Do we like them?

Do we like Deng Xiaoping?

Our score: 3 out of 10. The economic reforms are real good, but backing lethal force against protesters in 1989 is serious harm.

Deng was China's main man for the decade after Mao died, from 1978 to 1989, and again in 1992. He's called the chief architect of the country's economic reform, and Chinese state radio called him the “true architect of China's socialist reforms and modernisation” when he died in 1997. He was also known as a hardliner who repeatedly ordered crackdowns on dissidents.

The reforms are the good half of the story. After a visit to Japan in 1978, he convened the party meeting that began blending market elements into the planned economy. Private business was allowed, ration coupons faded out, and one Chinese journalist says the changes fundamentally changed people's lives across the country. His line that a cat's colour matters less than whether it catches mice sums up the pragmatism.

Then 1989. Brookings' Jeffrey Bader writes that Deng, as head of the military commission, was the effective leader. He was behind the unsigned editorial that branded the student protests “counterrevolutionary”. At a Politburo meeting he overruled party chief Zhao Ziyang and backed martial law. On the night of 3 to 4 June the army cleared Tiananmen Square with lethal force. Beijing said about 300 people died, while the New York Times estimated close to 1,000.

Zhao paid for opposing martial law. Foreign Policy reports that conservative leaders removed him and placed him under house arrest. It also reports that, with Deng's backing, he was airbrushed out of photos and official documents. That's the pattern: reform the economy, but never let anyone question who runs the show. Historians Alexander Pantsov and Steven Levine say he “did not trust the Chinese people” in whose name he ruled.

On the harm test, we found nothing on LGBTQ+ people, women or the planet in the pages we read. His own acts in 1989, though, were violent and aimed at citizens who wanted a say. We didn't open a source on the one-child policy, so it isn't weighed here. Where you land on his economics doesn't change that Tiananmen happened on his watch.

In his own words from 1988 he said “There is no such thing as poor socialism,” and he said China could not keep its doors closed. He also called the Cultural Revolution a disaster. The reform instinct was sincere. The limit was always that the party stayed in charge.