Leader Vows to Turn ‘Grief Into Strength’

In his first public statement since “paramount leader” Deng Xiaoping’s death, Chinese President Jiang Zemin declared Friday that he will turn “grief into strength” in an “unswerving” pursuit of Deng’s policies.

The statement was designed to dispel fears of changes to the late leader’s market reforms.

The military, meanwhile, pledged to support Deng’s successor “at all times and under all circumstances,” the state-run New China News Agency reported.

As Communist Party leaders prepared for a “simple and frugal” memorial service for 10,000 guests in Beijing, Chinese in other parts of the country marked Deng’s death in their own fashion Friday, showing the disparity that will continue to be a challenge for Jiang, his apparent successor.

In Deng’s native Sichuan province, mourners chanted “Long Live Deng Xiaoping!” in the streets of Chengdu and thronged the house in his hometown of Paifang where the “paramount leader” was born 92 years ago.

In the remote Xinjiang region, police kept a wary eye on separatists who have been rioting to secede from China.

In business-minded Shanghai--the bastion of Chinese “market socialism”--residents honored their fallen patron by doubling their efforts to make more money. Investors lined up outside the stock exchange before the market opened and boosted the index to this year’s high of 1,063.276 by day’s end.

Officials in the capital remained somber and cautious, canceling parties, closing nightclubs and downplaying the traditional celebrations of the Lantern Festival, which marks the end of the Chinese New Year holiday.

“Comrade Xiaoping has devoted his entire life to the motherland and the people without any reservation,” Deng’s family wrote in a letter to Jiang and the Communist Party Central Committee five days before his death about Deng’s last wishes. “We hope that the last thing we do for him will reflect the essence of his mental outlook and express our grief in an utterly plain and solemn way.”

Of course, there also was a political note to the restraint, because spontaneous gatherings of mourners have turned into mass political protests in the past.

After Premier Chou En-lai died in 1976, thousands of people placed wreaths in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square that were symbols of both their reverence for Chou and their resentment of the tyrannical policies of Madame Mao.

The crowds clashed with militia members who tried to remove the flowers and posters; 30,000 police moved in to restore order after a night of beatings and arrests of “counterrevolutionaries.”

But the biggest problems came in 1989, when a similar memorial for General Secretary Hu Yaobang evolved into the protests in Tiananmen Square that ended with a bloody military crackdown against pro-democracy protesters that left hundreds dead.

Chinese authorities clearly aimed to avert any similar such incidents. In Tiananmen Square on Friday, almost two dozen plainclothes police officers surrounded a mourner carrying a wreath toward the Martyr’s Memorial and whisked him away in an unmarked car.

But attitudes outside Beijing were more relaxed Friday.

While police confiscated flowers in Beijing, officials quietly distributed them in the southern city of Shenzhen.

In front of a giant billboard of Deng in Shenzhen that has become an impromptu memorial, boxes full of funerary yellow chrysanthemums were available for mourners to place in front of Deng’s portrait.

“The flowers are for everybody,” one official wearing a government badge said as several women took arms full. “The people want to show their respect for Deng.”

In Shanghai, some residents enjoyed the benefits of Deng’s economic reforms by singing at the popular Cash Box Karaoke bar and setting off defiant rounds of banned firecrackers to celebrate the Lantern Festival.

The manager of the Time disco on fashionable Huaihai Road said most clubs will stay open until Tuesday, the day of Deng’s funeral.

“Deng made it possible for us to have freedom to do what we want,” said travel agent Lu Huiming, 29, who was about to enter a bar. “Now, not every action has political meaning.”

Continuing business as usual may be the best testament to the success of Deng’s plan for measured reforms.

The healthy economy cushions tensions that might be more likely to erupt if the Chinese people were feeling pinched, some analysts said. The 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square, for example, occurred at a time when inflation was skyrocketing and official corruption was blatant.

Deng died at a fairly remarkable period for China’s economy: Inflation is down to 5%; foreign investment is at record levels; and the trade surplus with the United States--$39.5 billion--just reached a new high.

“Mao made people from rich to poor; Deng made people from poor to rich,” said a middle school teacher who gave only his last name, Zhang. “That’s why people like him so much.”

Deng’s insistence on a simple funeral--he donated his corneas to an eye bank, his body to science and wanted his ashes cast into the sea--contrasts sharply with Mao Tse-tung’s carefully cultivated personality cult.

“I’m a middle-aged man, so I remember Mao’s death,” salesman Chiang Min said as he watched crowds gather in front of Deng’s giant portrait in Shenzhen.

“At that time, the officials forced you to come look at Mao’s picture. They forced you to make tears in your eyes. Deng made some mistakes too, but these people came by themselves. I think they feel it in their hearts.”

Others noted that China itself will feel the huge difference between the passing of Deng and that of Mao.

Deng, they said, transformed the way this nation is ruled, removing the focus from the person to the post.

His apparent successor, Jiang, will not assume the status of “paramount leader” but will likely remain “first among equals,” paving the way to a more accountable, collective administration.

“Now in China, the process matters more than personality,” said Richard Margolis, a former British diplomat turned investment manager who helped negotiate Hong Kong’s hand-over to China--which takes place July 1--while Deng was in charge. “Deng himself is responsible for bringing that about.”

Times staff writer Rone Tempest in Beijing contributed to this report.