Malaysian leaders should learn from Deng Xiaoping?

It’s all about leadership

Recent Asian political history provides us with some useful examples of effective leadership. However, the list, sadly, is not long.

WITH a general election in the offing, Malaysians are quite naturally thinking a lot about “leadership”.

Recent Asian political history provides us with some useful examples of effective leadership.

However, the list, sadly, is not long. Many of the men (and women) who have led our countries have also been deeply flawed.

For example, in the case of Jawaharlal Nehru, his ideas and rhetoric may well have been brilliant but his performance in government was often disappointing, if not disastrous.

Deng Xiaoping, conversely, stands out among Asia’s leaders. He’s also the subject of a recently published biography by the academic Ezra Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China.

First, Deng did more to alleviate global poverty than anyone else in the past century. According to Bloomberg, more than 250 million Chinese escaped poverty during his stewardship.

Described by Mao Zedong as a “needle inside a ball of cotton”, the Szechuan province-born Deng rose to the top of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its Politburo after a long, arduous process, including two periods in political wilderness, the first of which was the Cultural Revolution.

By 1978, when he was returned to the centre of power, China was at its lowest ebb. As Vogel wrote: “The average per capita income of Chinese peasants, who made up 80% of the population, was then only US$40 per year (RM124). The amount of grain produced per person had fallen below what it had been in 1957.”

But China was lucky to have Deng at this critical juncture. By the late 1970s, Deng had accumulated more than 50 years of experience at the heart of the CCP, the military, high-level diplomacy and governance.

Deng was experienced, wily, determined and above all, extremely pragmatic.

Moreover, his family’s personal tragedy during the Cultural Revolution – his son Deng Pufang was crippled after being beaten by the Red Guards – made his desire to stabilise and strengthen China all the more intense.

Deng was lucky enough to have met and worked with outstanding leaders. For example, while studying in France in the mid-1920s, he was to forge a critical friendship with Zhou Enlai, who – in turn – grew to respect the diminutive but rock-solid Deng.

Similarly, in the years when the Communists were battling the Nationalists, Deng assumed a vital military role – leading men into battle; motivating, coordinating and administering hundreds of thousands troops, their supplies and their relations with the local communities.

His most enduring success was the Huaihai Campaign of 1948, after which the Communists were able to cross the Yangtze River without resistance, dealing a fatal blow to the Kuomintang and endearing Deng to Mao himself.

So while Deng is better-known for his achievements in the economic sphere – especially his transformation of the coastal provinces in the late 1970s and early 1980s – there’s no denying that his military experience in the field equipped him mentally to lead under pressure.

Having endured the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, Deng was understandably wary of relaxing political controls. He was no democrat. Instead, he saw discipline and loyalty to the CCP as absolutely critical.

Indeed, Tiananmen Square was proof his unshakeable belief in both the primacy of the CCP as well as the need for political stability at all costs.

Whilst we may disagree with what he did, there’s no denying his steadfastness.

Deng was detailed and meticulous in all matters – managing China’s administration with a firm hand.

Fortunately, his international exposure at an early age meant Deng was open to foreign ideas and when it was time for him to lead China; he was ready to embrace the world beyond the Middle Kingdom.

So what can Deng teach us about leadership? I think the following lessons can be drawn:

> Lead decisively and with conviction. If you make a decision you believe is right, stick by it. People respect (and fear) determination;

> Deng believed in education. He rebuilt China’s shattered universities after the Cultural Revolution and shielded the centres of learning from political interference;

> Leaders must prioritise, dealing with only the most critical obstacles to development. On assuming power, Deng took a close personal interest in overcoming the infrastructural glitches and political resistance to reform at Xuzhou’s critical railway hub – thereby sending out a strong message to those who dared challenge his authority; and

> Deng laid the foundations for China’s current, albeit uneven rise to power. His legacy is something Malaysian leaders should not ignore.

Ceritalah By Karim Raslan  

No one can stop China in South China Sea but China - Former Philippines National Security Adviser

No one can stop China from claiming “indisputable sovereignty” over the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea)—except China itself or the authoritative power of world opinion.

Short of war, a war nobody wants or would wish, even the United States can only delay or impede the fulfillment of China’s inordinate ambition to gain sovereign control of 3 million square kilometers of this great inland sea that is also Southeast Asia’s maritime heartland.

This is the strategic context of China’s assertive ambiguity in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).

Just now, Beijing can only bluster and intimidate, as it probes for weaknesses in its rival claimants.

But once China can translate its economic power into military capability credible enough to challenge that of the United States—when the “time is right” in China’s terms—then the geopolitical configuration in the Asia-Pacific region will change radically.

And time and circumstances favor China. Analysts say China is likely to become the world’s largest economy in a decade or so.

If they are right, the Philippines has only 10 short years to prepare for what is likely to become an interesting Asia-Pacific future.

Long-term security

Given the constraints under which it’s working, the administration of President Benigno Aquino has so far done all that could possibly be done, in the short term, to defend our nation’s interests in the West Philippine Sea.

But in this case it’s not enough to deal with the immediate problem. Our nation’s long-term security hangs in the balance.

And to ensure our safety, we must look at the root of our nation’s security, which lies in our people—in everyone of us and nobody else.

If our country is to prevail in any challenge, if the Philippines is to become worthy of respect as a sovereign nation, we must first of all enable our people to become effective wealth creators.

We must make our country rich enough to enable us to acquire the means to defend our nation’s interests, to protect our people’s dignity and honor.

Nationhood infrastructure

To carry out the government’s strategies, policies, plans and programs to grow and develop the nation, we must strive urgently to create the four conditions necessary for growth and development.

Let us make no mistake, without these, the nation can hardly enforce its Constitution and its laws, and no development plan can succeed:

1. We must come to terms with ourselves. We must build among us the infrastructure of nationhood. We must be able to answer the basic question of who we are.

We must live the core values our forebears fought and died for: Dignity, honor, freedom, justice, self-determination, hard work, discipline, tolerance, mutual caring and compassion.

We must become a people at peace with themselves and with the world.

There is nothing our people cannot accomplish, if our identity and the goals we seek are articulated in terms of the core values taught us by our heroes and martyrs.

These core values define what is right or wrong for our people. They guide us, like our heroes and martyrs, to live only when it is right to live, and to die only when it is right to die.

2. No matter what it takes, we must end our internal wars. Our radical insurgency is kept alive by our grievous inequality and the elemental injustice of mass poverty. And both are caused by corruption and misgovernment.

The same is true of our separatist conflict in Mindanao. There popular frustrations are worsened by rivalries over land and livelihood, and the situation is complicated by ethnic and religious enmities.

3. We must complete all the land and nonland reforms we still need to do. Not only will their completion make rebellion, separatism and mutiny irrelevant but will also accelerate our nation’s growth. And, finally, it will unite our people.

4. We must transfer the power of the few over the state to the people as citizens. In the World Bank’s view, we are a country where state policies and their implementation serve not the common good but those of special interests.

The capture of the state and its regulatory agencies by vested interest groups has made our economy the least competitive among comparable economies in East Asia.

In sum, we must put our house in order. We must level our popular playing field to grow and develop the nation—and so enable our people to surmount any challenge.

No luxury of time

As we create the four conditions necessary for growth and development, we must also carry out our development plans. Given the uncertainties building up in East Asia, we do not have the luxury of time.

It is the Chinese people’s historic sense that is driving their country’s rise. They count their recovery from generations of humiliation at the hands of the great powers as lasting 150 years starting from the initial European effort to open up China around 1800.

In 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed China had stood up. But China began to recover economically only after Deng Xiaoping’s reforms (1978). In three and a half decades, China has become the world’s second largest economy.

We, too, must tap into our people’s sense of nationality—and do no less. By creating the four conditions necessary for growth and development that I cited above, and by simultaneously carrying out the government’s development plans, we can change our country—we can modernize it without leaving anyone behind—during the next 10 years.

By that time, we will also have nurtured the inclusive institutions that will sustain our people’s capacities for wealth creation.

No primrose paths

Let us not delude ourselves. There are no short cuts—no primrose paths—to growth and development. We must never give up even if our country’s rise takes 150 years or more.

We have no choice. The alternative is too dire to contemplate.

We must work together to prevent the situation developing that reduces our country into a tributary, a vassal, a province of a great power.

Those who sacrificed and died for us and for generations yet to come will never forgive us if we fail to summon the courage and the will to take the radical steps toward the Filipino future: To deliberately put in place the four conditions necessary for growth and development without delay.

By: Jose T. Almonte
Former National Security Adviser

China sets new record submersible deepest seas dive

Chinese sub dives over 6,000 meters

ABOARD XIANGYANGHONG 09 - China's manned deep-sea submersible Jiaolong and three divers inside are rising from over 6,000 meters below the sea in the Mariana Trench after setting the country's dive record on Friday.

China's manned deep-sea submersible, Jiaolong, is unmoored from its mother ship before making its first dive in the Mariana Trench, as part of a bid to go to depths of up to 7,000 meters, June 15, 2012. [Photo/Xinhua]

The dive, which began at 9 am local time Friday (2300 GMT Thursday), is the first of a series of six scheduled ones.

The dive went smoothly and cost about 3 hours for the Jiaolong to reach the depth of 6,000 meters at 12 pm local time (0200GMT), which far surpassed the 5,188-meter record it made last July.

The three divers Ye Cong, Cui Weicheng and Yangbo inside the vessel wished China's Shenzhou-9 spacecraft launch a success from 6,055 meters below the sea.

The Shenzhou-9 manned spacecraft Thursday completed its final full-system drill before its planned launch in mid-June.

The Jiaolong threw ballast iron and began to rise at 12:44 pm local time (0244 GMT).

So far, the three drivers and the Jiaolong itself have been OK.

There was something wrong with the submersible's No 1 communication system, but the No 2 set is working soundly to guarantee the connection between the vessel and Xiangyanghong 09, its mother ship.

The rise is expected to last three hours and the on-scene dive headquarter will timely release the diving information.

The Jiaolong, depending on local weather and sea conditions, will try another five dives, deeper and deeper, in the coming days. The fifth and sixth are scheduled to challenge the depth of 7,000 meters.

The six dives, each of which may last eight to 12 hours, will test various functions and performances of the manned submersible at great depths.

Experts say, for safety, sea dives can only be conducted in daylight under no-more-than-four-class wind and no-more-than-three-class wave.

The Xiangyanghong 09 ship reached the designated dive zone in Mariana Trench on Monday morning.

China's manned deep-sea submersible, Jiaolong, is hung up before making its first dive in the Mariana Trench, as part of a bid to go to depths of up to 7,000 meters, June 15, 2012. [Photo/Xinhua]

Submersible sets new China dive record 

Enlarge

File photo of the Chinese submersible "Jiaolong". The manned Chinese submersible on Friday set a new record for the country's deepest ever sea dive at 6,000 metres (19,685 feet), state media said.

A manned Chinese submersible set a new record for the country's deepest sea dive Friday, over 6,000 metres, showing Beijing's technological ambitions as it also readies for its first manned space docking.

The "Jiaolong" craft dived over 19,685 feet into the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, the first in a series of six dives which will plumb depths of 7,000 metres, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The deep-sea dive push comes as China prepares to launch a spacecraft on Saturday to conduct its first manned space docking, as part of efforts to establish a permanent space station by 2020.

The submersible, which carried three men, reached around 6,500 metres with only a technical glitch in communications, state media said.

"In our first battle, we have already reached 6,500 metres. All of our tasks have been completed," chief commander Liu Feng told state television aboard the ship carrying the submersible.

He said a piece of communications equipment on the surface of the water failed, but the team switched to a back-up system and restored communications. He did not say whether contact was completely lost with the Jiaolong.

The same vessel -- named after a dragon from Chinese mythology -- reached 5,188 metres in a Pacific dive last July, the nation's previous record.

Friday's dive sparked outpourings of nationalism on the Internet and comparisons to the upcoming space launch.

"Three pilots will take the Jiaolong to attempt the 7,000-metre dive, while three astronauts will take the Shenzhou-9 to connect with the Heavenly Palace," a Shanghai based blogger wrote on his microblog.

"Up in the sky we can pluck the moon, down in the oceans we can catch the turtles," said the posting on Sina's microblog service, quoting a saying attributed to late Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

Experts say China intends to use the submersible for scientific research, such as collecting samples of undersea life and studying geological structures, as well as future development of mineral resources.

But one Chinese expert on Friday described the latest dives as an "experiment" for China and said future use of submersibles for scientific research faced obstacles, such as with stability and durability of the craft.

"Even after it reaches the 7,000-metre depth, it still remains a question whether it can achieve scientific purposes," Zhou Huaiyang, professor of the School of Ocean and Earth Sciences at Shanghai's Tongji University, told AFP.

Scientists say the oceans' floors contain rich deposits of potentially valuable minerals, but the extreme depths pose technical difficulties in harvesting them on a large scale.

 AFP
 Newscribe : get free news in real time 

Related post:
 China achieves double record-breaker: Sky-high and abyss-deep sea!