EZRA VOGEL HAS A BIRTHDAY

EZRA F. VOGEL 

b. July 11 

Author of the biography of 
DENG XIAOPING 
and other seminal works 
on China and Japan 

More on Ezra Vogel here and here; 
on Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, here and here; 
on China, here; 
on Japan, here 

EZRA VOGEL DISCUSSES "DENG XIAOPING AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF CHINA"

EZRA VOGEL

ON HIS MASTER WORK

ON DENG XIAOPING

EZRA F. VOGEL

Author

DENG XIAOPING AND

THE TRANSFORMATION

OF CHINA

Prof. Vogel spoke this evening at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he taught at Harvard for many years (a notice of the event is here). A good source of background information on Vogel's work on the book can be found here, and a number of reviews, here.

More Vogel here; more Deng here.

Tomorrow: the next president of China is due in Washington, D.C.; see here.

RIVERS GO, THOUGH JIANG ZEMIN DOES NOT (THEY SAY)

RUMORS 

SWIRL 

AROUND 

CHINESE EX-PRESIDENT 

JIANG ZEMIN 

FORMER CHINESE PRESIDENT 

& CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY 

GENERAL SECRETARY 

JIANG ZEMIN 

at the time of the 16th Party Congress 

November 2002 

the last one over which Jiang presided as 

General Secretary 

When he failed to appear for the celebration of the ninetieth anniversary of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), July 1 (see here), rumors that Jiang was dead or dying spread throughout the Chinese blogosphere, and the censors went to work.  "Jiang" disappeared as a search term; "jiang" happens to mean "river" or "rivers" as well as the former president's last name.  A contest began to invent ever more ingenious ways of circumventing the censorship; a formal announcement was made that the rumors were wrong. 

It was an interesting indication that either Jiang Zemin, installed as the official top leader after Tiananmen (with Deng Xiaoping still very much on the scene at the time), has meant more to at least a part of the populace then might have been guessed, or that a hunger exists to know more of what is happening to the rulers of their country. 

DENG XIAOPING DIES, February 19, 1997

DENG XIAOPING 

August 22, 1904-February 19, 1997 

PAINTING OF THE LEADERSHIP OF 

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA 

BEING ACCLAIMED BY THE MASSES 

AS THE LEADERS ASCEND THE STEPS 

OF THE GREAT HALL OF THE PEOPLE 

IN BEIJING 

Mao Zedong is on the left

in a long tunic

Deng Xiaoping is on the right

the short figure in a short tunic

DENG WAS PARAMOUNT LEADER OF CHINA 

LATE 1978 UNTIL HIS DEATH 

Ultimately responsible for both 

Reforms and Opening Up 

and for "Tiananmen" (June 3-4, 1989) 

BBC material on Deng's death can be found here; 

the lengthy New York Times obituary, here 

"HERE BE GIANTS" 

LI PENG ON WHAT HAPPENED ON "TIANANMEN"

LI PENG

ON

TIANANMEN

Former Prime Minister

LI PENG

in the Great Hall of the People

Beijing, December 2002

LI PENG SAYS IT WAS DENG

-- DENG XIAOPING --

(and not, presumably, the Butcher of Beijing)

WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CRACKDOWN

IN BEIJING ON JUNE 3-4, 1989

(surprise, surprise)

-- or so we are told --

Li Peng's (purported) JUNE 4 DIARY is due out later this month, and said to be on sale in Hong Kong already.

And bye-the-bye, a fascinating look at the LADDER OF SUCCESS in contemporary China, and some of the offspring of officials who have soared up it -- including one of Li Peng's -- can be found here.

CHINA THEN & NOW: MAID & CHILD

CHINA THEN & NOW

MAID & CHILD, NANJING 1981

In 1981, the People's Republic of China was on the cusp of major change. The Third Plenum of the Eleventh Congress late in 1978 had seen Deng Xiaoping's return to power and a new line proclaimed. When I first went to China almost two and a half years later, the new line had begun to be implemented, but ordinary people were not yet sure that it would triumph, and the new policies endure. 

The first, sometimes tentative shoots could be seen in, for example, "free markets" -- as in a farmers' market in Yan'an. Under Mao Zedong the exploitation of labor had been frowned on, but in Nanjing I found a lower-ranking cadre who had a maid for his small child (above).

Cremation had been promoted in Mao's "New China." Burial in graves was discouraged as wasteful of scarce land. Yet in Ji'an in June 1981 I came across an early-morning funeral procession, which quickened its pace and tried to escape notice when discovered. 

More generally I recorded both the distinctive city scenes and historical sites and the everyday activities of farming and eating and buying and selling and transporting goods to market and living life. 

Now these photographs and many others taken in 1981 and since are being collected in a book:  "HERE BE GIANTS." 

RED STARS: MIKHAIL GORBACHEV & DENG XIAOPING

RED STARS

GORBACHEV & DENG XIAOPING

Twenty years ago today the Communist giants met, in Beijing, for the first time in three decades. Mikhail Gorbachev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, made the trip to China for talks with Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader, and Zhao Ziyang, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. 

The leaders met in the Great Hall of the People. In the ceiling of its vast auditorium is the red star of communism (above, right). The Soviets were the seniors in revolution, the Bolsheviks having taken power in Russia in 1917; the People's Republic of China was not founded until 1949. As can been seen in the sample of a Soviet red star (left), the USSR placed special additional emphasis on its contribution to the victory over the Fascists/Nazis. 

Gorbachev was himself a star when he came to Beijing -- to the outside world, certainly, for the reforms he had undertaken back in the USSR -- perestroika and glasnost'. He also had admirers among the Chinese, including some of those demonstrating in Tiananmen Square, the heart of Beijing, when he arrived.

The story of the Sino-Soviet rapprochement brought the international media, and the Tiananmen demonstrations provided a dramatic story just waiting to be broadcast. The dénouement was the crackdown of June 3-4, 1989. 

Zhao Ziyang lost his post, and lived out his life under house arrest. His memoirs are just now being published. 

Mikhail Gorbachev went back to Moscow to continue his attempts to reform the USSR. The USSR dissolved into its constituent parts ("Republics") at the end of 1991. 

Jiang Zemin was brought from Shanghai to be the new General Secretary, and Deng Xiaoping remained the power behind the throne unto death. The People's Republic of China is due to celebrate its sixtieth anniversary on October 1, 2009.

Arguments raged about which path to reform was superior, the Soviet or the Chinese. Which was the brighter "Red Star," Gorbachev or Deng?