Deng Xiaoping

Source date: 9 June 1989. Address to senior officers commanding the martial-law troops in Beijing. Editorial overview.

Deng praises the armed forces and defends the authorities' suppression of the protests. He portrays the crisis as an attempt to overthrow the party and socialism. That characterization is his justification, not an independent description adopted by this review.

At the same time, he argues against abandoning economic reform or closing China to the outside world. He treats continued development and the preservation of party authority as compatible commitments.

The address is indispensable to a balanced reading of his political thought. Economic experimentation did not imply acceptance of opposition capable of displacing Communist Party rule. This source documents Deng's public defence of state coercion. It cannot, by itself, establish an independent account of civilian casualties or the full decision-making sequence behind the crackdown.

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