Website to the original article: http://www.time.com/time/asia/2006/heroes/nb_deng.html Though the name of Mao Zedong still has resonance around the world, the man who has inherited the mantle of Chinese hero is Deng Xiaoping. Deng’s fame has grown over the years as he is seen as the one who steers China away from its Leninist and Maoist organizational straitjacket into a wider world of technological growth and international trade, allowing China to prosper under the new economic dynamism with his pragmatism. He encourages trade instead of being like Mao, inhibit China’s entrepreneurial spirit. He is considered a hero because he helped transport millions of chinese out of poverty in the space of just a few decades and transformed china China into a major geopolitical and financial player.
Deng did not just focus on the economy. He introduced reforms for other areas as well, for example, he revamped the educational system as he saw that China needs its talents for the country to survive and prosper instead of being lagged behind. Many who were exiled during the Cultural Revolution were allowed to return to their homes and families.
Unlike Mao who censors books etc, Deng authorized the loosening of controls over filmmaking, fashion, music and the visual arts. There was even a stretch of blank wall which was opened for the airing of political and cultural views in the form of written posters and poems, with neither Mao or Deng spared from the criticism. However, as the changes come rather quickly, there were massive demonstrations that began at Tiananmen Square in April 1989 which was bloodily put down by the People’s Liberation Army. This actually showed how deep his mingled contempt for and fear of the student and other leaders who, he believed, threatened to spread chaos across the country in the name of democracy.
If Deng's actions were often cautious or even negative, it was because he had fought and lived a revolution for over 60 years, and he could not summon up the conviction that those years had been in vain. Deng could never forget that it was a Maoist vision, however flawed and ruthless, that had helped unite China after its decades of fragmentation. Mao might have pulled the nation together, but it was Deng who pushed it toward prosperity and modernity, and a future as one of the world's great powers.
