Chinese politician, a thrice purged Communist Party patriarch who impacted three decades of powerful influence on Chinese politics. His rule involved nepotism and corruption on a massive scale as well as advances in reforms for his people.
Deng Xixian was the first-born son of a landowner in the hamlet of Xiexing (near Guang ‘An), in the southwest province of Sichuan. His father was Deng Wenming (Deng Shaochang) and his mother was the first concubine of his father, named Tan. She came from a good family and brought a handsome dowry into the union. Deng was the second of four kids. His dad’s main wife was childless but his other two concubines bore him three sons and three daughters.
At age 16, Deng Xixian went to France on a work-study program and joined the Communist Party. In June 1923 he was elected to the leadership of the Communist Youth League of China in France. At some point, when Deng Xixian was around 20 years old, he took the Communist alias of Deng Xiaoping. On 7 January 1926, he left Paris for Moscow to study at the Sun Yatsen University. Later that year, on September 16, he returned to China.
In the fall of 1929, during the Nationalist-Communist Civil war (which continued until 1937), Deng was appointed Politcommissar. In the summer of 1933, he was toppled from his position for the first time. In 1935, Deng was editor of the journal, “Red Star,” Head of the Central Committee Secretariat, and Deputy Head of the Main Political Division of the Red Army. In 1937, the Sino-Japanese War began (and continued until 1945). In 1938, Deng became Politcommissar of the 129th Division (the “Liu-Deng Army”).
In 1945, Deng was elected to the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In April 1946, the second Nationalist-Communist Civil war began (and continued until 1949) with Chiang Kai-shek being elected President of the Republic in 1948. The following year Deng functioned as highest-ranking commander in the Battle of Huaihai.
After the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, Deng became a member of the Central People’s Governing Council, of the Political Consultative Conference and of the Executive Committee of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Society. From 1952, Deng’s political star gradually rose from his post as Deputy Premier to Finance Minister to Deputy Chairman to the Politburo.
In May 1966, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution began (and continued until 1976). On 14 December 1966 Deng Xiaoping withdrew from his public life, toppled for the second time. From 1969 to ’73, he lived in exile in the province of Jiangxi. On 12 April 1973, he made his first public appearance since his exile with his re-election to the Central Committee.
Deng was toppled for the third time on 7 April 1976. Following the death of Mao Tsetung, Deng was rehabilitated and elected Second Deputy Party Chairman. In December 1978, the third plenary session of the XIth Central Committee was held. This was the beginning of the “Deng Era.” In the June 1981 sixth plenary session of the XIth Central Committee, Deng was elected Chairman of the Military Commission of the Central Committee, and Chairman in September 1982.

In 1984, 14 coastal cities and the island of Hainan were opened to foreign investors, the Hong Kong Agreement was initiated and urban economic reforms were begun. Under Deng’s reforms in the 1980’s, peasants and workers could afford such luxuries as television, refrigerators and washing machines for the first time. Perhaps his most famous saying was, “It does not matter if a cat if black or white, as long as it catches mice.” Many city residents owned automobiles and mobile phones.
On 6 September 1985 Deng met with former U.S. President Richard Nixon in Beijing. That year, Deng Xiaoping was named TIME magazine’s “Man of the Year.” He was quoted in October 1985, “If you want to bring the initiative of the peasants into play, you should give them the power to make money.”
In 1987 there was student unrest in 22 cities. Deng left the Standing Committee of the Politburo and resigned as Chairman of the Consultative Commission, retaining his post as Chairman of the Military Commission of the Central Committee. The military suppression of students in the infamous 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests – believed to have taken place on his final orders – killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, and put a blot on the economic progress Deng had achieved. He retired from his last official post in 1990 and made no more public appearances.
Deng married three times, had five children and five grandchildren. His first marriage was to Zhang Qianyuan. The second wife was Jin Weiying (A Jin) and the third wife, Pu Qiongying (Zhou Lin). The first two wives bore no children but his third wife bore Deng Xiaoping five children.
Deng Xiaoping died at 92 of respiratory and circulatory failure brought on by lung infections and Parkinson’s disease on 19 February 1997, 5:08 AM PST. Immediately after his death, plaudits arrived from around the world, although no foreign dignitaries were invited to the funeral.
U.S. President Bill Clinton called Deng “an extraordinary figure on the world stage” for the past two decades and credited him with being “the driving force” behind China’s decision to normalize relations with the United States.
On his death bed ini Beijing, Deng hand picked his successor, Jiang Zemin, China’s President from May 1995 and Communist Party boss.
Link to Wikipedia biography