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conservative leanings, the evidence does not seem to me sufficient to justify the conclusion that he is clearly pro-Soviet, and the fact that he is to lead the Chinese delegation at economic consultations to be held in Moscow this year suggests that his colleagues do not distrust him on this score.
Other Points
7. There was discussion of the extent of Deng's reformist and conservative proclivities. In my own view, several of Deng's statements, including most recently his comments on 19 March to the Canadian Governor-General about a "tentative plan for political . reform" to be considered by the 13th Congress, show that he is firmly committed to reform. In this context, he and his closest supporters appear to favour measures to restrict the administrative role of the Party, but this does not mean that they wish to weaken the ultimate political authority of the Party or to introduce genuine political pluralism.
8. Responding to a question by Sir D Wilson, I said that very few changes at provincial level had been announced since the removal of Hu Yaobang. I have since checked and can confirm that this is so: the only change in a senior post is the replacement of the Chairman of the Ningxia Autonomous Region, apparently for reasons of corruption.
9.
10.
Some other points of interest mentioned in discussion were:
a.
Controls over grain production were said to have been tightened in early 1986 by requiring that targets per mu were agreed with local officials; this seems to me a significant modification rather than a major change in the contract system.
In July 1986, Deng was said to have directed that special groups should be organised to investigate political reform.
b.
c. At the Party meetings in September, some "conservative leaders" were said to have launched a strong attack on "bourgeois liberalisation".
a.
The discussion of reforms in the direction of political pluralism was said to have continued until November, when some of the reformers including Su Shaozhi and Wang Ruoshui had "heckled" Hu Yaobang because of comments by him indicating a restrictive approach to political reforms.
e. Hu Qiaomu's son was said to have been arrested at his father's house with two briefcases full of foreign currency. This had led to derisive comments contrasting Hu Qiaomu's own self-righteous stance with the failings in his family.
There have been reports of such events in the Hong Kong press, but in most cases the participants said that they had received confirmation of these stories from contacts in China. The reports
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