Ailing Leader Has Not Been Seen in Public for Months : China Steps Up Efforts to Glorify Deng

On the eve of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s 85th birthday, the Communist Party stepped up its campaign Monday to cast the ailing leader as China’s greatest hero.

The state-run press announced the national distribution of a new set of Deng speeches, some dating back 51 years, and all the newspapers published unqualified tributes to the elusive Chinese leader, who has not been seen in public for nearly three months.

There were many speeches and tributes, and most reflected the party leadership’s return to hard-line, orthodox Communist policies after its June 3-4 crackdown on a student-led movement for democratic reform.

But where and how Deng will be celebrating his birthday today was not clear. Independent analysts said the party’s treatment of the occasion raised new doubts about Deng’s health and his hold on the divided party leadership.

Health Deteriorating

Diplomats and other analysts said Deng is clearly suffering from serious prostate problems, most likely cancer, and they speculated that his health has greatly affected his day-to-day control over the party and its policies.

Although Deng is believed to be at Beidaihe, the government’s summer resort six hours east of Beijing, no photographs have appeared in the press that might indicate exactly where he is. In the picture of Deng that accompanied Monday’s tributes in the newspapers, dated July 2, he looks tired and weak. The caption gives no indication where the photo had been taken.

Deng’s birthday comes amid conflicting reports of rising tension among the party’s intensely private senior leadership, most of it centered on the No. 2 post of first vice chairman of the Central Military Commission.

That post, equivalent to second in command of the army after Deng, has been vacant since the party dismissed Zhao Ziyang, the moderate party leader who was purged after being linked to the pro-democracy movement.

Many analysts believe that a power struggle has developed over this key military post between President Yang Shangkun, a hard-liner who has strong family ties to top military commanders, and Defense Minister Qin Jiwei, who has reportedly argued for more moderate party positions.

Last week the Associated Press, quoting an unidentified army commander and a businessman with ties to the military, reported that Qin had been virtually kidnaped by military officers loyal to Yang. But two days later Qin was shown on state-run television at a military funeral attended by other top party leaders.

The TV appearance was meant to brush aside reports of a power struggle in a nation where “seeing is believing” has become a way of political life. But several diplomats said the footage may have been days or weeks old, and rumors of the internal battle persist.

Several diplomats cited Deng’s public veneration as a sign that tension remains high. Deng has always avoided such deification, criticizing similar campaigns by Mao Tse-tung when the two leaders had a falling out during Mao’s Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

“It is a mystery why Deng would allow this now,” a Western diplomat said. “It may mean he has no control over it.”

Other analysts pointed to the continuing state of martial law in Beijing as evidence of Deng’s apparently flagging power.

Although Deng clearly approved of the army’s brutal crackdown on the pro-democracy demonstrations in June, he is also credited with opening China to the outside world. He had handpicked Zhao to introduce the economic and political reforms that Deng had wanted to be his legacy, the analysts said, and withdrew his support only when the reform movement began to threaten the entire party leadership and its hold on society.

Rebuilding ‘Positive Legacy’

“Deng would certainly want to lift martial law,” an Asian diplomat said. “Then he could argue that everything really is back to normal and begin to reconstruct a positive legacy for himself. So one assumes that they--meaning hard-liners like Yang Shangkun--still need the troops out to hold Beijing for themselves. Perhaps it’s Yang trying to hold it for himself when Deng dies.”

Officially, the party has said that martial law is still necessary because hundreds of weapons and tons of ammunition were stolen from soldiers during the June crackdown. In recent briefings, the Foreign Ministry has told diplomats of late-night sniper attacks on soldiers in the city.

“The essence of the debate at the moment, I think, is that the hard-liners are demanding Zhao’s head--a criminal trial and expulsion from the party,” the Asian diplomat said. “And Deng is arguing for a moderation of the policies. That is, of course, if he is capable of arguing at all.”