What is Dengism?
Dengism is the name for the ideas and policies linked to Deng Xiaoping, who became China's leading figure in 1978, two years after Mao Zedong died. Deng wanted China to become rich and strong. He judged that Mao's mass campaigns and rigid planning had left the country poor. His answer was to allow markets, private enterprise and foreign investment while the Communist Party kept firm political control. Official language calls the result socialism with Chinese characteristics. The tradition stresses practical results over doctrinal purity.
Core beliefs
- Economic growth is the most urgent task, and policy should be judged by whether it works.
- Markets and private business are tools that socialism can use.
- The Communist Party must keep its monopoly on political power to protect stability.
- China should open to foreign trade, capital and technology.
- Science and technology are central to national strength.
- Some regions and people may get rich first, with others to follow.
History
After Mao's death in 1976, Deng won the struggle for leadership. At the party meeting of December 1978 he launched reform and opening up. Farmers were allowed to work family plots for their own gain, and the people's communes faded by the early 1980s. Special economic zones such as Shenzhen drew foreign firms from 1980. Deng backed the Four Modernizations: agriculture, industry, defense, and science and technology. Politics did not loosen in the same way. In the spring of 1989, students and workers held mass protests for reform. The army cleared Tiananmen Square on 3 and 4 June, killing a large number of civilians, with estimates running from hundreds to thousands. In 1992 Deng toured southern China to push reform forward again.
Variants
Inside China, later leaders have added their own slogans on top of Deng's framework. Reform-minded party figures such as Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang wanted more political openness and were removed from office. Conservative planners such as Chen Yun wanted a tighter hold on the economy. Outside China, the model is often called state capitalism or authoritarian development, a label the party rejects. Vietnam's Doi Moi reforms of 1986 followed a similar path.
Criticisms
Pro-democracy critics say Deng opened the economy while closing off political debate, and point to the 1989 crackdown. Others note that growth came with corruption, inequality, environmental damage and limits on speech and religion. Old-school communists argue that the reforms gave up on socialist goals and brought back class divides. Supporters answer that the policy lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, as international bodies such as the World Bank have recorded, and that stability allowed it.
In practice
China became the world's second largest economy within about four decades of the reforms. Large state firms and banks remain in public hands, while private companies create most jobs. On the 12 axes, Dengism scores strongly toward Strong leader on Authority and toward Order on Security. It leans Embrace on Technology, which is among its most distinctive features. Markets and Ownership sit near the middle, because private business grew but the state kept the commanding heights.