China's changing states

The only genuine pilgrims to arrive on Monday at Deng Xiaoping's boyhood home in the remote Sichuan countryside were an old man and his daughter. They were immediately surrounded by photographers and reporters from the state media.

China's peasants remained largely unmoved by Deng's death despite the fact that they were first beneficiaries of his reforms.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would have us believe otherwise. Last Sunday, Guang'an officials informed the world that 'hundreds of thousands of mourners' had converged from all directions to the Deng family house in the hamlet of Paifang.

The next day, they predicted that on the day of the funeral ceremony in Beijing another 100,000 would find their way along the unpaved roads that wind along the steep hills of Guang'an county.

Although people did come to show their respects to Deng, usually in organised delegations, nothing on this scale happened.

The number of mourners on Monday did not exceed a few hundred and it was inconceivable that this small place could have accommodated such vast crowds even if the authorities had permitted it. And no local or foreign observer appears to be able to substantiate the official claims.

The myth-making was successful because, in the early 1980s, Deng undoubtedly was popular among the peasants when he abolished the communes and their incomes rose steeply. Yet 18 years have passed since the peasants were liberated from the commune system, and most of them no longer care about their distant rulers in Beijing.