TV Series: Deng Xiaoping at History’s Crossroads

Though I just glimpsed this TV series, I saw enough to conclude that the series, though has facts, should be treated as a fictitious drama to glorify Deng. 

It essentially attributed all important state level wise policies and major acts to Deng during the period of late 1970s to the middle of 1980s, and regards all other officials as either his loyal followers or failed opponents. This could not be further from the truth.  Deng was indeed critical to many major policy changes, but other officials such as Zhao Ziyang, Hu Yaobang, Wan Li took many courageous initiatives. For example, Hu Yaobang was rehabilitated before Deng after the Great Cultural Revolution, and played an important, though not critical, role in the rehabilitation of Deng, and the critical role of many others’ rehabilation.  Wan and Zhao who were governors of Anhui and Sichuan respectively pioneered some political and economic policies courageously, and their experiments became models for the country to follow and boosted the Chinese economy significantly. 

The series depicts Deng as a hardworking man with constant long working hours.  It is a well-known fact that Deng was an avid mahjong player spending a lot of time on it.  Some of his playmates (e.g. a former minister of the railway ministry) got promoted because of their service for him at the mahjong table.  

Deng started the disastrous Sino-Vietnamese war to help the notorious Cambodian butcher Pol Pot who slaughtered a quarter of the Camobodian population.  The war killed tens of thousands of young Chinese soldiers by Vietnamese solders who fired with Chinese weapons supplied by China to aid their fight against Americans.  The series seems to omit this fiasco. 

I hope some historians will watch this series and expose the gross discrepancy between this drama and facts.