planning for the congress.
¹¹⁴
To prepare the Western public for the changes, on September 25, 1987, Zhao made himself available for an interview with U.S. anchorman Tom Brokaw that showed Zhao in the spotlight and comfortable with his new position as the front-line leader of China, a promotion that was to be formalized at the party congress the following month.
¹¹⁵

Although Zhao was in charge, he operated within the parameters that Deng had established. He supported the four cardinal principles and he opposed bourgeois liberalization. He expressed a commitment to further opening to the outside and to economic reform. Deng had long supported a sharper separation of powers between the party and government and Zhao toed this line. Even so, Zhao was given considerable leeway, since Deng and even Chen Yun understood that under Zhao's leadership the economy and the political system would continue to evolve.

On May 29, 1987, two weeks after Zhao was given the green light, he told Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong that he was preparing an outline for political reform, to be presented at the 13th Party Congress, with
the long-term goal of “building socialism with a high degree of democracy.” That process, Zhao admitted, would require political stability and would take a long time to accomplish. The changes would be introduced step by step, province by province. Zhao said that in the future the party would not interfere with government affairs and that within the party there would be a high degree of democracy.
¹¹⁶

To take account of opinions at various levels, the document went through eight drafts. On September 27, after reviewing the document, Deng, determined not to micromanage, simply said, “I read it, I have no objections. It is well-written”
(kanle, mei yijian, xie de hao).
Under Zhao's direction, it was presented to the 13th Party Congress under the banner “Building and Institutionalizing Socialist Democratic Politics.” On the eve of the congress, Deng made a brief statement showing that he fully supported it.
¹¹⁷

Like Deng, Zhao sought to avoid contentious arguments. The congress documents supported continued reform and opening while avoiding concrete details that might arouse controversy. Zhao chose as his theme “the primary stage of socialism,” the first time this concept was introduced at a large party gathering. It had the virtue of allowing ideologues to cling to the mantra that China would eventually move to socialism, while allowing those who believed in markets the freedom to do what was needed to develop productive forces. When asked how long the primary stage would last, Zhao said, “It will be at least 100 years . . . [before] socialist modernization will have been in the main accomplished.”
¹¹⁸

In effect, Zhao postponed the higher stage of socialism indefinitely; he put a stop to those who hoped that, after a brief consolidation, the party would again advance toward a higher stage of socialism. At the 13th Party Congress the new term for the economic system, “a planned market economy,” reflected the growing importance of markets, in contrast to earlier party documents that declared planning to be primary. The state was to regulate the market, and the market was to guide enterprises; the role of detailed mandatory planning would continue to decline. Markets would be developed in labor services, technology, information, and real estate. The long-range goal, Zhao said, was “to build a socialist political system with a high degree of democracy and a complete set of laws, a system that is effective and full of vitality.” The report provided direction for continued reform:

1. Party and government roles would be kept separate, and the party would play a smaller role in guiding government affairs. The party
committee at any given level would no longer designate a full-time secretary who holds no government post and merely supervises government work.

2. More powers would be delegated to lower levels.

3. In government units, responsibilities would be specified and overlapping reduced.

4. Promotions, demotions, rewards, and punishments would be based on performance, and rights to training, wages, welfare, and retirement would be guaranteed by law.

5. On issues of relevance to the local population, the government would consult with local authorities and inform the public of the results.

6. To strengthen “socialist democracy,” various organizations for women, labor, and other groups would be encouraged as a way of presenting the views of their constituencies. The autonomy of minority nationalities would be enhanced, and great efforts would be made to train officials from among them.

7. The socialist legal system would be strengthened.
¹¹⁹

The congress also approved some procedural changes. In order to stay better informed, the Central Committee would hold plenums twice a year instead of once a year. Key decisions at Politburo meetings would be reported by the media rather than kept secret. Party organizations would be reduced in factories, schools, hospitals, and firms, allowing these local organizations to have greater leeway in making decisions about their own operations.

In the months prior to the congress, Zhao had overall responsibility for personnel changes, but in fact the senior officials still played an important role in selection. The new members of the Standing Committee, Zhao, Li Peng, Hu Qili, Qiao Shi, and Yao Yilin, were not extremists. Yao Yilin, who was widely recognized as a very able administrator, was strongly supported by Chen Yun. But Hu Qili and Qiao Shi firmly backed reforms, thus assuring Zhao of a majority of reformers on the Standing Committee. Like the National Party Representatives Conference two years earlier, the selection criteria emphasized educational achievement, successful leadership experience, and relative youth. After the personnel changes, the average age of Politburo members dropped by five years.

For the first time in party history, more candidates for the Central Committee were listed than were selected, thus weeding out the least popular candidates and ensuring that all those selected in the voting had at least a minimum
level of support from the other members. In the first round of voting at the congress, ten more candidates for the Central Committee were listed than there were available slots, and the ten receiving the least number of votes therefore did not become members. Deng Liqun was one of the ten not selected.
¹²⁰
This represented a thorough rebuff to Deng Liqun and reflected widespread sympathy for Hu Yaobang.
¹²¹
With Deng Liqun off the Central Committee and his main work unit, the Research Office under the Secretariat, abolished, Zhao, unlike Hu Yaobang, would escape being hounded by the country's most persistent conservative watchdog.

The 13th Party Congress avoided a sharp split between conservatives who feared change and reformers who dreaded stagnation. The two most controversial officials who had aroused opposition as representatives of the opposite poles, General Secretary Hu Yaobang and his critic Deng Liqun, had been removed, making it easier for centrists to pull together a coalition for continued market reforms and modest advances in the political system. In effect, the goalposts for the debate between the conservatives and the reformers had been moved in the years prior to the congress toward more openness, more freedom of expression, and more market reform—and Zhao managed at the 13th Party Congress to move them again, even though the struggle continued. Deng Xiaoping had successfully pushed aside Hu Yaobang, whom he regarded as too permissive, without destroying party unity at the top. He had reason to hope that as he stepped down, Zhao Ziyang, who adhered to Deng's four cardinal principles and was advancing Deng's economic and political agendas, would be effective in guiding China to the next stages of reform.

From April 15 to June 4, 1989, as the whole world watched in fascination, hundreds of thousands of young Chinese took to the streets of Beijing and other Chinese cities.
¹
In the early days after Hu Yaobang's untimely death on April 15, the demonstrators were mostly innocent youth seeking to pay their respects to their departed hero and to the democracy that he had supported. When they first started gathering, they expressed respect for the Communist Party and paraded in an orderly fashion so that they would not disturb traffic; initially, they had no political agenda. As the demonstrations grew larger and the demands became louder and more radical in content, however, tensions between the demonstrators and the authorities escalated. The clashes culminated on June 4, 1989, when troops restored order by shooting unarmed civilians on the streets of Beijing.

Deng was then eighty-four years old and he did not come out to the streets to meet the demonstrating students nor did he manage the daily details of the party's response. But behind the scenes, he remained focused on the unfolding drama and was the ultimate decision-maker. He had little sympathy with the demonstrators, who had benefited from the reform and opening that he had helped to create and from the political stability that underpinned the economic growth, a stability they were now threatening.