Rejuvenation at the Top

In the boldest move yet to provide continuity for his sweeping economic reforms and to assure political stability for the future, China’s top leader, Deng Xiaoping, has engineered the resignations of scores of senior Communist Party officials, paving the way for the elevation of younger and more cooperative allies.

The shake-up removes from power fully 40% of the 25-member Politburo and nearly one-fifth of the members and alternates of the party’s Central Committee. Gone are many, though not all, of the opponents of Deng’s liberalization policies. Gone, too, are many of the old generals whose presence gave the military a disproportionate voice in the highest councils of decision-making.

At 81, though still in apparent good health, Deng is seeking to institutionalize the remarkable changes that he set in motion after re-emerging as a political force eight years ago. Part of that process involves an effort to end the de facto system of lifetime tenure that has allowed party veterans to retain office and wield power long after they had passed their prime. Deng has made it clear that in the future he would like to see periodic infusions of new people and fresh ideas into the top echelons of leadership. That is an easy thing for the younger rank of party leaders who are now poised for advancement to cheer. It may not be so easy to implement once those same leaders reach an age when others think that they should step aside.

With this latest shuffle China has eased further away from the ideological dictates that, more often than not disastrously, governed the first three decades of its post-revolutionary period. In Peking today a special Communist Party meeting will open to debate and approve a new five-year economic plan. That undertaking is likely to expand, if cautiously, the shift to a more market-oriented economy that has already produced quite impressive results. But the success of the Deng-initiated reforms has by no means silenced or submerged the critics of change. In the view of many old comrades, Deng and his supporters have betrayed the revolution. This week Deng succeeded in shunting some of those critics aside. There are others he still must contend with.