By Hanif Arafat

BANGALORE, India, Feb 26 (Reuter) - Famed Chinese author Han Suyin said Tuesday that China faces no crisis of succession after the death of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, a stubborn "little guy" who she said once snubbed Mao Zedong's wife.

The author of "A Many Splendored Thing" and "Wind in My Sleeve," who lives in Switzerland, said the media and leaders in the West misunderstand China.

"No, there will not be a war of succession," the outspoken 81-year-old writer said in the southern city of Bangalore, whereshe was vacationing.

"There will not be any problem. Let me tell you, China today is more stable than in the last 20 to 40 years."

The author of more than 25 books, including controversial biographies of Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai, said she first met Deng in 1978, just before he took power.

"He told me everything he was going to do for China. I liked the little guy. His greatest quality was that he was stubborn and hard-headed," she said.

"This is Deng's greatness. Six years ago Deng decided to retire because he saw Mao's greatest defect was to cling on to power until the last minute."

She said Zhou Enlai protected Deng during the Cultural Revolution and later brought him back to the political stage.

"It was Madame Mao who wanted to get rid of Deng. He did not like her at all. In one meeting where she spoke, he just walked out. Very courageous, very straightforward. That was Deng."

Deng died last Wednesday at the age of 92.

Asked about the bloody 1989 crackdown on demonstrators in Beijing's Tainanmen Square, Han Suyin said: "You have to have a dictatorship. How can you run a country with 22 percent of the world's population without a strong hand?"

She called students who took part in China's pro-democracy movement "poor young people who were misled," and discounted any revival of the movement.

She also denied any repression by Chinese authorities in Tibet. "Do you want a country that is living in the 10th century, with no schools, no colleges, nothing, nothing? Then you must be on the side of the Dalai Lama," she said, referring to Tibet's exiled spiritual leader.

Han Suyin used to be a favorite of China's communist leaders because of her willingness to accept their point of view on almost any issue.

She has visited China less often in recent years, but was interviewed for an official television series on the life of Deng broadcast earlier this year.