There's a new biography out on Deng Xiaoping by Professor Ezra F.Vogel of Harvard.
Mao purged Deng twice (Deng really got under Mao’s skin). Near the end of Mao’s Great Leap debacle Deng used a metaphor to express his own approach to economics: "I don't care if it's a white cat or a black cat as long as it catches mice." (1) When Mao launched the Cultural Revolution Deng was pilloried with that quote. Down went Deng. Mao banished him to internal exile where he spent four years working in a tractor factory. Then Mao brought him back and made him Vice Premier. Didn’t last long. The radicals, led by Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, opposed Deng. Down went Deng again.
When Mao died in 1976 back came Deng. The radicals, now known as the “Gang of Four,” went down. Deng became the de facto paramount leader of China Tiananmen Square of protesters. In 1992 in his fairwell “Southern Tour” Deng stated “to be rich is glorious.” The cat was not red, whatever color capitalist cats are. Deng retired and lived out his life a recluse according to Henry Kissinger.
If, as contended here, China 's soul is survival then Deng Xiaoping instantiates China
(1) It may have been “yellow cat or black cat.” Whatever, the only color that mattered to Mao was red and red mattered a great deal to Mao.
