| A rehabilitated Deng Xiaoping returned to the political scene in 1978 with an agenda--to set China on a path of economic modernization to make it a prosperous and powerful nation by the middle of the 21st century. Believing that he had accomplished the goal, he resigned from public office in 1989. by 1991, however, the framework of Deng's master plan began to crumble, as events in the Soviet Union reached crisis proportions. When the Soviet Army failed to support the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in August 1991, the party collapsed, as did communism in Russia and its client states. Fearing a similar fate, Chen Yun and the conservatives in the Chinese Communist Party rallied around the old ideas of a strong party with an even stronger commitment to ideology. This meant retrenchment of Deng's liberal economic policies. Thus, Deng was forced to return to the political fray to save his grand design.;With the backing of the People's Liberation Army, he effected a "Grand Compromise" among the party factions--elders, conservatives, liberals, regional leaders, and the technocrats. The Grand Compromise consisted of three key components. In return for the party's commitment to continued military and economic modernization, the PLA would support Deng's reforms and provincial party chiefs would remit a greater portion of locally generated revenues to the central government. Thus, elders and conservatives would be ensured party control of a unified state and the funds to support it but would have to compromise with liberals on the issue of central economic planning. The technocrats would be free to pursue capitalist economic policies and modernization, without hindrance form "leftist" ideologues, but would have to submit to party discipline. The PLA, which has been undergoing a process of professionalization and de-politicization since 1985, would be guaranteed funds for continued modernization and would have a voice in party policy, but would have to submit to the party's authority. Thus, Deng forged a consensus for modernization and social stability. |
