DBWI: Deng Xiaoping survived the 1988 Maoist assassination?

As we all know, Deng Xiaoping, one of the most important leaders in Chinese history, was assassinated in February 1988 by a group of Neo-Maoists along with party elders Chen Yun and Yang Shangkun. General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, who was also First Deputy Chairman of the Central Military Commission, was elected Chairman of the CMC. Yang Shangkun was widely tipped as the successor Li Xiannian, who was the powerless and symbolic President. He was succeeded by party elder Peng Zhen instead.

During the May Fourth protests in 1989, Zhao Ziyang, NPC President Wan Li and Politburo member Hu Qili were trying to adopt a lenient approach towards the students, while Premier Li Peng, President Wang and Politburo member Yao Yilin were demanding a bloody crackdown.

With the support of Defense Minister Qin Jiwei and General Zhang Aiping, Zhao defeated the conservative faction led by President Wang and Premier Li Peng in a bloodless coup, and took the opportunity to introduce further political reform. Hu Yaobang was elected President of the People's Consultative Conference in 1990, after Li Xiannian was ousted, though Hu himself would die in 1991, before the drafting of the new constitution. Free elections were held in 1993 for the first time since 1913, where the People's Party (formerly the Communist Party) defeated the liberal Democratic Rally and the far-left Socialist Peasants' Party. Zhao became Prime Minister of China, and would retire 3 years later.

Had Deng survived the 1988 assassination, how would he respond to the May 4th protests in 1989? Would he introduce political reforms like Zhao did? What would be the impact of a longer-living Deng Xiaoping, say into the early 1990s until his death in, say 1995?

(On the other hand, the People's Party is still in power today, though it has lost its 2/3 majority in the House of People's Deputies in 2010, winning only 727 out of 1300 seats, and 38.6% of the popular vote. While Prime Minister Wang Yang, who is in power since 2011 following PM Li Yuanchao's resignation, remains popular with an approval rating of 59%, the Democratic Rally led by artist-turned politician Ai Weiwei is leading the People's Party, Bo Xilai's Socialist Workers' Party and Zhu Chenghu's Patriotic Front 29%-28%-24%-15% in the recent Peking University Poll. I like Wang Yang, but I still want to vote for the Democratic Rally:p)

OOC: The assassination attempt is based on a 2004 report of the Sing Tao Daily, a pro-Beijing newspaper in Hong Kong, where Deng Xiaoping was almost assassinated in the Xijiao Hotel in Shanghai in February 1988 by "Neo-Maoists".

In this TL, the President has never become an important position. It only became significant again IOTL when Jiang Zemin himself, as General Secretary and Chairman of the CMC, became President.
 
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While Deng did reform the Chinese economy, I have not been able to find any indication that he would've been a Political reformer. He was still committed to building socialism (albeit in a different manner than Mao), and certainly wouldn't have relinquished the Communist Party's monopoly on power without a fight. Deng would've likely responded to the May 4th protests by crushing them, and might've even reversed his economic reforms in order to keep such uprisings from taking place in the future. This could lead to the west placing embargoes and sanctions on China, and a deterioration in relations with the U.S. Even worse, his example might've been copied by other dictatorships in the Eastern Bloc - so the Cold War might continue into the 21st Century, with a Soviet-aligned China! :eek:

OOC: While sanctions were placed on China after Tiananmen, they were ineffectual and largely gone by the time the Soviet Union collapsed. Certainly, to a person in a TL where the Tiananmen Protests led to political reforms and coincided with the peaceful collapse of the Eastern Bloc; it would certainly make sense that Deng's example would be copied by the rest of the Eastern Bloc.
 
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