By Eva Cheng
Deng Xiaoping has been acclaimed by politicians, business figures and other "respectable" commentators around the world as the "architect" of China's "modernisation" following the announcement of his death on February 20.
They hailed the pro-capitalist "economic reforms" which Deng launched in 1978 — they have a reason to do so. They have never concealed their excitement that the huge China market might become a much needed outlet for the equipment, consumer goods and technology which they have found increasingly difficult to sell.
What hasn't been said is how much the world's key capitalist economies need a major market, such as China, to ease the persisting problem of "overproduction".
Not much has been said about how much the ruling bureaucracy in China, of which Deng was the head since 1977, also needed those reforms to improve its chance of staying in power. The past 19 years of economic restructuring in China have been dominated by the reintroduction of private profit as the primary basis on which economic decisions are made. This has been accompanied by the enrichment of Communist Party officials and their families.
As ruling parasites on a system based on public ownership and non-profit driven priorities, the Communist officials used to milk the system by obtaining (officially and/or through bribery) material comforts and privileges way beyond those made available to the general population. Under the changing economic regime, more of the benefits could be translated into cash, of which a significant portion was deployed for "investment" to make yet more money.
In doing so, a key section of the bureaucracy has become the backbone of China's emerging capitalist class. It is well known in China, yet not well publicised in the Western media, that Deng's family has been heading this process. This has been met with widespread resentment, including the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protest in 1989.
Millions of pro-democracy activists demanded change, despite the possibility of brutal repression, because they formed part of an increasing majority that was forced into destitution. Their criticism of the bribery and abuse of power by party officials, particularly Deng's children, was rarely "picked up" by the Western media.
Similarly, little attention is being paid to Deng's order to massacre the protesting students in Beijing in June, 1989. When mentioned, it is as a footnote to how Deng "opened up" China to foreign capital.
Speculation as to which party faction and which bureaucrat(s) representing it might come to power now makes a mockery of the democratic system on which communist China was supposed to be founded. Working people were supposed to be in control. But now, even the bureaucrats themselves don't know who will assume real power.
Deng picked Jiang Zemin in 1989 as his heir — to head the state, party and the military — and Li Peng as the prime minister. Yet Deng's seal of approval provides little assurance that they will keep power: Mao picked Hua Guofeng as his heir, but Hua was quickly toppled after Mao's death in 1976. (Deng also picked Hu Yaobang as the party chief and Zhou Ziyang as the prime minister in the mid-'80s. He reversed his decision not long after.)
Like Hua, Jiang commands little authority in the bureaucracy. He has no experience in the army and was admitted to the state apparatus as a junior secretary only in 1983. But Jiang became the mayor of Shanghai in '85 and, surprisingly, leaped to the top position as the party's general secretary four years later.
His vulnerability is evident in Deng's order, shortly after Jiang's 1989 appointment, that the rest of the party bureaucracy "must not resent" the appointment, should accept Jiang as the power centre of the "third generation" (the Long Marchers being the first), and "must not set up separate power bases".
There is no indication that this order was taken to heart. A key contender for power is the faction in the military headed by the Yang brothers (Shangkun and Baibing). Li Peng's position is even shakier.
The post-Deng power line-up is far from clear. What is likely is that the bureaucracy will take China further down the road of capitalism. As the ruling bureaucrats have learnt over the past 19 years, this is a more effective way to enrich themselves than the old path of defending the public ownership system.