Hong Kong, November 18. According a corrispondence of VOA, recent reports China's senior leader Deng Xiaoping may be in ill health have raised new concerns about that country's future. China analysts are divided in their opinions about what changes the world's most-populous country will undergo during the next decade. One of the biggest questions facing China analysts is whether China's leadership and economy will remain stable during the period following Deng Xiaoping's death. Mr. Deng is 90-years old and reported suffering from regular minor illnesses that are not uncommon for a man his age. He has already lived more than a decade longer than most other chinese leaders this century, including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Chiang Kaishek. The president of the Hawai based East-West Center, Michel Oksenberg says he sees the question of China's leadership succession as one that should focus more on the larger issue of effective government than on specific personnel changes. "I do not think the economic reforms th

at have been undertaken to date are at stake", declared recently Mr. Oksenberg. "I think they are irreversible. I also think the opening to the outside world is irreversible. To the core, the underlying issue, is whether China will have an effective central government, not whether it will have a central government. It will have one, but will be effective or will it not be". Mr. Oksenberg notes China's current leadership has designated president and Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin as Mr. Deng's successor. But, he says Mr. Jiang is not the first to be put in that position. He says at least three other people were seen as successors before mr. Jiang's elevation. Each of them lost power in sudden personnel changes. Mr. Oksenberg says it is no less difficult predicting china's leadership succession than it is determining who the next president of the united states will be. Other china watchers point out Mr. Deng himself only came to power after pushing aside Hua Guofeng, the chosen successor to Mao Zedong. Anot

her prominent China analyst, Gerald Segal, from the London based International Institute for Strategic Studies, is less optimistic. In a recent paper, Mr. Segal said china is in a period of crisis, with uncertainty about the succession to Mr. Deng, widespread corruption and the threat of social unrest. Mr. Segal raises the possibility china's central government might become so ineffective as to lose control of some regions of the country a concern echoed by many others trying to forecast China's future. During a speech in Hong Kong, Mr. Oksenberg surprised an audience of business executives by breaking with tradition and saying he had finally discovered the answer to questions about china's future and leadership succession. The answer, he said, could be found in the chinese characters "shei zhidao" which, translated, means "who knows?". (EuroTibet News nr.5)