Efforts Under Way to Retain Deng in High Beijing Posts
Several delegates to the Communist Party Congress said today that they want top leader Deng Xiaoping to retain his posts, reflecting doubts about the future of China’s reform policies without his leadership.
“Efforts are being made on both fronts, by Comrade Deng Xiaoping and by the deputies to the Party Congress, to persuade and be persuaded,” Liao Bokang, party secretary of the city of Chungking and a delegate, said at a news conference.
Deng, 83, has been China’s top leader since 1978 and has spearheaded the country’s market-oriented economic reform and open-door policies.
In recent months, he has said repeatedly that he plans to retire from the five-man Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s highest decision-making body, and as head of the party’s Central Advisory Commission, an influential group of elderly officials.
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