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Deng Xiaoping

1904 – 1997 Chinese paramount leader of the People's Republic of China

Paramount leader who launched the market reforms that reshaped China, and who ordered the crackdown at Tiananmen Square.

Religion
atheist
Affiliations
Chinese Communist Party

Deng Xiaoping was a veteran Communist leader who was purged twice during the Mao era before emerging as China's paramount leader in the late 1970s. He launched the reform and opening policy that dismantled collective farming, allowed private enterprise and foreign investment, and set off decades of rapid growth that lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. He kept the Communist Party's monopoly on power, and in 1989 he backed the decision to send the army against the Tiananmen Square protests, in which large numbers of demonstrators were killed. His model of economic opening under one-party control defined China for a generation.

Connections

  • rival of Mao Zedong — A veteran leader Mao purged twice, who later reversed much of his economic line.
  • rival of Mao Zedong — Purged him twice; Deng later reversed much of his economic policy.
  • successor of Mao Zedong — Reversed many of Mao's economic policies.
  • successor of Mao Zedong — Succeeded, after his death, by reformer Deng.
  • successor of Xi Jinping — A later leader who kept the party's control but reversed Deng's move away from strongman rule.
  • successor of Xi Jinping — Kept Deng's party-led economy but moved back toward one-man rule Deng had tried to limit.
  • ally of Zhou Enlai — A patron who shielded him during the Cultural Revolution.
  • ally of Zhou Enlai — Protected and promoted Deng during the Cultural Revolution.

In the timeline

Wikipedia