China After Deng Xiaoping: The Power Struggle in Beijing Since Tiananmen (review)

470 China Review International: Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall 1996 Willy Wo-lap Lam. China After DengXiaoping: The Power Struggle in Beijing Since Tiananmen. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995. xviii, 497 pp. Hardcover $34.95, isbn 962-8017-01-2. China After DengXiaoping is a chronicle of recent elite political history. Its subtitle , "The Power Struggle in Beijing since Tiananmen," sums up the book better than its title. The six long chapters, following an introductory essay on Deng, consist ofloose themes or topics: Economic Reform, the Maoist Restoration, Deng's Great Wall of Steel (the PLA), Political Reform on Hold (referring to 1993 onwards), and Succession Politics. Within each chapter, Lam's method is essentially chronological. He makes observations about the condition of society and the mentality ofthe people, but these remain occasional diversions from a focus on high policy and maneuvers at the top. During his nanxun of1992—the major turning point since the disaster of June 4, 1989—Deng Xiaoping spoke ofhis "one great theoretical invention." This "invention" is decidedly untheoretical—"not engaging in controversy" (p. xv). In Lam's book, Deng's habit takes on the form not only of avoiding controversy but of repeatedly finding his way back to the political middle ground. Indeed, in the context of twentiedi-century history, Deng is remarkable among Chinese leaders for eschewing extremes. China has had a tendency to cling to oversimplified solutions. There was "Mr. Science and Mr. Democracy" as a panacea for China's backwardness after World War I, Chiang Kai-shek's excessive reliance on the U.S. in the 1940s, Mao's view in the 1950s that "the Soviet Union's today is China's tomorrow," and a certain amount ofblind pro-Westernism during the 1980s. By contrast, Deng's "Market Leninism" reveals him to be a balancer. He has not talked as much as Mao did of "walking on two legs," but in practice he has done so. Hence, as Lam shows, Deng in the period 1989-1995 both rejected many of Deng Liqun's views and yet used Deng Liqun as a stick against the so-called bourgeois liberals. In the end, Deng's penchant for navigating a middle road between whatever forces played upon him put a limit on his contribution to China. "Had it not been for the fruits of reform and the open door," he said, "we would not have been able to pass the test of June 4" (p. 19). It would be equally true to say that the fruits of reform and the open door brought on the democracy movement, and that those same fruits made the tanks and bullets ofJune 4 a grotesquely unsuit-© 1996 by University able response to that movement. "It is lucky that I was still around," Deng said of ofHawai'i Pressme crisjs "The matter was handled without difficulty" (p. 40). Unfortunately, although China After DengXiaopingis written by an intelligent and well-informed newspaperman, long associated with the South China Reviews 471 MorningPost, it is a compilation ofshort reports that sustains no overall shape or argument. One result is a numbing repetitiousness. The nanxun of1992 is introduced a dozen times, as ifit had not been mentioned before. Every theme is nibbled to death, a thousand snacks with never a satisfying meal. The main conclusions ofthe book recur every few pages in the simple form that, to the end, remains their only dress. The handling ofdata barely rises above the level ofan index-card presentation . There is little settled judgment ofanyone or anything; Jiang Zemin is often called a moderate, but suddenly he is a "crypto-Maoist" (p. 177), as ifanother hand is at work. Nowhere is there an assessment ofthe prospects for a leftist resurgence . We are treated to the zigs and zags, as Deng has sought to balance the factions, but not to overall analysis. The current edition is an update ofa prior edition from Regal Printing Co. Ltd., and the Conclusion ofthe present book, which forms chapter 7, is less that than an addition of1994 events relevant to the book's themes. ChinaAfter DengXiaoping, to borrow a phrase from Sun Yat-sen, is a sheet of loose sand. A small sign...