Beyond the First Euphoria

TIME correspondent finds a mix of liberality and authority

A new generation of Chinese leaders moved an important step closer to power last week when the National People's Congress, meeting in Standing Committee, promoted two provincial proteges of Senior Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping. Former Sichuan Province Governor Zhao Ziyang, 61, and former Anhui Province Party Leader Wan Li, 64, were both elevated to the rank of Vice Premier; to make room for them, two longtime holdovers from the fading era of the late Chairman Mao Tse-tung were asked to resign. Zhao in particular was singled out by Deng as the new administrator who would be "in charge of the day-to-day work of the Cabinet. "

The reshuffle was yet another consolidation of the Deng leadership group as it carries out its drive for the so-called Four Modernizations in industry, agriculture, defense, and science and technology. Indeed, that modernization drive has met with some success, reports TIME'S new Peking bureau chief Richard Bernstein, but it is complicated by crosscurrents of political uncertainties:

What do you think of our Four Modernizations?" The young factory technician looked at me expectantly over his cup of tea, and then answered his own question. "They are fine in theory," he said; "the problem is implementation. The factories are still in the hands of retired soldiers who don't know anything about running a factory. If you want to do something new, it's like hitting your head against a steel wall."

That view is probably more gloomy than most in a society that is generally hopeful about the future. Nonetheless it reflects the uneasiness of many Chinese these days. The country has gone far beyond the first euphoria of its "second liberation," when the radical Gang of Four, including Mao's widow Jiang Qing, was toppled from power and the new leaders embarked on pragmatic policies. By now, some relaxed features of life are taken for granted: the return of romantic drama to TV, glossy billboards advertising Coca-Cola and Sanyo tape recorders, and at least a superficial measure of personal ease that came with the end of militant Maoist campaigns and marches. Still, Chinese intellectuals seriously question how much such relaxation can help to truly revitalize a country that is still poor and backward.

The problem that Deng and his colleagues have most successfully confronted is the nettlesome one of succession. Two months ago at an important Communist Party plenum, Deng got rid of most of the radical holdovers on the all-powerful Politburo. Now speculation centers on whether Deng, who is 75, will voluntarily step down from his government, but not party posts, as he has been hinting. That alone would be an unprecedented gesture in a country where, as one senior official recently complained, "we generally either stay in office until we die or we do something so bad we get thrown out."

Otherwise, there are plenty of signs of political tension in the air. In the provinces, some officials are still being purged for various forms of malfeasance and dereliction of duty. Some Peking officials say that the newly established Secretariat of the Party is examining the files of every single one of the country's 38 million party members. Such scrutiny and the ongoing purge suggest that the system, as one diplomat puts it, "is still loaded up with incompetent, arrogant, Mao-spouting devotees of the Cultural Revolution."

Potential opposition in the bureaucratic underbrush may explain another puzzling feature of the Deng era: the fact that Peking these days shows a curious mix of new liberality--and renewed controls. On the one hand, the regime encourages a measure of freedom and even some freewheeling debate in such areas as technology and economic planning. In the political realm, on the other hand, authoritarianism is the order of the day.

Even in relations with foreigners, there is both relaxation and tighter control. Last week I went to the reception center in southern Peking to see the thousands of provincials who continue to descend on the capital to present their grievances to the government. One man, dressed in shabby, quilted clothing, began to tell me how he had been kicked out of his teaching job in Henan province. Another began to talk about his own misfortunes. Within minutes, plainclothes security personnel tapped both of them on the shoulder and led them silently away. "They are surely going to be beaten for talking with a foreigner," someone muttered in the gathered crowd.

Another uncertainty is just how far the regime will go in distancing itself from the heritage of Mao. The only Mao protege still in a top national post is Party Chairman and Premier Hua Guofeng, but he has become largely a figurehead. Last week an important foreign visitor, Italian Communist Party Leader Enrico Berlinguer, did his serious talking not with Hua but with the Party Secretary-General and Deng ally, Hu Yaobang. Their meeting marked the first friendly exchange between the Chinese and Italian parties in 18 years.

Meanwhile, a small cult has been growing up around Mao's former archenemy, onetime Head of State Liu Shaoqi, who was formally rehabilitated by the party in late February after 14 years of disgrace. Last week, while the Chinese were still celebrating the early spring Ch'ing Ming Festival in commemoration of the dead, ranks of workers and schoolchildren marched past wreaths for Liu at the Martyrs' Monument in the sunny center of Peking. Two hundred yards away was a huge picture of Mao, the Great Helmsman. He seemed an awkward, ghostly presence from the past in a country that does not know quite what to do with him as it tries to shape a new future. qed

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