Deng Xiaoping: China’s greatest statesman?

There are a number of men and women who could lay claim to be the greatest political leader of the last 50 years. There is the transatlantic pair of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher from the 1980s, who transformed the politics and economics of their respective countries. Helmut Kohl, as the Chancellor who unified Germany in 1990, has a good claim, too. But for me the outstanding leader of the last 50 years, the man who has had a bigger impact on the globe than any other human being, is Deng Xiaoping, the supreme leader of the People’s Republic of China from 1978 to 1989.

The modern world would not exist without his political leadership, economic reforms and pervasive legacy. It was Western leaders’ misunderstanding of Deng and what he wanted to achieve for China that has led to much of the tensions we see today, in Chinese-Western relations in general, and Sino-American relations in particular.

Deng Xiaoping’s path to power was a long and treacherous one. The vicissitudes he went through would horrify an Emmanuel Macron or a Justin Trudeau. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in the 1920s and took part in Mao’s Long March in 1934. He went on to fight the Japanese and the Chinese Nationalist forces, rising in rank and stature, as the Communists seized power in China in 1949. His ability and political caution helped him rise through the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party and therefore the Chinese state. Deng’s ruthlessness and devotion to the Party was shown in the important role implementing Mao’s ”Anti-Rightist Campaign” of the late 1950s. This saw the persecution of hundreds of thousands of Chinese people, including prominent intellectuals. For Deng, leading this persecution, as much as his later reforms, was about strengthening China.

In the 1960s Deng’s career came to juddering halt with the Cultural Revolution. Deng was one of the Chinese leaders purged during that turbulent time, when Mao unleashed the Red Guard students on the party officials, in a bid to restore his full power. Deng was eventually rehabilitated, only to be purged again in 1976, as the Gang of Four asserted their power. Mao’s death and the defeat of the Gang of Four allowed Deng’s return to favour and led to him taking full power in 1978.

Deng began China’s first embrace of economic reform and markets, while keeping the iron grip of the Chinese Communist Party on the country. When his rule began China was still a primarily rural, poor country — with three quarters of people living on less than two dollars a day. Yet the success of Chinese communities outside the People’s Republic, in Taiwan and Hong Kong (both thriving by the late 1970s), showed the huge potential of the Chinese people. It was this potential Deng set free and began China’s economic growth, industrialisation and the path to being the workshop of the world. 

The two pillars on which his greatness lies are these: pulling millions of Chinese people out of poverty and that huge economic growth making China the diplomatic and political force it is today.

For all the Nobel Peace Prize winners and all the billions the West has poured into Africa and Asia, none of that compares with the magnitude of unleashing the talents of hundreds of millions of Chinese people. Of course, in setting China on the path to a market economy and relative wealth, he helped to grow the world economy and provide an export market for American planes, German cars and French luxury goods.

By carrying out these reforms via the mechanism of the Chinese Communist, he ensured that engagement with the world was on China’s terms. When Western firms wanted a foothold, they had to share technology, which helped China grow quicker. By ensuring that the Party oversaw the economy and politics, he ensured that his successors would devise a Chinese Firewall that kept out Google and Facebook. This allowed homegrown Chinese Tech firms to emerge, such as Huawei, TikTok, Alibaba and Tencent. 

He helped ensure the continuing success of his model of economic development, but voluntarily gave up power in 1989, thereby setting a precedent that no leader should serve longer than ten years. This ensured there was a regular refreshing of the Chinese leadership and no concentration of power in one person for too long.  A model which lasted until President Xi’s rise to power.  

Any doubts that Deng was a Gorbachev-like figure was shown when he intervened to ensure the Tiananmen Square protesters were crushed in 1989. That set back China’s role in the world, but only briefly. His final crucial intervention was a tour of Southern China in 1992 to push back against left wing forces that wanted to undo his reforms.

While Deng’s place in history is assured, those in the West who lauded his economic reforms always misunderstood both him and China. China did not seek to become an economic power just for the sake of it, so that some Chinese oligarch could buy his third yacht. It did so to become powerful and take its place on the world stage as a Great Power. If China is the defining nation of the 21 st century, it all began in 1978 with Deng’s elevation to power.

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