The leaders of today's dynasty don't like to talk about [late supreme leaders] Mao or Deng much. It's only because of Deng's [110th] anniversary that they've been ordered to do so, that there has been such a hot debate, although it's really not that hot.
Mao committed crimes against humanity, in the same league as Hitler.
And yet his portrait still hangs over Tiananmen Gate. Sooner or later, it will have to be junked.
Deng has the Tiananmen massacre to his credit, although his apologists say his mass murder wasn't in the same class as Mao's, given the fact that the ruling Chinese Communist Party presides over a membership of 80 million people, and wields absolute, life-and-death power over the fate of 1.3 billion people.
To get away from such multiple standards, we should ask ourselves how such a massacre would look, had it taken place in Africa, Europe, America or other parts of Asia. What would the verdict be then?
Most talk of Mao and Deng these days tends to focus on their differences: Mao was a rebel, while Deng created stability. Mao was for collective ownership, while Deng privatized. Mao planned the economy, while Deng liberated the markets. Mao reviled intellectuals as the stinking ninth category, while Deng respected knowledge. Mao closed the country to the outside world, while Deng opened it up again. And so on and so forth.
Minor differences
While some differences definitely exist, and shouldn't be overlooked, they stem from differences in the challenges that each man faced, which were the difference between winning control of the country, and presiding over it.
Historically, Chinese dynasties were built not just on the founders of dynasties who seized power, but also on the ancestral rulers, who directed everything under the sun. And those two roles were very different.
So it's entirely in keeping with history to see Mao's three decades as all of a piece with Deng's. Their policies and their styles may have been very different, but these are minor differences when set against their deeper accord as members of the same party, and as supporters of its continued leadership and its system of government; a system in which that party rules supreme. They shared the same dream and the same goal and mighty ideal of everlasting party leadership.
With an understanding of their accord, we can better understand their differences. Mao, who said "it is right to rebel," rebelled against those outside the party. Deng, for whom stability trumped everything, used his power to override anything that he didn't like. It was the same deal, either way.
Mao's implementation of collective ownership ensured that other people's private property was turned over to the state. This was a transitional stage, leading to Deng's privatization of state-owned enterprises and the dividing up of state assets and into the hands of their elite cronies.
Either way, it was the same deal.
Mao emphasized planning, because it was through planning that he was able to concentrate China's natural resources in the hands of the leadership. Deng emphasized the market, because it was through government and party control of markets that economic agency became concentrated in the hands of the leadership. Not much difference there.
Mao hated intellectuals, the stinking ninth category, while Deng respected knowledge. There is plenty on the record to testify to this.
But Mao's hatred wasn't boundless. That's why he loved Guo Moruo, Qian Xuesen, Zhang Chunqiao and any other intellectuals who loved him and loved the party.
At the same time, Deng's respect for knowledge wasn't boundless, either.
That's why he had no time for Zhang Bojun, Chu Anping, Bai Hua, Liu Binyan, Huang Wanli, Fang Lizhi, nor any other outspoken and honest scholar.
Different methods, same result
We could say that Mao's and Deng's instincts about what is good and what is evil were exactly the same. They just used different methods to achieve the same result.
It's no lie that Mao cut China off from the rest of the world.
But he was also very familiar with the ideas of freedom and democracy as espoused by Roosevelt and Lincoln. Deng opened China up to the rest of the world, and attracted foreign investors, it's true. But the memory of the "anti-bourgeois liberalization" campaigns he launched once every couple of years has yet to fade.
[Now] we have anti-universal values campaigns, not just every two years, but every year; every month.
So Mao founded the dynasty, while Deng extended its rule.
They were on the same team, because of the way they grabbed and held onto power, and how they used and protected that power.
At times they may have been focused more on power; at others, more on profit.
But these are differences of degree, and not fundamental. Party historians would have us believe that the first 30 years and the last 30 years were all of a piece. And you can't argue with that.
Chinese dream
So Mao and Deng spent their whole lives laboring for the Chinese dream, in the hope that China's huge population would organize itself into an unbeatable army, or an unbeatable labor force. In this, they were the same.
Their rhetoric was different. Mao's rhetoric sought to bind the masses together with rope, while Deng's sought to do it with GDP. But binding didn't work, and hoodwinking didn't go down too well either.
That's why we're now talking about deep reforms.
I don't think you should reduce the state to a single human person. I support the Constitution. I think that China's 1.3 billion people should be the ultimate masters of the People's Republic of China.
That's why I think that these deep reforms need to ditch both Mao and Deng.
Otherwise, there'll be no hope for the rule of law; the hunt for tigers will come to nothing, social tensions will be unresolved, and creativity reduced to bureaucracy.
The smog will linger, and it will be hard for China to see the light.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
Bao Tong, political aide to the late ousted premier Zhao Ziyang, is currently under house arrest at his home in Beijing.