Deng’s disappearing act as Xi becomes most powerful of all

Deng Xiaoping fought battles all his life, but is now facing, 21 years after his death, the toughest of them all.

A painting by Liu Yuyi shows Xi Jinping’s father lecturing China’s leaders on the development of Shenzhen, including Deng.

Deng Xiaoping, who was born this week in 1904, fought battles all his life and was purged three times by his beloved Communist Party but, 21 years after his death, now faces the toughest fight of all.

The party has already begun celebrating the 40th anniversary of the central committee plenum (December 1978) that changed — at Deng’s command — Chinese and world history, launching the reform-and-opening era that swept away Mao Zedong’s collectivism and paved the way for today’s prosperity.

But as leading Australian Sinologist Geremie Barme wrote recently in the Lowy Institute’s The Interpreter: “Shortly after Xi Jinping’s rise, Deng Xiaoping began to disappear.”

Xi’s manifesto, Thought on Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, has been enshrined in party and national constitutions.

It was Mao who purged Xi’s family during the Cultural Revolution, and Deng who restored Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, to high office, making him governor of Guangdong province in 1979, responsible for implementing the ambitious plans for the great new entrepreneurial city of Shenzhen.

But it is Mao who appears to stand higher in Xi’s estimation today.

The National Art Museum of China recently staged an exhibition to mark the 40th anniversary of the reform-and-opening era, but it was dominated by Xi Jinping.

Xi’s father, who was to become vice-premier before dying in 2002, took centre stage in the exhibition’s second-biggest painting, by Liu Yuyi. In it, Xi senior, resembling remarkably his son, lectures Deng — characteristically portrayed smoking — and other leaders of the time about the blueprint for Shenzhen, today a city of 12.5 million people.

Xi has set a startlingly different course from Deng’s Old Era, whose modus operandi was “crossing the river by feeling the stones” — cautious pragmatism. The New Era is marked by a staunch return of party ideology.

Another favourite saying of Deng’s was “hide your strength, bide your time” — especially applied to international relations.

A leading expert on the party, Jude Blanchette of the US advisory Crumpton Group, said this had allowed China to pursue wealth and power in a way that stayed below the radar.

But “casting that off so forcefully” under Xi is “exposing China to many of the global forces it’s now being battered by”, including the trade wars.

Deng devised the “one country, two systems” strategy to provide sufficient comfort to Britain to return Hong Kong in 1997, with both countries affirming that this formula would apply for 50 years.

However, this principle now appears strongly under threat as efforts are made to require this “special administrative region” of China to focus on the “one country” element.

Deng refused to serve as head of either party or state, or to take other senior positions except the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission, from which he stepped down in 1990.

But before quitting all his official roles, he said: “My last task is to take the lead in establishing a retirement system” to prevent the return of a disastrous personality cult like Mao’s that almost triggered the party’s demise.

However, five months ago Xi controversially introduced to the National People’s Congress changes that began to unwind these term limits and fixed retirement ages.

In contrast to Deng, said Barme, and despite Deng’s warnings, Xi has amassed sufficient titles and honours to make him, “at least on paper and organisationally, the most powerful leader in Chinese history”.