Deng Xiaoping, a ‘Setting Sun,’ Says He Paved Way for Transfer of Power

Senior Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, describing himself as a “setting sun” a decade after he gained supreme power in China, said Tuesday that he has largely completed the job of lining up his successors.

Deng’s rare reference to his personal goals constituted an acknowledgement that one of his chief aims has been to assure a smooth transfer of power after his death and to avoid the chaotic struggles of the Mao Tse-tung era.

“Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang is our man in charge,” he told visiting Brazilian President Jose Sarney during a press session.

“I am a setting sun,” added Deng, who emerged in 1978 as China’s paramount leader after winning the fierce power struggle that followed Mao’s death in 1976.

Dressed in a gray Mao suit and looking pale and tired, he said he will leave Beijing in a few days to spend six weeks at the seaside resort of Beidaihe. “If I can swim, then that will prove that I am still healthy. But after all, I am old, and that’s why I began 10 years ago to prepare for what will happen after I am gone,” said Deng, who turns 84 next month.

Deng is the architect of China’s radical economic reforms that scrapped 35 years of Soviet-style central planning and allowed private enterprise.