Twilight of A Titan

By Kevin Fedarko

IF ONE WERE TO WALK IN A CIRCLE around the courtyard of the Beijing bungalow that 90-year-old Deng Xiaoping shares with more than a dozen members of his extended family, the distance covered would add up to exactly 165 yds. Until last year China's most powerful patriarch would complete this circuit 20 times in the course of his two daily walks. He was extremely serious about his count, carefully ticking off the rounds to himself each time he finished a lap.

But now the man who survived the persecution and chaos of the Cultural Revolution to set the country on the path toward reform cannot manage even ( this modest circumambulation: he can no longer walk or stand unaided. Yet in a way the methodical tally continues, if only in the anxious timekeeping of millions of politicians, businessmen and ordinary Chinese.

Now, filtering through the mist of secrecy in which he is cloaked, reliable reports indicate that the enfeebled Deng is nearing the end of his life. He can no longer write, is almost blind and has become so hard of hearing and slurred of speech, it is said, that two of his three daughters are the only people who can interpret his words to the public. Last week his youngest daughter, Xiao Rong, conceded to the New York Times that her father's health is declining "day by day." Given that she serves as Deng's personal secretary and is traveling to New York City and Paris this week to promote her book My Father Deng Xiaoping, the unprecedented disclosure may be an opening move to influence the verdict that history will eventually render on his rule. But the fact that Xiao Rong revealed news of her father's infirmity just before the Jan. 31 celebration of the Chinese New Year, when the nation is traditionally afforded a rare public glimpse of the man, seemed primarily intended to signal something the world has been anxious to know: the time remaining until the day Deng must "go to meet Marx," as he once put it, is short.

Because Deng's stature in life has been so monumental, his absence in death cannot help reverberating long after he is gone. His has been the authority that held together the two contradictory strands of Chinese life. Even as he spurred the great leap toward a free-market economy, Deng was able to keep China's political system firmly in the hands of an ever more sclerotic Communist Party. When he finally dies, the relative strength of these competing systems will hang in the balance. "No one can replace him," explains a European diplomat. "There aren't many people who know how to move forward."

It may be an overstatement to suggest that without Deng, China will tumble into disorder. But his departure will usher in the greatest period of uncertainty since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. So pervasive is his influence that rumors of his illnesses regularly launch East Asian stock markets into stomach-churning plunges. For years the reclusive leader has proved those reports premature, quelling the buzz by appearing in public, hale and hearty as ever.

By week's end Deng's daughter's acknowledgment of his deteriorating health had yet to circulate through China. But it obviously comes as no surprise to a ruling circle determined to hang on to power. For the past few months, the government has been dealing harshly with political critics, imprisoning leading domestic dissidents, preventing opposition groups from organizing, blacklisting overseas dissidents to bar their return. Last year long-term activist Wei Jingsheng was rearrested, and just last month nine democratic opponents were given substantial prison sentences for attempting to organize human-rights and labor groups two years ago.

Yet no matter how hard the current leadership tries to forestall political challenge, Deng's demise will throw open the question of how to fill the space he leaves behind. Officially, that question has already been answered. Since 1989, Communist Party rulers have been laying the groundwork for a stable transition to a generation of leaders grouped around President Jiang Zemin, who was anointed by Deng as the core of a new collective leadership.

Since receiving Deng's mantle five years ago, Jiang, 68, has amassed nine major titles in the party, government and military. But monikers do not mean much in Chinese politics; during his retirement, the only title buttressing Deng's pervasive influence has been his honorary chairmanship of the China Bridge Association. What does matter is the raw calculus of power, a dynamic that can be as fickle as it is brutal. Since its founding in 1949, the People's Republic has had no fewer than six heirs apparent, not one of whom held that position for more than five years. Deng's earlier choices for succession, Party Secretary Hu Yaobang and Premier Zhao Ziyang, were both unceremoniously dumped when conservatives deemed them overly tolerant of liberal ideas.

All of which means that while Jiang's ascendancy may seem assured, the length of his tenure does not. Viewed by many as weak, he has been working to secure the loyalty of his subalterns, especially the generals in the military. His base of support is so narrow that he may eventually find himself outfoxed by rivals with more experience and a stronger following. "We just don't believe Jiang is capable of commanding the necessary respect after Deng is gone," says Byron Weng, a political analyst at Hong Kong's Chinese University.

Any in the powerful triumvirate beneath him could pose a strong challenge. The standard bearer of the liberal-reform faction, Zhu Rongji, 66, Deng's | economic czar, has watched his star soar as last year's GDP grew nearly 12%, to $509 billion. But despite admission by Marxist stalwarts that economic liberalization has saved China from the fate of the defunct Soviet bloc, the economy has become dangerously overheated. Zhu's tough measures to curb growth clearly stem from his sense of how directly his own power is tied to the nation's balance sheet. But in the process he has alienated military officers by taking away their commercial enterprises and party men by tightening up credit for money-losing state enterprises. If inflation runs out of control and the economy goes bust, a political observer in Beijing notes, "Zhu will end up as the scapegoat."

Durable Li Peng, 66, the widely disliked and authoritarian Premier, may be the least favored of Deng's lieutenants, but he has extensive ties to party bureaucrats and the conservative older generation. He continues to display an amazing talent for survival, weathering near universal vilification for his role in the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, which Deng backed but Li implemented. He also seems to have recovered from a heart attack last year to resume a front- rank position. Yet if Tiananmen is re-evaluated after Deng dies -- as it almost certainly will be -- the blame may fall on Li.

Jockeying for position within the upper ranks of the party has already begun. The man who seems best positioned to emerge on top is Qiao Shi, 70, chairman of the National People's Congress. Described as a "mystery man" because of his service in China's shadowy intelligence service, Qiao is a contender because he commands strategic loyalties among generals, police and party conservatives. He is also virtually untarnished by the Tiananmen massacre; unofficial accounts say he abstained from a Politburo vote on whether to send in the military. His leadership abilities and attempt to bring some clout to the traditionally rubber-stamp Congress will be put to the test when it meets in March.

Most China watchers anticipate a period immediately after Deng's death in which the party will strive to demonstrate unity and calm. Yet this period, which could last several years, will be marked by the fact that no individual in the collective leadership commands the moral and political pre-eminence needed to retain power, especially amid the tumult of economic change. "Deng is probably the last Chinese to have this untrammeled, personalized political authority," says Andrew Nathan, professor of political science at Columbia University. "I don't see anyone coming along who has this authority."

Whoever does emerge on top will find his most daunting tasks defined by the problems that Deng left behind. China's economic explosion has produced the inevitable side effects: income gaps, bankrupt state-owned enterprises and a surge in crime and corruption. Expectations among ordinary Chinese are rising in a way that could rapidly undermine faith in the party. Up to now Deng has provided an indomitable link between China's central and local governments, as well as between the party and the military. Now, as regions, especially in the booming south, taste the fruits of prosperity, they will be less inclined to hew unquestioningly to the centralized authority of Beijing. "Deng keeps everyone together," explains a Beijing businessman. "Without him, everyone would go their own way."

Deng is rightfully credited with wrenching the country from the xenophobia and brutality of Mao's flawed experiment with collectivism. But by amassing the power required for such a prodigious turn of the helm, he foreclosed debate on crucial issues like political reform and institutional change. Left unresolved in his lifetime, those questions will now be thrown open in a way that threatens to loosen China's moorings. The country's stability, at least in the short term, may depend upon finding a new strongman, one who can offer a gravitational center while the nation struggles with the questions Deng never resolved.

With reporting by John Colmey/Hong Kong, Jaime A. FlorCruz and Mia Turner/Beijing