Five years ago the world watched in horror as a demonstration in Tiananmen Square by Chinese students demanding reform was violently suppressed. The man who authorised and took credit for this crackdown, in which hundreds of people were killed, was DengXiaoping.
To mark Deng's 90th birthday, Julian O'Halloran - who witnessed that carnage in Beijing - presents a profile of the Chinese leader and argues that Deng's actions were highly predictable given his record of suppressing dissent in China. He reveals that this was not the first time Deng had planned a student massacre.
The programme also shows how leading businessmen and politicians have differing opinions of Deng - Margaret Thatcher described him as "cruel" while Ted Heath apparently admires him for his successful economic reform programme, which has distorted communism out of all recognition but which could make China a superpower during the next century.
But. O'Halloran concludes,
"What's in doubt is whether the Party can manage the huge changes Deng has wrought on China. Especially when the egalitarian aims which once made the party legitimate were so clearly waved to the winds by DengXiaopinghimself." Producer Francesca Kirby-Green
Editor Keith Bowers