Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 01:30:13 +0100

From: Tseten Samdup

To: Multiple recipients of list TSG-L (Tibet Support Group List)

China-- Comment on Deng Xiaoping's death

Human Rights Watch

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(February 19, 1997)--The passing of Deng Xiaoping signals the end of an era in China, and raises crucial questions about the country's future development and leadership.He clearly opened China to the outside world and was a catalyst for economic change. But he will also be remembered for his role in the 1989 massacre, and for maintaining a policy of tight political control with severe restrictions on fundamental human rights. We hope that China's emerging leadership will take significant steps to improve human rights and promote the rule of law.

We also call on China's chief aid and trading partners to give an even higher priority to human rights in their relations with Beijing during this crucial transition period. For example, the US will host the G-7 summit meeting in Denver on June 22. The G-7 leaders should develop an agenda and set out benchmarks for moving China towards greater transparency, accountability and the rule of law, and respect for basic rights in Hong Kong. This is essential for China's continued development, its attraction of foreign investment, and its full integration into the world trading system.

A veteran of the Long March, Deng Xiaoping became head of the Southwest Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party after the consolidation of the Communist revolution in 1949, a post he held until 1954. He became Secretary -General of the Communist Party in 1956, the second highest post in the Party and retained that post until 1996. Among other tasks, he was responsible in the early sixties for repairing the ravages to the Chinese economy of the Great Leap Forward. He also was the main actor in implementing Mao's 1957 anti-rightist campaign. Purged during the Cultural Revolution as the No. 2 capitalist roader, Deng spent years working in a factory until 1973 when he returned to Beijing and began the early work of economic reform. On April 5, 1976, despite Party orders to the contrary, there was a public outpouring of mourning at the death of Premier Zhou Enlai, for which Deng was blamed and again purged.

He began to be seen in Beijing in 1977 and became the dominant leader in 1978. When the Democracy Wall Movement started in November-December 1978, a Party Work Conference was going on at which Deng was vying for power with Mao's designated successor Hua Guofeng. With the Democracy Wall activists throwing their support behind Deng, he emerged as top leader. In an interview with foreign reporters he supported the movement, but changed his mind in March 1979 after the Chinese incursion into Vietnam. At that time he put forward the four cardinal principles: socialism, proletarian dictatorship, Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong thought and leadership of party which became the charter for repressing the Democracy Wall activists. Wei Jingsheng was arrested that month.

It is assumed that after Li Peng declared martial law on May 19, 1989 and a meeting of the Standing Committee backed him, Deng gave the ultimate order for troops to move into Beijing. As Chairman of the Central Military Commission, he had that authority. At a televised reception for leaders of the Martial Law Command on June 9, Deng congratulated them for their effort.

Human Rights Watch/Asia Human Rights Watch is a nongovernmental organization established in 1978 to monitor and promote the observance of internationally recognized human rights in Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and among the signatories of the Helsinki accords. Kenneth Roth is the executive director; Cynthia Brown is the program director. Robert L. Bernstein is the chair of the board and Adrian W. DeWind is vice chair. Its Asia division was established in 1985 to monitor and promote the observance of internationally recognized human rights in Asia. Sidney Jones is the executive director; Mike Jendrzejczyk is the Washington director; Robin Munro is the Hong Kong director; Patricia Gossman is a senior researcher; Jeannine Guthrie is NGO Liaison; Dinah PoKempner is Counsel; Zunetta Liddell is a research associate; Joyce Wan is a Henry R. Luce Fellow; Paul Lall and Olga Nousias are associates; Mickey Spiegel is a research consultant. Andrew J. Nathan is chair of the advisory committee and Orvil

le Schell is vice chair.