Talk:Li Peng

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Contents

[edit] "China" vs. "Mainland China"

Jiang:

There's no need to go around everywhere you find "China" and insert "mainland". I know that your profile says that you are not a mainlander, but Wiki articles written in 2003 do not need to sound like anachronistic 1950s US diatribes against the Red Chinese. I read scholarly discourse on contemporary China constantly in research projects, journals, periodicals, and books, and I can assure you that few these days, after the PRC replaced the ROC in the United Nations and after the US recognized the One China Policy, are confused as to whether the capital of China is Beijing or Taipei. While the Dominican Republic and other marginal states might recognize the ROC for meager handouts, Wiki does not need to come across as a anachronism and can avoid redundancy and wordiness. 172

This is not a simple issue of whether the PRC equates with "China." Communist policies only apply to Mainland China, and not to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau. So when a statement describes the growth rate of the "Chinese economy," it is only more accurate to say that it refers only to mainland China, (and if you dont consider Taiwan part of China) and not the two SARs. Are you telling me Hong Kong is not part of China? The PRC central government's policies only affect mainland China, and to say they have an effect on all China is misleading.
You are not supposed to go around unilaterally editing things to fit your POV. It was agreed in the naming conventions that "In particular the word China should not be used to be synonymously with areas under current administration by the People's Republic of China or with Mainland China." If you don't believe in this statement, it is up to you to challenge and discuss it there, not edit it to suit your beliefs. Please take your complaints to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese). For the time being, the current rules apply and it is perfectly legitimate to use the term Mainland China, especially in discussion of PRC gov't policies that do not extend to all parts of China.
What is wrong with the statement that he is "disliked by many"? That is a known fact regularly reported by the western media [1].
Also, if I've read correctly, the Wikipedia:Manual of Style states that a space is not needed after headers.
--Jiang 05:41 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)


"Baffled as to why paragraph detailing the state of the country as he left the premiership was removed"

I believe it is irrelevant. We are only concerned with what Li Peng did then and there and the effects of his actions, not what is the current social situation now. I moved that paragraph tp Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 where it belongs. How content Chinese students are now is irrelevant to Li Peng. It has to deal with the long-term legacy of the protests in general, not specifically this individual. And if you're "baffled," please ask. --Jiang 05:45 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You can take this logic to an extreme. Syria, for instance, claims the Golan Heights as an integral part of its territory, but Israel has occupied this region since 1967 and has annexed it in 1982. So, by this logic, why not replace "Syria", when referring, for instance, to economic growth, with "Syria excluding the Golan Heights". What about India? Both Pakistan and China occupy territories that are considered, by the Indians, to be integral parts of their sovereign territory. Then there's Chad and Libya; Morocco, Mauritania, and the disputed Western Sahara; disputes in the Caucasus. The list goes on. So by this logic, shouldn't someone be going around making sure that nobody's under the pretension that Syrian GDP includes the Golan Heights?

I see your point and this is my last word about this issue. I'm not going to delete "mainland" anymore. I just wanted to assure you that I didn't have a "POV agenda".

On another note, the section that I removed from the intro was also inappropriate. It defiantly put a slant on the lead in to the article.

The section, which you yourself "unilaterally" (to put it in your words) removed because you "feel" is "irrelevant" is relevant. You are extremely well versed in Chinese politics and you are well aware of the incredible powers the premier has over the economy. It is important to note that Li Peng left the premiership with a more stable social, political, and economic situation than the one he inherited. It is important to chronicle post-Tiananmen developments, after all, since Li has only left politics in recent months, not in 1989.

I don't think that the Premier has incredible powers over the economy. Also, the consensus view is that most of the reforms of the early/mid-1990's were done in contradiction to what Li Peng and the conservative members of the party wanted. Also, I'm not even sure that Li Peng himself would agree with the triumpalist tone. There is a rather large segment of the CPC which thinks that some of the reforms of the 1990's were a mistake and that China is worse off than it could have been had those reforms not been imposed.

172

I don't understand why the lin Butcher of Beijing in Beijing links here. I'm not a fan of Li Peng - quite the opposite - but i think wikipedia must be above this kind of adjectives. If there is a note in the bio saying that he is know by the name, OK. I don't agree, however with the link. Muriel Gottrop 09:23 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I've just deleted that redirect. 172
The google search [2] seconded this. Note that Jiang Zemin, Chi Haotien and Li Peng were dubbed by vastly different sources. None of the three has been universally known as the butcher. kt2 23:36, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Questions of legacy

The legacy section raises a couple questions: Is Li really credited for the economic boom? Has the economic boom forgiven Li for TAM? What exactly do people think of Li Peng? It seems people credit Zhu Rongji for the economic success but not really Li Peng. Your thoughts? --Jiang 23:25, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

yep, that's what people think; we may need to back up this argument with authoritative or scholastic proofs though. kt2 23:36, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)


"Nevertheless, the steady, rapid, and uninterrupted economic growth of the years unfolding after the Tiananmen Square protests have perhaps solidified Li's legacy and defended his notion that "social stability" would be required to ensure a successful transition to a market economy, and this premise is now accepted by the Communist Party. Over the past decade since Li became premier, Mainland China's economy has maintained a healthy development momentum, with steady progress in economic restructuring, and fruitful results in opening up to the outside world and particularly in building the "socialist market economy." Meanwhile, the PRC's exchanges and cooperation with foreign countries have greatly been enhanced. Li made quite a number of visits to foreign countries, contributing to the consolidation and development of friendship and cooperation between the PRC and other countries."

Actually no. Li is generally not given any credit for economic growth. Most of it goes to Jiang and Li. Since TAM, Li hasn't been too involved in economic growth. Also, he isn't much of a theorist so the talk about his notion of social stability seems out of place. Shortly after TAM, Li was part of a faction that wanted to increase administrative controls on the economy. Deng, Jiang, and the provincial governors shot him down.

Yes, but all this hinges on the PRC not collapsing, as its Communist counterparts in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were. The crackdown, and the administrative controls on the economy curbing inflation imposed by Li in the immediate aftermath of the crackdown, did have a real impact restoring social and political stability, even if it were not codified by theory. 172 11:46, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)


If you do want to say something good about Li, point out that as Chairman of the NPC he did increase the institutional power of the NPC and worked to improve rule by law.

"In addition, the outrage over the Tiananmen protests has quelled. Today, the root causes of student discontent, which contributed to an atmosphere of mass-protest and chaos, have largely subsided: inflation is low; overcrowding in dormitories is far less pressing; the massive migrations from the countryside to the cities in the 1980s, perhaps the largest-scale human migration in history, are far more orderly; and the legitimacy of the Communist Party has been largely restored. Moreover, rising living standards facilitated by market reforms within the framework of tight CPC control of the vast, rapidly changing country have eased anger, at least domestically, over the Tiananmen crackdown."

This is repeated elsewhere, and is rather irrelevant with respect to Li Peng. What's interesting is that even though people aren't interested much in demonstrating today, Li Peng is still widely disliked. --Roadrunner

We all know that Li is generally unpopular with overseas Chinese. But this doesn't mean that it should be a policy on Wikipedia, where the NPOV is policy, to blame all of the PRC's problems on the CPC's hard-liners and attribute all of the PRC's successes to the more liberal factions. It is simply false to state that Li had no role in economic policy in the critical years of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Before the crackdown, serious problems had emerged for which the regime appeared to have no workable solutions. The critical problem was the rate of inflation and the massive migrations to the cities, along with the outrages over corruption and nepotism. I recall observers inferring that the real rate was more than twice the officially estimated rate of 20%. The inflation hit those on fixed incomes hard, especially the core elements of the protesters, such as intellectuals, students, and salaried workers with no supplemental sources of income. If the inflation had a role in the unrest leading to the protests, then Li's role in curbing inflation in the immediate aftermath of the crackdown deserves attention. It is correct that Li had little role in promoting growth, but inflation, not slow growth, was the crisis of the at the time.

While Deng and Jiang would later loosen these controls when they were no longer necessary, the leadership did adopt in 1989-90 Li's measured approaches to cope with inflation and other economic problems, and Li did had a role in the austerity program, the tight money policy, imposing price controls on many commodities, higher interest rates, and the cutoff of state loans to the private and cooperative sectors, which succeeded in reducing inflation to very acceptable rates. The end of social unrest also rested on the post-1989 restoration of political stability, which entailed the purging of the Zhao faction. And Li was the key henchman.

Li thus had a major role in the rejection of Zhao's sweeping plans to restructure the economy, which included allowing market forces to play a larger role in the distributions of goods and services. Zhao's policies had already exasperated the social unrest, inflation, and industrial strikes characteristic of the months before the Tiananmen protests. Li deserves credit for putting a stop to Zhao's attempts at price liberalization in the late 1980s, which would have had a disastrous impact, considering the results of similar polices in Russia. Although the structural problems (the inefficient SOEs requiring the massive subsides and the inefficient and unwieldy bureaucracy) were underlying China's troubles at the time, Li's administrative controls did have significant short-term benefits that allowed Deng and Jiang to revive reform in a couple of years. Whether we like him personally or not, Li's role in economic and political stabilization did tackle the sources of discontent behind the protests and laid the foundations for the order and stability of the 1990s. Thus, those paragraphs that keep getting removed are essential to blanace the "butcher of Beijing" slant. 172 12:27, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

He may be responsible, but is he credited? How specifically he is resonsible should be made clear. Again, please avoid blanket reversions. The comment on increasing the power of the NPC, and the tweaking of the butcher of beijing statement were relevant and good edits. Now restore them! --Jiang 18:55, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I tried to incorporate what you mentioned here. If he deserves credit for curbing inflation, then give him credit for that. Don't give him credit for all economic growth, which was in part fueled policies he did not support. Preciseness is key. --Jiang 19:41, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)
He was never given credit for the economic growth of the mid-1990s in the article, but for restoring stability, which was probably necessary for the reform process to go on in an orderly fashion.

BTW, I didn't realize that my comments on the talk page would be promoted to the article, but I like what you did with them. Good work. 172 20:47, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Pic

I really think we should get a different picture of Li. Colipon+(T) 04:33, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Premier ordering

I note that Zhao Ziyang is listed as the 3rd Premier in his infobox, but Li Peng is listed as the 7th-8th. Where does this discrepancy arise? Is this counting not premiers, but rather terms in office? If so, that's rather unintuitive. Can we renumber him to be "4th premier" instead? --Spudtater 14:37, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Now done. Please reply here if you rv. --Spudtater (talk • contribs) 00:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Li Peng.jpg

Image:Li Peng.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 04:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Family life?

Could someone add a section on his personal life. Did he marry? E.g., is this information correct?:

Father Li Suoxun Early CPC leader. Wife Zhu Lin Former Director, Research Department, State Council, Office of Special Economic Zones. Son Li Xiaopeng President, Huaneng International Group. Daughter Li Xiaolin President, China Electric Power International Co., Ltd.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.217.28.137 (talk) 06:39, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why did you change his picture?

Why did u change his picture to black in white? He's not dead for christs sake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.17.162.102 (talk) 14:44, 19 March 2008 (UTC)