How will Xi Jinping measure up to the Deng Xiaoping yardstick?
David Lampton says under Xi, now pursuing an ambitious agenda some 40 years after Deng launched his reforms, China is reshaping the national strategy of 'peace and development'
Deng Xiaoping cast a long shadow. How can we understand his legacy in ways that inform our assessment of Xi Jinping, without reaching premature closure on Xi's still developing record?
Born 110 years ago, Deng launched the post-Mao Zedong era of reform and opening nearly four decades ago. Today, the outside world and the Chinese people have the information to make a judgment about the content and meaning of his legacy. To an unknown extent, Xi, China's still "new" senior leader, will be measured against the Deng yardstick.
Two elements of that yardstick are leadership strategy and style.
The successful leader must have a strategic vision that addresses the underlying challenges of the era, one that resonates with and can energise the population while not accumulating external challenges faster than they can be addressed. Deng's multidimensional "strategy" emerged incrementally in the period from 1977 to 1985, and became clearer in hindsight. But, importantly, there was a fit between the domestic parts of the strategy and its foreign policy components - domestic directions reassured the outside world and won cooperation, and the external gains in stature and a relaxed international environment made the accomplishment of big things domestically easier.