Deng Weizhi (born 1938) is a Standing Committee Member of the 9th CPPCC National Committee. [1] He is also the Vice Chairman of the 10th Central Committee of the China Association for Promoting Democracy.
Mr. Deng is also a professor at the Department of Sociology, Shanghai University. [2] He is the author of more than 20 books. His main research areas include: family study, urbanization, and social policy.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War against the Kuomintang, and, in 1949, Mao proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China. Since then, the CCP has governed China and has sole control over the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Each successive leader of the CCP has added their own theories to the party's constitution, which outlines the ideological beliefs of the party, collectively referred to as socialism with Chinese characteristics. As of 2022, the CCP has more than 96 million members, making it the second largest political party by party membership in the world after India's Bharatiya Janata Party. The Chinese public generally refers to the CCP as simply "the Party".
Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong's death in 1976, Deng gradually rose to supreme power and led China through a series of far-reaching market-economy reforms earning him the reputation as the "Architect of Modern China". He contributed to China becoming the world's second-largest economy by nominal GDP in 2010.
The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth Clearing or June Fourth Massacre, troops armed with assault rifles and accompanied by tanks fired at the demonstrators and those trying to block the military's advance into Tiananmen Square. The protests started on 15 April and were forcibly suppressed on 4 June when the government declared martial law and sent the People's Liberation Army to occupy parts of central Beijing. Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded. The popular national movement inspired by the Beijing protests is sometimes called the '89 Democracy Movement or the Tiananmen Square Incident.
The Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, formally known as the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is the decision-making body of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
Hu Yaobang was a high-ranking official of the People's Republic of China. He held the top office of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1981 to 1987, first as Chairman from 1981 to 1982, then as General Secretary from 1982 to 1987. Hu joined the CCP in the 1930s, and rose to prominence as a comrade of Deng Xiaoping. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), Hu was purged, recalled, and purged again by Mao Zedong. His tomb is in Gongqingcheng, a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Jiujiang.
Jiang Zemin was a Chinese politician who served as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1989 to 2002, as chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2004, and as president of China from 1993 to 2003. Jiang was paramount leader of China from 1989 to 2002. He was the core leader of the third generation of Chinese leadership, one of four core leaders alongside Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping.
Hua Guofeng, alternatively spelled as Hua Kuo-feng, was a Chinese politician who served as Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and Premier of the People's Republic of China. The designated successor of Mao Zedong, Hua held the top offices of the government, party, and the military after the deaths of Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai, but was gradually forced out of supreme power by a coalition of party leaders between December 1978 and June 1981, and subsequently retreated from the political limelight, though still remaining a member of the Central Committee until 2002.
The Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), officially the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is a committee consisting of the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Historically it has been composed of five to eleven members, and currently has seven members. Its officially mandated purpose is to conduct policy discussions and make decisions on major issues when the Politburo, a larger decision-making body, is not in session. According to the party's constitution, the General Secretary of the Central Committee must also be a member of the Politburo Standing Committee.
Zhao Ziyang was a Chinese politician. He was the third premier of the People's Republic of China from 1980 to 1987, vice chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1981 to 1982, and CCP general secretary from 1987 to 1989. He was in charge of the political reforms in China from 1986, but lost power in connection with the reformative neoauthoritarianism current and his support of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
Hu Jintao is a Chinese retired politician who served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 2002 to 2012, the president of China from 2003 to 2013, and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) from 2004 to 2012. He was a member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee, China's de facto top decision-making body, from 1992 to 2012. Hu was the paramount leader of China from 2002 to 2012.
From November 1978 to December 1979, thousands of people put up "big character posters" on a long brick wall of Xidan Street, Xicheng District of Beijing, to protest about the political and social issues of China. Under acquiescence of the Chinese government, other kinds of protest activities, such as unofficial journals, petitions, and demonstrations, were also soon spreading out in major cities of China. This movement can be seen as the beginning of the Chinese Democracy Movement. It is also known as the "Democracy Wall Movement". This short period of political liberation was known as the "Beijing Spring".
The time period in China from the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 until the Tianamen Square protests in 1989 is often known as Dengist China. In September 1976, after Chairman Mao Zedong's death, the People's Republic of China was left with no central authority figure, either symbolically or administratively. The Gang of Four was dismantled, but new Chairman Hua Guofeng continued to persist on Mao-era policies. After a bloodless power struggle, Deng Xiaoping came to the helm to reform the Chinese economy and government institutions in their entirety. Deng, however, was conservative with regard to wide-ranging political reform, and along with the combination of unforeseen problems that resulted from the economic reform policies, the country underwent another political crisis, culminating in the crackdown of massive pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.
Bao Tong was a Chinese writer and activist. He was Director of the Office of Political Reform of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Policy Secretary of Zhao Ziyang. He was also Director of the Drafting Committee for the CCP 13th Party Congresses, known for its strong support of market reform and opening up under Deng Xiaoping. Prior to this, he was a committee member and then deputy director of the Chinese State Commission for Economic Reform. During the 1989 Tian’anmen square protests, he was one of the very few Chinese senior officials to express understandings with the demonstrating students, which led to his arrest shortly before the June Fourth incident.
Deng Xiaoping Theory, also known as Dengism, is the series of political and economic ideologies first developed by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. The theory does not reject Marxism–Leninism or Maoism, but instead claims to be an adaptation of them to the existing socioeconomic conditions of China.
Wang Zhaoguo is a retired Chinese politician who came to prominence during the era of Deng Xiaoping. An automobile factory technician by trade, Wang had a long and varied political career, known for having acquired a ministerial-level position at the age of 41. Before entering the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party in 2002, he successively served as the First Secretary of the Communist Youth League, the chief of the party's General Office, Secretary of the Central Secretariat, Governor of Fujian, Head of the United Front Work Department and Vice-Chairman of the CPPCC.
The Chinese economic reform or Chinese economic miracle, also known domestically as Reform and Opening-up refers to a variety of economic reforms termed "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and "socialist market economy" in the People's Republic of China (PRC) that began in the late 20th century. Guided by Deng Xiaoping, who is often credited as the "General Architect", the reforms were launched by reformists within the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on December 18, 1978, during the "Boluan Fanzheng" period. The reforms briefly went into stagnation after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, but were revived after Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in 1992. The reforms led to significant economic growth for China within the successive decades; in 2010, China overtook Japan as the world's second-largest economy by nominal GDP and in the 2010s became the world's largest economy by GDP (PPP).
The ideology of the Chinese Communist Party has undergone dramatic changes throughout the years, especially during Deng Xiaoping's leadership and the contemporary leadership of Xi Jinping.
Ji Dengkui was a prominent Chinese political figure during the Cultural Revolution. He was a member of the 10th and 11th Politburos of the Communist Party and was a protégé of Mao Zedong in Mao's later years. He served in a number of important government and military posts, including member of the Central Military Commission, Political Commissar of the Beijing Military Region, and Vice Premier of the State Council. After Mao's death in 1976, he supported Mao's designated successor, Hua Guofeng, in purging the Gang of Four. Two years later, Deng Xiaoping ousted Hua from his leadership position, and Ji, labelled the "Little Gang of Four" together with other prominent Hua supporters, was forced out of politics.
Boluan Fanzheng or Poluan Fancheng, was a period in the history of People's Republic of China during which Deng Xiaoping, then paramount leader of China, led a far-reaching program attempting to "correct the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution" launched by Mao Zedong. The program gradually dismantled the Maoist policies associated with the Cultural Revolution, rehabilitated millions of victims who were persecuted during the Revolution, initiated various sociopolitical reforms, and brought the country back to order in a systematic way. The Boluan Fanzheng period is regarded as an important transition period in China's history, which served as the bedrock of the historic Reform and Opening-up program starting on December 18, 1978.
The 1978 Truth Criterion Controversy, also known as the 1978 Truth Criterion Discussion, sometimes referred to as the First Great Debate in contemporary China, was a sociopolitical debate around 1978, mainly revolving around Hua Guofeng's "Two Whatevers" and Deng Xiaoping's "reform and opening up".