An Introductory Profile: Deng Xiaoping and China's Political Culture

Abstract

Perhaps never in human history has an established society gone through such a total transformation, without a war, violent revolution or economic collapse, as did China with the ending of Mao Zedong's reign and the emergence of Deng Xiaoping as paramount ruler. Theleitmotivof Mao's China was orthodoxy, conformity and isolation, a whole people walking in lock-step, seemingly with only one voice, repeating one mindless slogan after another. All Chinese appeared to be united in a state of egalitarian autarky. To have read one newspaper was to have read them all, to have heard one official's briefing was to have heard them all. In amazing contrast, Deng's China was a congeries of elements, not an integrated system at all, with regional differences suddenly surfacing, some urban centres vibrating to the currents of international commerce, its youth in tune with the latest foreign fashions, while the great rural masses were re-establishing bonds with their ancient folk cultures, and nearly everybody rejoicing over the ending of Maoist orthodoxy and politics by mass campaigns. Above all, economics and politics seemed to be adhering to different rules, so that there was openness here, controls there. All the different voices saying different things made it hard to hear any one authority giving vision and guidance. And as the people scram-bled to look after their private selves, corruption seeped in, and while the government did not seem really to expect people to obey all its orders, it also acted erratically, sometimes with cruel violence – a “fragmented authoritarian” system in Kenneth Lieberthal's well–chosen words.