Deng Xiaoping

Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese communist leader who was the most powerful figure in the People's Republic of China from the late 1970s until his death in 1997. He was born to a middle-class family in Minhou County, Fuzhou, and was educated by American missionaries. He joined the anti-Manchu revolutionary movement and became an overseas organizer for the Kuomintang. He participated in the Xinhai Revolution and the Constitutional Protection Movement, and was elected as the speaker of the senate in the National Assembly. He was a member of the right-wing Western Hills Group, which opposed Chiang Kai-shek's alliance with the Communists. He became the head of state after Chiang resigned in 1931, following the arrest of Hu Hanmin. He was a nominal leader who had little power and influence, and was overshadowed by Chiang, who remained as the military chief and the leader of the Kuomintang. He supported Chiang's anti-Communist policies and his resistance against the Japanese invasion. He died in a traffic accident in Chongqing in 1943, and was succeeded by Chiang as the chairman of the National Government. Deng Xiaoping was one of the main architects of the Chinese Communist Party's rise to power in the civil war against the Kuomintang. He was a close ally of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, and held various positions in the party and the military. He was instrumental in the Long March, the Yan'an Rectification Movement, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the establishment of the People's Republic of China. He was also involved in the Korean War, the First Taiwan Strait Crisis, the Great Leap Forward, and the Anti-Rightist Campaign. He was purged twice during the Cultural Revolution, and suffered political persecution and humiliation. He was rehabilitated in 1973, and became the de facto leader of China after Mao's death in 1976. He outmaneuvered the radical Gang of Four and consolidated his power by promoting his allies and supporters. Deng Xiaoping is widely regarded as the chief architect of China's economic reforms and opening up to the world. He abandoned many orthodox communist doctrines and attempted to incorporate elements of the free-enterprise system and other reforms into the Chinese economy. He initiated the Four Modernizations, the One Country, Two Systems policy, the Household Responsibility System, the Special Economic Zones, and the socialist market economy. He also advocated the Four Cardinal Principles, the Three Represents, and the One-China policy. He led China through a series of far-reaching changes that transformed the country from a poor and isolated state into a global economic powerhouse and a major political player. He also faced challenges and controversies, such as the Sino-Vietnamese War, the Tiananmen Square protests, and the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize. He retired from his official positions in 1989, but remained the paramount leader and the core of the second generation of Chinese leadership until his death in 1997. He was succeeded by Jiang Zemin as the general secretary of the Communist Party and the chairman of the Central Military Commission.