In January 1992, Deng Xiaoping emerged from his semi-retirement to launch an offensive aimed at revitalizing the political and economic reforms which have been introduced in the eighties. The suggested programme does not indeed appear very different from that initiated by Zhao Ziyang before the massacre of 4th June 1989. Transition to a market economy and political neo-authoritarianism are the two aspects of Deng's strategy some months before the XIVth Congress of the Communist Party which will establish the main lines of development for the country during the rest of the present decade and possibly for the onset of the post-Deng period. Against a background of struggle for the succession to the personality who is still the strong man of the regime, this reformist offensive has scored a certain number of successes. But these, from several points of view, seem insecure, not only on the grounds of opposition from the conservative camp, but particularly because of the threat which intensified reform poses to the communist regime. This is why the reformers have, for the moment, chosen to keep Chinese society under the control of a powerful political dictatorship.
