''Poverty is not socialism. To be rich is glorious.'', Deng Xiaoping 邓小平

''Poverty is not socialism. To be rich is glorious.'', Deng Xiaoping

邓小平

Marx sits up in heaven, and he is very powerful. He sees what we are doing, and he doesn't like it. So he has punished me by making me deaf."  Deng Xiaoping, 1985

The ‘west’ latched onto the second part of Deng’s comment as a capitulation of socialism. China had seen the error of its ways and now embraced capitalism, "greed is good".

Deng Xiaoping was one of the shrewdest politicians of the 20th Century. He had helped make the new China, but then seen it mired down under Mao. The China of the 1960’s was not the China he had envisioned. The first part of his comment shows his diss-satisfaction, ‘Poverty is not socialism’. He did not criticise socialism or dismiss it. He merely pointed out that socialism and poverty did not have to be one and the same as had happened in Russia and China (to that time).

To achieve the true ends of socialism, social justice for all, requires weath. The most effective means of creating wealth is capitalism. ‘To be rish is glorious’ because it would allow China to achieve social justice for all, socialism. Hence, capitalism with Chinese characteristics.

Chinese characteristics also meant the capitalism would not be imposed on China. China would use capitalism for its own ends and in its own way.

To date, this has worked exceptionally well.

As to any imperialist ambitions, it is helpful to have an understanding of Sun Tzu, 'The Art of War' which counsels that you should never extend your lines or dissipate your strength on far away battles, and that the nation that does will surely lose the war.

Over history, China has largely heeded Sun Tzu’s imperative to stay at home and become strong, not seek out battles in far away and unfamiliar lands. However, when he wrote that advice, the world, for China, was China. It had no need to go anywhere. It was sufficient unto itself. Now, that boundary has expanded and encompasses the globe. So what is far and near has changed dramatically. If can be argued, for example, that defending the flow of oil from Iran is now ‘near’.

Global trade and interdependency also makes countries that were far, near. China will have to engage with them in economic and trade negotiations if it wants to sustain its own economic growth. Much of China’s rise and rise went un-noticed in the west. 2008 was China’s coming out party. Over that time it has quietly and patiently been expanding its markets and resources base. Africa is a good example, the ‘Stans’ and Russia is another.

Fundamentally though, China does not want to take on the responsibility and cost of being the world’s policeman. It prefers to heed Sun Tzu’s advice and concentrate on growing its wealth and improving the standard of living for all Chinese. Yet, over time, it may not be able to avoid the role of policeman if America is forced to pull back or relinquish it. Perhaps that is another reason China is prepared to go on purchasing US Bonds.

Deng Xiaoping 邓小平, 22 August 1904  – 19 February 1997, was a Chinese politician, statesman, theorist, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng was a reformer who led China towards a market economy. While Deng never held office as the head of state, head of government or General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (historically the highest position in Communist China), he nonetheless served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China from 1978 to the early 1990s.

Born into a farming background in Guang'an, Sichuan, Empire of the Great Qing of China Deng studied and worked in France in the 1920s, where he came under the influence of Marxism. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1923. Upon his return to China he worked as a political commissar in rural regions and was considered a "revolutionary veteran" of the Long March. Following the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Deng worked in Tibet and other southwestern regions to consolidate Communist control. He was also instrumental in China's economic reconstruction following the Great Leap Forward in the early 1960s. His economic policies were at odds with the political ideologies of Chairman Mao Zedong. As a result, he was purged twice during the Cultural Revolution but regained prominence in 1978 by outmaneuvering Mao's chosen successor, Hua Guofeng.

Inheriting a country wrought with social and institutional woes resulting from the Cultural Revolution and other mass political movements of the Mao era, Deng became the core of the "second generation" of Chinese leadership. He is considered "the architect" of a new brand of socialist thinking, having developed Socialism with Chinese characteristics and led Chinese economic reform through a synthesis of theories that became known as the "socialist market economy". Deng opened China to foreign investment, the global market, and limited private competition. He is generally credited with advancing China into one of the fastest growing economies in the world for over thirty years and vastly raising the standard of living of hundreds of millions of Chinese. (wikipedia)

For a discussion about Deng - 'The True Father of China' in China Daily

DENG XIAOPING'S ECONOMIC REFORMS

Time Person of the Year - Deng Xiaoping

Global Times

Foreign analysts misread China's strategic golden rule

The 2010 Shangri-La Dialogue, the annual conference on Asian security issues, opened on Friday.

So this is an opportune time to point out that for the past decade or so, most countries have misread China's military and defense doctrine, and therefore mistakenly suspect China's military development will threaten the security of other countries. The facts could not be further away from that assumption.

Many analysts have focused on a four-character phrase used by the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. The phrase, tao guang yang hui, is translated by many English speakers as "hide our brightness and bide our time," or "bide our time and build up capabilities."

China Daily

Milestones in Sino-US reations

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