Vote boosts Deng’s policy

Press, 1 October 1979, Page 9

Vote boosts Deng’s policy

NZPA-Reuter Peking China's Senior Vice-Pre-mier (Mr Deng Xiaoping) has emerged from a Communist Party Central Committee meeting with a new mandate to modernise the, economy along his own pragmatic lines. Chinese- newspapers announced the election of a new contingent of Mr Deng’s supporters to the Central Committee and Politburo during the four day session, and the choice of his ally, Ye Xianying, to deliver a speech described as a historic document of great import today.

Red banner headlines in the official press said the party's ruling body had endorsed pragmatic policies ;laid out at its- last meeting (10 months ago, indicating the 189 Central Committee .members and 118 alternates, were handing Mr Deng the remaining shreds of power' he did not already hold. Mr Deng, aged 75. now appears to have taken full (initiative in the industrialisation drive over Chairman Hua Guofeng, 57. ! The modernisation philoisophy was explained in a. luncheon speech by Mr Liao 'Chenzhigh, a Deng supporter

in charge of overseas affairs. "The discussion now under way on practice being the sole criterion of. truth has helped in great measure to restore Marxism Lenin-ism-Mao Tse-tvng thought. - and eliminate the pernicious influence of the ultra-Leftist line of Lin Piao and the Gang of Four." he said. Now under arrest, the radical “Gang of Four" op-! posed the rise of Mr Deng and Mr Hua after the death; 'of Mao Tse-tung in 1976. The former Defence Minister. Lin Piao. is reported to have been killed in a plane crash while fleeing to the Soviet tlnion after he st-

tempted to topple Mao in 1971. “The pragmatic approach helps the Chinese unfetter their thinking, seek truth from facts, be realistic, and get united,” Mr Liao told the luncheon gathering in the Great Hall of the People, as Mr Deng sat by nodding approval. Two long-time Deng associates, a former Peking Mayor (Mr Peng Zhen) and (the Governor of Sichuan, (province. (Mr Zhao Zivang); 'were named to the Politburo, whose 23 members and three alternates direct party affairs when the Central Com- i mittee is not meeting.