Introduction: The man and his Mission

During the Great Leap Forward, more than thirty million of the people had died.

From Revolutionary to Builder to Reformer, 1949 - 1969

Liu was considered more kindly towards the troops than Deng, who demanded more of his charges and was ready to be bold in advancing to fight the enemy. Liu was also more reluctant than Deng to execute soldiers suspected of spying for the Guomindang.

Unlike Ye Jianying in south China, who was criticized for being too soft on local landlords, Deng was praised by Mao for his success in land reform by attacking landlords, killing some of the landlords with largest holdings, allocating their land to peasants, and mobilizing local peasants to support the new leadership.

In 1953, when Bo Yibo lost his position as finance minister because Mao complained that he had been too soft in assessing taxes on the capitalists, Mao appointed Deng to replace him.

During the anti-rightist campaign, Deng strongly supported Mao in defending the authority of the party and in attacking the outspoken intellectuals. These attacks, and Deng’s role in them, would not be forgotten by China’s intellectual elite

(in 1969) after the first military clash with the Soviet Union, Mao directed that a number of high-level leaders be sent to the countryside so that if the Soviets were to invade, they could organize local resistance…… Some astute Beijing observers believe that Lin Biao, worried about possible rivals, used the danger of Soviet attack to persuade Mao to exile other high-level officials in Beijing who might have threatened his power.

Banishment and Return, 1969 - 1974

People who knew Deng would say that although he did not let personal emotions influence his decisions in meting out punishments for most people, he was especially severe in insisting that Nie Yuanzi be imprisoned for ten years for launching the political attacks at Peking University that culminated in Pufang’s paralysis and the death of some sixty people at the university.

After 1994 Deng Xiaoping was no longer mentally alert; it is reported that Zhuo Lin, upset when Zhifang was criticized for corruption, took drugs to attempt suicide. She was saved and in the end Zhifang was not punished.

Deng Rong said that her father got along with all ten marshals except one, Lin Biao.

Some believed that Zhou also wept for himself. Until that point, he had been able to avoid the suspicion and wrath of Mao that had led to the death of two number twos, Liu Shaoqi and Lin Biao. He had managed to remain number three, but now he was number two, and he knew Mao would be suspicious. Indeed, within two years Mao would attack him.

Zhou’s attempts to help the victims of the Culture Revolution, however, were limited by his fear of enraging Mao. … (in 1956) Zhou upset Mao when he told him privately that he could not in good conscience support some of his economic policies. After being criticized then, Zhou went to extraordinary lengths for the next fifteen years to give Mao no reason to doubt his total commitment to carry out the Chairman’s wishes. Even so, in January 1958, Mao exploded at Zhou, saying Zhou was only fifty meters away from being a rightist, an accusation that led Zhou to back down.

Throughout Chinese history, as emperors aged and their energy declined, they often stopped seeing a broad range of officials and narrowed their contacts to an inner cabinet of fawning eunuchs. After Lin Biao’s death, Mao similarly rarely saw any officials, including Deng, and relied primarily on three women (Zhang Yufeng, Tang Wensheng, Wang Hairong) to keep him posted about the outside world

Zhou told Mao of Kissinger’s suggestion that Washington might be able to win Congressional approval to advance toward normalization of the U.S.-China relationship if the Chinese could be somewhat more flexible than in the Japanese formula and allow Washington to maintain closer relations with Taiwan. Nancy Tang chimed in at that point, telling Mao that it sounded like a “two-China policy” (Zhou later confessed to Kissinger that “when we were with the Chairman, I dared not explain the statement, but she dared to make an explanation.”) When Mao heard that Zhou was seriously listening to Kissinger’s proposals allowing the United States to keep a stronger relationship with Taiwan as well as with the mainland, Mao, the elemental patriot, was furious at Zhou.

From November 25 to December 5, 1973, immediately after Kissinger’s visit, Mao organized a series of Politburo struggle sessions against Zhou Enlai in the Great Hall of the People. After Lin Biao’s death, Mao had taken little interest in details of daily work, but he micromanaged the criticism of Zhou by selecting who would attend, outlined what they would say, and setting the overall tone of the meetings. In his view Zhou was close to being a rightist capitulationist. All the Politburo members were required to publicly criticize him, Zhou wrote a detailed self-criticism, but Mao judged it inadequate, demanding that Zhou compose another one that condemned his own actions even more strongly.

Deng knew very well that what he said at the meetings to criticize Zhou would be reported to Mao by the two ladies. Near the end of the meetings, Deng said to Zhou, “You are only one step away from the Chairman. Others could hope for such a position, but it would be unattainable; for you it is attainable. I hope you will take this as an adequate warning.” On the surface Deng’s words may not have seemed vicious, but in the context they were damning. In effect, Deng had implied that there was a danger Zhou might try to upstage Mao and usurp his role. When the two ladies reported Deng’s comments to Mao, Mao was thrilled, and immediately invited Deng in for a talk.

It was discovered that Lin Biao had written notes in the margins of things he had read, showing he had great respect for Confucius; the campaign against him and someone else accused of being too Confucian, Zhou Enlai, was therefore called “Criticize Lin, criticize Confucius”

Bringing Order under Mao, 1974 - 1975

In Deng’s view, for organizational reliability, a team of leaders was better than a single leader, no matter how able. Something might happen to one leader, but if there were a small team, then others would be ready to take over if problems arose. Ideally, these leadership team members would not only be able to provide overall leadership when needed but would also develop specialized knowledge in the areas to which they were assigned.

Looking forward under Mao, 1975

During the Cultural Revolution, one out of every 250 scientific personnel at the CAS, where the vast majority of high-level scientists were concentrated, had been persecuted to death; in the CAS Shanghai branch the figure was one out of every 150 scientists.

In 1965, on the eve of the Cultural Revolution, there had been some 106 research centers under CAS, with 24,714 scientific and research personnel. In 1975, by contrast, CAS had been reduced to thirteen research institutes, two research offices, and about 2,000 employees, of whom 1,800 were officials or researchers and 200 were lower-level support staff. Many of the scientists who had been sent to the countryside had not yet returned.

Mao complained to his nephew (Mao Yuanxin) about Deng and his consolidation efforts at Tsinghua University. Mao was also furious about the document on science; he zeroed in on one sentence that Hu Qiaomu had inserted in the final draft quoting Mao as saying that “science and technology consitute a force of production”. Mao insisted that he had never said that.

Deng showed courage when he argued that the social sciences were important enough to deserve a separate academy…. (On August 30, 1975) Hu (Qiaomu) laid out plans for developing an independent acedemy that would later be known as the CASS (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

The question of how Deng might treat Mao’s reputation after his death was too sensitive to discuss directly; they brought it up indirectly, by discussing how Khrushchev had savaged Stalin’s reputation. Deng’s critics warned that he could end up being China’s Khrushchev

Sidelined as the Mao Era Ends, 1976

Within a single year, between December 1975 and September 1976, four senior Chinese leaders passed away. First Kang Sheng, the master internal spy who had done the dirty work for Mao in arranging the killing of hundreds of officials accused of betraying the revelution, died in December 1975.

When Zhou passed away before Mao, it allowed Mao to shape the nature of Zhou’s funeral arrangements – and he used the occasion to try to dampen the public memory of Zhou, offering what was by party standards only minimal recognition of Zhou’s service.

But Mao did not attend the service. Three days before the service was to be held at the Great Hall of the People, Mao scoffed to his boyguard Wang Dongxing, “Why do I have to go to the service?” He instructed his personal assistant Zhang Yufeng to explain simply that he was unable to be there (even though, just a few weeks later, Mao was well enough to meet former president Nixon for a full hour and forty minutes)…… Mao, though far more mobile than Zhou, never once visited him in the hospital. Mao also tried to dampen foreigners’ celebration of Zhou.

Three Turning Points, 1978

Deng was concerned about the personal loyalty of another high-level military official who was stationed in the Northeast at the port of Dalian, Admiral Su Zhenhua. Su had served under Deng in the Second Field Army, but he had not proved very loyal; when officials were called upon to attack Deng in 1976 he had been more critical of Deng than Deng judged necessary….Shortly after being criticized, Su was notified that Hua Guofeng would stop in the Northeast on the way back from his trip to North Korea. Aware of the rivalry between Deng and Hua Guofeng and unhappy about being criticized, Su Zhenhua offered to hold a naval exercise with some 120 ships as part of the welcoming ceremony when Hua arrived in Dalian. When Deng heard that Su was planning to give such a display of support for Hua, he was furious and used his leverage over the military to have the military exercise cancelled. During his visit to the Northeast, Deng wanted to make sure that there were no remnants of military support for Hua Guofeng.

Marshal Ye, who quickly realized how much the changed atmosphere had weakened the support for Hua Guofeng, advised Hua on November 11 to begin preparing a speech showing that he, too, accepted the changes. The crucial drama took place between November 11 and November 25. By the time Deng joined the conference on November 15, its focus had already shifted from economics to politics, and the political winds were blowing against Hua and his “two whatevers.” Some senior party leaders would later remark that just as the Zunyi conference had been the decisive turning point in Mao’s rise to the chairmanship, so this work conference proved the decisive event in the rise of Deng.

Deng expressed the prevailing view at high levels that China’s two huge disasters, the Great Leap and the Culture Revolution, were caused by a system that allows one person to dominate without any input from other voices. China therefore needed to develop a legal system so that a single individual, no matter how able, will not dominate. If laws are initially imperfect and incomplete, they can be made fair and just, step by step, over time.

Setting the limits of Freedom, 1978 - 1979

Other articles spoke against the “two whatevers” and raised questions not only about Lin Biao and the Gang of Four, but even about Mao. “Just ask yourself,” one article read, “Without Mao’s support could Lin Biao have achieved power? Just ask yourself: Didn’t Chairman Mao know that Jiang Qing was a traitor? If Chairman Mao had not agreed, could the Gang of Four have achieved their aim of striking down Deng Xiaoping?”

He encouraged more democratic discussion within the party. But when protestors attracted huge crowds and resisted basic rule by the Communist leadership, Deng moved decisively to suppress the challenge. As one provincial first party secretary later said, Deng’s view of democracy was like Lord Ye’s view of dragons. “Lord Ye loved looking at a book with pretty pictures of dragons (Yegong haolong), but when a real dragon appeared, he was terrified”

The Soviet-Vietnamese Threat, 1978 - 1979

(P283) The fear intensified during the Culture Revolution when China began sending radio messages into those countries to encourage the local people to carry out revolution. At the time of Deng’s visit, these radio appeals had not yet stopped. The problem was mostly acute in Indonesia, where local Chinese had joined in the resistance to Sukarno that had nearly toppled his government. (Indonesia, furious, did not normalize relations with China until 1990.)

(P285) In the 1950s the Communist movement in the British colony of Malaya was so strong that many Malayas had feared that the Communists might take over after Malaysian independence. After Malaysian independence was achieved in 1963, the Malays were afraid that the ethnic Chinese, who had a strong political party, would dominate their government. To Avoid this, Singapore, 75 percent ethnic Chinese and a part of Malaya, was cast out in 1965 and forced to become independent.

Opening to the United States, 1978 - 1979

(P342) Deng was fascinated by O’Neill’s discussion of the separation of powers, especially the ways in which the legislative and executive branches competed for power and influence…. Deng had absolutely no doubt that, at least for China, the separation of powers was a terribly inefficient way to run a country, something China should avoid

Launching the Deng Administration, 1979 - 1980

(P367) Not only did he want the writers to do more to stress the positive things that Mao stood for, but he also pressed them to acknowledge that Mao’s mistakes were primarily systemic and institutional. Deng accepted Hu Qiaomu’s point that the drafters had no choice but to acknowledge the errors of the Great Leap Forward (in which, unlike those of the Cultural Revolution, Deng had been deeply involved). Deng insisted, however, that in dealing with the Greap Leap, the drafters should begin by listing some of the positive achievements during that period and only thereafter acknowledge the weaknesses.

(P372) Why did Marshal Ye defend Hua Guofeng? … as other party officials argue, Marshal Ye was concerned that Deng might become too authoritarian – that he would behave too much like Mao – and he thus sought to retain Hua as a way of constraining Deng’s power and promoting inner-party democracy.

Marshal Ye was not a strong-willed person who fought for his convictions; he preferred to avoid confrontation. He accepted the Politburo’s decision on Hua, and in fact engaged in a mild self-criticism for his support of Hua. Indeed, once Deng became head of the CMC, Marshal Ye chose not to share this responsibility with Deng but to withdraw to his home base in Guangdong, where his son Ye Xuanning was already mayor of Guangzhou and vice governor and where he could enjoy a comfortable life. … Later, when Marshal Ye was critically ill in 1984 and 1986, Deng did not pay a courtesy visit as he had done for Zhou. Marshal Ye died in 1986.

Deng’s Art of Governing

Speak and act with authority

Defend the party

Maintain a unified command structure

Keep a firm grip on the military

Build public support before promoting

Avoid taking the blame

When Deng’s policies proved unpopular or mistaken, subordinates were ordinarily expected to take responsibility, just as Mao’s errors were blamed on Lin Biao, Jiang Qing, and low-level officials. In a country where discipline at the top still depended on personal authority, Deng, like many other high party officials, believed that it was sometimes necessary to sacrifice the pawns to ensure continued respect for the king and his throne.

Set short-tem policies in light of long-term

Pursue policies that help achieve long-term goals

Uncover even the unpleasant truths

Be bold

Push, consolidate, and push again

Strengthen unity, minimize divisions

Avoid publicizing past grievances

Sidestep conservative resistance through experimentation

Use aphorisms to explain complex controversial issues

Make balanced presentations that explains underlying principles

Avoid factionalism and select competent officials

Study and shape the “Atmosphere”

Experiments in Guangdong and Fujian, 1979 - 1984

(P412) Guangdong officials regarded him as a constant thorn in their side. All high officials except Chen Yun and Li Xiannian made at least one visit to the SEZs and praised their achievements. Chen Yun went south every winter, to Hangzhou, Shanghai, and elsewhere, but he explained that his health did not permit him to visit Guangdong.

The Ebb and Flow of Politics

(P557) Deng’s effort to give honor and perquisites without power was only partially successful. Many senior officials, including Chen Yun, Wang Zhen, and Song Renqiong, became members of the CAC, but also retained their previous positions. After they retired, Zhao Ziyang recorded that during the 1980s he and Hu Yaobang were like secretary generals, in effect office managers, since power throughout the decade was still in the hands of Deng, Chen Yun, Li Xiannian, and “the six-person small group” (Bo Yibo, Peng Zhen, Deng Yingchao, Song Renqiong, Yang Shangkun, and Wang Zhen). Deng was paramount, but he simply did not have the absolute power required to force all the others to retire. … But Deng did establish the principle that the CAC would come to an end when these revolutionary veterans passed from the scene. In the future, too, all positions would have term limits. As planned, the CAC was abolished in 1992. It had given its members honor and it had reduced but not entirely eliminated their power until Deng himself fully stepped down in 1992.

(P562) Although Chen Yun’s ten points all concerned keeping the economy under control, the last several points constituted a powerful attack on Hu Yaobang, and indirectly an attack on Deng’s policies of trying to promote overly rapid growth. On the same day, Deng Liqun, without authorization, leaked the contents of Chen Yun’s speech to the press. The next day, Deng Xiaoping called in Deng Liqun to criticize him for this violation of party discipline, but the damage had been done: Hu Yaobang’s authority in the party had been weakened, to the extent that some officials wondered if Hu would remain in his post much longer. Other officials who worked with Hu Yaobang and shared his views about expanding freedom of expression were furious at Deng Liqun.

(P565) In the minds of many intellectuals, Deng Liqun was the person responsible for the campaign. As a result, he was placed on the defensive and underwent a self-criticism; he was accused of initiating another anti-rightist campaign. Hu Deping, eldest son of Hu Yaobang, and Deng Pufang, eldest son of Deng Xiaoping, like other intellectuals, criticized Deng Liqun for carrying the campaign further than Deng Xiaoping had intended. Deng Liqun made it clear that Deng Xiaoping made the decision to launch the campaign. His refusal to protect his leader was not soon forgotten: at Deng Xiaoping’s funeral some fifteen years later, Deng Pufang made it clear that Deng Liqun would not be welcome. Hu Qiaomu, under pressure from the outspoken intellectuals, later went so far as to say the anti-spiritual-pollution campaign was a mistake.

(P567) Deng Xiaoping was furious about the audacious challenge to party authority that had occurred at the writers’ congress. From Deng’s perspective, Hu Yaobang was earning the goodwill of intellectuals by being an overly permissive official who failed to enforce party discipline. Moreover, Hu Yaobang’s permissiveness made it appear that Deng Xiaoping was an arbitrary, overly strict authoritarian.

(P569) Deng had let Hu Yaobang know he was thinking of retiring, but he did not want others pushing him to retire. He would retire at his own pace. He knew that Hu Yaobang had lost support of Chen Yun and other conservatives for being too spontaneous without giving full consideration to balanced overall planning. In their view, Hu was winning the favor of intellectuals by being overly permissive and leaving the task of constraining them to others. He was derided in private by his adversaries as the “cricket” – “small, wily, rail-thin, and constantly jumping around.” … As Deng later told Yang Shangkun, “If I have made an error, the error is in misjudging Hu Yaobang.”

(P582) On January 15 (1987), Zhao Ziyang made his criticisms of Hu. Later, in interviews and tapes that he made after he was placed under house arrest in 1989, Zhao would take special pains to show that although he had differences with Hu, he had been no more critical than was required, and that he and Hu had agreed about the need for reform and had worked together. He said he had “not thrown stones after Hu fell in the well.” In his criticism on January 15, Zhao said that although Hu was generous and did not bear grudges, he had weak points. “He enjoyed expressing new and different ideas and surprising people, amazing people with new feats. He did not accept organizational restraints. … If his authority were larger, problems would have been even greater. … Why was he so tolerant toward wild people like Liu Binyan and Wang Ruowang? Perhaps he wanted to create an image, at home and abroad, of being enlightened.” Zhao continued, “Comrade Hu Yaobang doesn’t respect discipline. If conditions were to change and Comrades Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun were no longer with us, I couldn’t continue working with him, I would resign. It doesn’t matter what the Standing Committee decides, or what the party congress decides, or what was decided before, whatever he wanted to do, he just did.” Hu was shocked to hear these words; he had not expected Zhao to be so critical. Hu’s friends, too, felt Zhao had indeed “thrown stones after Hu fell in the well.”

On the morning of January 15, at the end of the “party life meetings,” Hu Yaobang presented a closing self-criticism in which he accepted responsibility for all his errors. But he also asked for continued investigations of whether he was truly overly ambitious and part of a faction. After the meetings ended, Hu was observed on the steps of the meeting hall, dejected and crying.

Chen Yun, who had not attended the “party life meetings,” expressed his views. He said that he had fully supported the decision to promote Hu Yaobang to general secretary in 1980, but in 1980-1981 he had observed that the Secretariat under Hu did not function well. At meetings, Hu would go through the motions of having each of over one hundred ministry-level units submit its report without resolving the key issues. In addition, Hu simply rushed around from one locality to another. In one week he visited twenty-two counties, without really concentrating on the major issues that he should have pursued more deeply. He also did not hold regular meetings of the Politburo and its Standing Committee, even though to practice party democracy, one had to hold regular meetings. … Nevertheless, Chen Yun stressed that it was important for the party to follow legal procedures in removing Hu.

(P587) 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.

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?” 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.

Beijing Spring, April 15 - May 17, 1989

(P605) In their view, the April 26 editorial was too harsh. At age eighty-four, Deng went out less, talked to fewer people, and no longer had a keen sense of the public mood. Had Zhou Enlai been alive, some officials believed, he could have reached an understanding with the students. But in April 1989 no leader had both the authority to offer a solution and the ability to bridge the communication gap between the senior revolutionaries and the youth. Even Zhao Ziyang, who later advocated dialogue with the students and a retraction of the April 26 editorial, had been aloof and at the time was not seen by the students as a sympathetic ally. Students accused his sons of corruption and criticized him for playing golf

(P606) Deng would not retract the editorial for fear of weakening the party’s authority. And although Li Peng and other officials overcame their initial reluctance to meet the students, while meeting with them the officials held their line and failed to calm the situation. For instance, when Yuan Mu, State Council spokesperson, and He Dongchang, vice minister of the State Education Commission, met with forty-five students on the afternoon of April 29, Yuan Mu refused to admit that corruption was a serious problem and denied the existence of any censorship. Students left angrier than ever.

After June 4, the head of the Propaganda Department and the editor of People’s Daily, who were considered too sympathetic to the students, were both removed from their positions

(P614) When he met Zhao Ziyang later in the afternoon of May 16, Gorbachev said that he had already met with Deng, but now that he was meeting with General Secretary Zhao, all agreements could become official. Zhao explained that Deng was still acting in an official capacity; China still needed Deng’s wisdom and experience and “therefore the First Plenary Session of the 13th Party Congress in 1987 made the solemn decision that we still need Comrade Deng Xiaoping at the helm when it comes to the most important questions.” When Deng learned about Zhao’s statement, he was upset. Zhao’s supporters later explained that it was natural that Zhao should try to correct Gorbachev’s impression because in fact his meeting with Deng had been official. Zhao later said he was trying to protect, not harm, Deng’s image. In his diary, however, Li Peng offered a different view: he admitted that Zhao’s comments were accurate but he felt that raising them in this context was Zhao’s way of laying blame on Deng for the economic problems in 1988 and for the decisions that had led to the worsening of the student demonstrations. Indeed Deng, like Li Peng, interpreted Zhao’s comments as blaming him for the recent problems

The Tiananmen Tragedy, May 17 - June 4, 1989

(P622) In his effort to regain public support, Deng wanted new leaders who were not identified with the Tiananmen crackdown to be introduced right after the troops took over the square. By May 19, the day before martial law was imposed, Deng, Chen Yun, and Li Xiannian had already chosen Jiang Zemin as general secretary…Deng had praised Jiang Zemin for his decisive action in skillfully closing down the World Economic Herald without causing a big reaction.

(P631) Official Chinese reports a few days after June 4 stated that more than two hundred were killed, including twenty soldiers and twenty-three students, and that about two thousand were wounded. Li Peng told Brent Scowcroft on July 2 that 310 had died, including some PLA soldiers and thirty-six students. Ding Zilin, the mother of one of those killed, later tried to collect the names of all those killed that night, and as of 2008 she had collected almost three hundred names. Li Zhiyuan, chief political commissar of the 38th Group Army, reported that in addition to the killed and wounded soldiers, some sixty-five trucks and forty-seven armed personnel carriers were destroyed, and another 485 vehicles were damaged. The most reliable estimates by foreign observers who have carefully studied the event are that somewhere between 300 and 2,600 demonstrators were killed and that several thousand were wounded

Standing Firm, 1989 - 1992

(P644) Deng had given a great deal of thought to what it would take for a successor to maintain unity and keep China on the path of reform and opening. In light of the public reaction to the tragedy of June 4, Deng was pleased that they chose someone who had not been involved in the crackdown and could appeal to the public for a fresh start. Although Jiang Zemin had arrived in Beijing before June 4, Deng made sure that Jiang’s reputation would be unsullied by Tiananmen by taking personal responsibility for bringing order to Beijing and by making sure Jiang’s appointment was not announced until June 24, after he was formally voted party general secretary at the Fourth Plenum. By waiting until then to announce his successor, Deng also demonstrated to the party and the public that he was passing the baton with a firm hand, following proper procedures, and not rushing hastily to put a successor in place.

Deng’s Finale: The southern Journey, 1992

(P669) In 1991, party officials began preparing for the 14th Party Congress, to be held in late 1992. Deng made it clear that if Jiang Zemin promoted faster growth and greater opening, he would support him; if not, he would back other party leaders. Yet the other leaders were also constrained by the prevailing atmosphere. After Zhu Rongji became vice premier in Beijing, for example, Premier Li Peng, who had dutifully followed the conservative policies of his seniors, felt pressure from Deng who wanted Zhu to take over responsibility for guiding the economy. But Li resisted this pressure, and in 1991 Zhu had no choice but to follow the current cautious policies

(P677) In Zhuhai, Deng held a meeting ostensibly for military planning that turned up the heat under Jiang Zemin. He repeated the message he gave in Wuhan: “Whoever is opposed to reform must leave office…” The meeting Deng attended in Zhuhai on “military planning” was chaired by Qiao Shi … Qiao Shi was also regarded by many as having the qualities needed to be a top leader and as a potential rival to Jiang Zemin, so this meeting had the potential to be about China’s leadership.

Jiang Zemin, eager to get precise news of the Zhuhai meeting, persuaded Jia Qinglin, first party secretary of Fujian, to give him a tape of the meeting; not long thereafter it was announced that Jia Qinglin had been appointed to the Politburo. And although it was not customary for Jiang to phone Deng on New Year’s, on February 3, 1992, five days after Deng left Zhuhai, Jiang Zemin phoned Deng to wish him a happy New Year. As Jiang later acknowledged, the phone call was no accident. Jiang thereafter began to tilt more boldly toward reform

读《黑客与画家》的时候，有一句话印象很深: 如果你有两个选择，不知道选哪一个，那就选困难的那个。邓在70年代末重新掌权后，对于如何评价毛和之前的种种运动，也面临着选择。

邓主张渐进式改革，”稳定压倒一切”和其他实用主义思想(猫论，摸石头过河)指导了整个改革开放，一直影响到今天的政策。但就像钱穆评价赵匡胤平天下先南后北的政策”贻艰巨与后人”一样， 有些原则随着时间的流逝越来越僵化(个人看法)。维护权威 维护稳定的口号下隐藏了多少罪恶，遑论有些制度又回到了改革开放前的那一套。追本溯源，如果八十年代的反思和思想解放不设限，会不会现在是另外一番景象?

也许太苛求经历了十年浩劫的那一代人。也许全面反思那些运动(大跃进，反右，文革)在当时并不是一个选择。一代人要完成一代人的使命，我们不能指望牛顿前半生提出牛顿力学，后半生再提出相对论否定前半生。就像邓所说，他已经尽到了对这个国家的责任。有些事情是需要邓之后的几代人去解决的