In February 1979, Deng Xiaoping deployed 200,000 Chinese Communist troops to invade Vietnam. Within one month, more than 20,000 Chinese soldiers were killed, countless others were wounded, and they returned in defeat. The cause of this war was that the Cambodian Communist Party (the Khmer Rouge), instigated and condoned by the Chinese Communist Party, slaughtered one-quarter of Cambodia’s population, including Chinese and Vietnamese expatriates. The Vietnamese Communist Party, citing the protection of its expatriates, sent troops into Cambodia, overthrew the Khmer Rouge, and incidentally rescued the Cambodian people from hell. The Chinese Communist Party sent troops into Vietnam with the intention of retaliating against the Vietnamese Communist Party and supporting the Cambodian Communist Party.
To this day, the Khmer Rouge has long since collapsed, and the remaining members are being handed over to international tribunals for trial. This proves that the Sino-Vietnamese War initiated by Deng Xiaoping was not only a complete military defeat, but also a total political loss.
Deng Xiaoping strongly advocated sending troops to Vietnam and in fact had his personal purpose: by deploying and maneuvering troops, he seized military power from Hua Guofeng and made arrangements in advance to later squeeze out Hua Guofeng and monopolize power. Such tactics of diversion and opportunistic gain were not uncommon in thoseancient times.
Unfortunately, Hua was unable to perceive this and fell into Deng’s trap in vain. Old and cunning, Deng Xiaoping resembled Sima Yi of the Three Kingdoms era. Countless young lives were pitifully used as cannon fodder for Lord Deng, lying buried in foreign lands before they had even seen the prosperous world after reform and opening up. After the 1990s, the Chinese Communist Party and the Vietnamese Communist Party restored friendly relations, and the blood of China’s young soldiers was shed in vain.
In 1989, Deng Xiaoping, then Chairman of the Central Military Commission, mobilized one-third of the main forces of the Communist army, totaling more than 300,000 troops, and sent them into Beijing to open fire on unarmed students and citizens, bloodily suppressing the largest democratic movement in Chinese history: the 1989 pro-democracy movement. Under Deng’s extreme orders, the Communist army did not hesitate to use tanks to crush civilians and machine guns to strafe them. A large number of people were slaughtered, blood stained the square, and corpses lay across the streets. This was the “June Fourth massacre” that shocked China and the world.
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“Kill 200,000 people to secure 20 years of stability.” This was the “famous saying” Deng Xiaoping threw out during 1989. On the surface, this “famous saying” was for the sake of national stability, but in fact it was for the stability of the regime. The alternative meaning of this “famous saying” concerned Deng Xiaoping’s selfish personal wish: at least to allow himself to enjoy a peaceful old age. “Let me enjoy glory and wealth while I am alive. After I die, who cares if the flood rages!” What Deng believed deep in his heart was still the classic “famous saying” of King Louis XIV of France.
When students said, “Hello, Xiaoping,” Lord Deng was pleased; when he heard students say, “Xiaoping step down,” Lord Deng was angry. Holding the sword of power, Lord Deng’s joy and anger were his own, and life and death were at his whim. Lord Deng enjoyed his old age, but the price was that hundreds and thousands of students were beheaded and bloodied, tens of thousands of elites were thrown into dark prisons, and millions of people were persecuted. As the chief culprit of the “June Fourth” massacre, Deng Xiaoping was firmly nailed to the pillar of historical shame.
Before “June Fourth,” in May 1989, Zhao Ziyang went to Deng Xiaoping and proposed dialogue with the students and increased transparency. Deng responded: “I now feel very tired, my brain is not working well, my tinnitus is severe, and I cannot hear clearly what you are saying.” This thick-black tactic of Deng Xiaoping reenacted the episode of “Sima Yi feigning illness to deceive Cao Shuang” from the Three Kingdoms, pretending to be deaf and dumb and evading the issue, intending to cope with and paralyze Zhao Ziyang. In fact, Deng Xiaoping, who rose to power by armed uprising and experienced the Chinese Communist Party’s armed seizure of power, when encountering opposition, first thought of the gun.
As early as after the student demonstrations in the winter of 1986, Deng had already stated that we are not afraid of bloodshed, and that the student movement had been so peaceful and had subsided on its own. Deng’s words about bloodshed revealed layers of killing intent and were truly shocking.
Afterward, whenever he heard that students were taking to the streets, Deng privately planned martial law or military control, subconsciously placing his hand on the gun handle. The single “June Fourth massacre” was enough to erase Deng Xiaoping’s entire life. Before his death, Deng could only instruct, “Do not keep my ashes, scatter them into the sea.” Deng’s act imitated Zhou Enlai; both feared posthumous desecration. Zhou feared Mao Zedong, while Deng feared the common people.
After “June Fourth,” Deng Xiaoping, whose hands were stained with the blood of the people, also attempted to whitewash himself, once saying through his daughter: “People, I am the son of the Chinese people, I deeply love you.” The thickness of his face was beyond measure. People cannot help but ask: where in the world is there a son who kills his parents? One must know that killing one’s parents, at any age, is a heinous crime against heaven, and such a crime deserves execution.
After Mao Zedong’s death, Deng Xiaoping fully negated the Cultural Revolution only because he himself had once had unfortunate experiences. However, under the pretext of negating the Cultural Revolution, Deng amended the Constitution, abolished the people’s “four great freedoms,” and further abolished workers’ right to strike. Deng’s reflection on the Cultural Revolution was simply to strip the people of their democratic rights. It is therefore not difficult to understand that around “June Fourth,” Deng frequently equated the democratic tide with the Cultural Revolution and turmoil. Mao Zedong launched the destructive Cultural Revolution, and Deng did the opposite, yet shifted Mao’s responsibility onto the people, making the Chinese people pay for the Communist Party’s reckless misconduct.
When the Chinese Communist Party first rose to power, it proclaimed that “the working class is the leading class,.” It frequently launched strikes to confront the then Nationalist government. Unexpectedly, after more than 30 years in power, the Chinese Communist Party “legislated” to abolish workers’ right to strike. This can only prove that the Communist regime is more autocratic, more dictatorial, and more reactionary than any previous regime.
Some once placed their hopes for China’s democratization on Deng Xiaoping, yet former Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang stated bluntly in recordings left before his death that Deng Xiaoping’s talk of democracy was merely empty words.
Some have commented that Deng Xiaoping was in fact China’s last emperor. In fact, Hua Guofeng ended Mao-style “one-man rule” extreme authoritarian politics and initiated relatively relaxed intra-party democracy. But the good times did not last. Within a few years, Deng Xiaoping used thick-black power tactics to squeeze out Hua Guofeng and brazenly restore Mao-style “one-man rule” extreme authoritarian politics. Deng called himself the second-generation core after Mao, and from then on everything was decided by him.
In the spring of 1992, at the age of 88, Deng Xiaoping suddenly imitated Mao Zedong by staging a southern tour scolding performance. At that time, he was dissatisfied with Jiang Zemin and Li Peng, who were in charge, believing they were too leftist, proposing to guard against the right, but mainly to prevent the left. Deng toured Guangdong and other places, walking and scolding along the way, and issued harsh words: “Whoever does not reform will step down.”
Insiders revealed that Deng Xiaoping might have intended at that time to dismiss Jiang and Li and reappoint Zhao Ziyang, just as Mao in his later years reappointed Deng himself. However, Jiang and Li were highly vigilant, and at that time Deng no longer held any public office, not even Chairman of the Central Military Commission. In addition, after Deng returned to Beijing from his southern tour, he suddenly felt unwell and his health could not support him. Although Deng wanted to intervene in the political situation, he lacked the strength. Those around Deng may also have worried that reappointing Zhao might reenact the old drama after Mao’s death when Deng returned to reverse verdicts, and therefore strongly advised against it.
