Well, there really is a justice in this world: the worst scumbags always end up where they sent their victims. Old Deng had been dying for so long that it was nearly moving.

And haven’t you remarked some­thing? The media in France are moved. Magazines are running some kind of contest on which one will come up with the most lyrical front cover, and trying to be dif­ferent from each other although they’re all using the same extra­vagant formula: "The great architect has passed away". Some modify the formula with a great deal of ima­gin­ation: "Death of the great architect", when they don’t resort to sheer imper­tinence by saying things such as "The last emperor".

But, great architect of what? Our "great" pres­ident, Chirac, gave the answer to that question in his funeral eulogy: Deng was the architect of eco­nomic opening. Not the great sage, not the little father, no… not that great step forward, not the cul­tural revolution, no… the great architect (I can’t help repeating it, for I’ve read it so many times in the last few days).

We then have to read on (because it’s not men­tioned on the front covers) to dis­cover that Xiaoping was a true criminal, the one behind the many deport­a­tions, the man behind Tien Anmen. The alter­ca­tions with Tibet, the per­manent (and mil­itary) pressure applied on the "other" Chinas… that’s his work! One of the great mur­derers of this century, indeed. The kind of person whose death you can not pos­sibly regret, even if you try forcing yourself (even in China, and although they were forced to mourn, it didn’t amount to much).

So why do our weekly magazines seem to mourn him? I know, it’s easy: it’s because half of the French press is owned by CGE-​​Havas, the other half belonging to Lagardere. They’re not going to risk engin­eering a dispute with their excellent clients from total­it­arian China over some­thing as puny as the inde­pendence of the press!

Although, a nice picture of a Chinese student ran over by a tank, or the exe­cution of an opponent of the regime would have been better sum­maries of the great architect’s career (and by buying the news­paper, you would help the family of the victim to repay the bullet of the exe­cution: let’s call it the "one magazine, one exe­cution" operation).

But, we must concede it, Deng truly was the great architect… the great architect of the most prom­ising utopia of the next century: eco­nomic lib­er­alism without democracy.

The OCDE tried it in Korea, but people have been voicing their dis­ap­proval with violence for a few months over there (what an eerie scene for us to see, too, since we always thought that Asians’ way of showing their dis­ap­proval was to wear a back arm-​​band to work!). In Hong Kong, the thought of being def­in­itely deprived of freedom in the respect of the market’s laws, sent stock market higher than it ever went. Even here, CEOs buy them­selves ads to contest the right to go on strike (indeed, there was one in "Lib­er­ation" - a kindda left-​​wing french news­paper - last Sat­urday). China is really some­thing: at least a billion starving people yielding them­selves to one man’s authority (as our politi­cians and busi­nessmen not ashamed to repeat: "except for Japanese, Asians are docile good workers, they don’t care about human rights. They’re much happier working since their young age on sneakers, and boy do they enjoy it, just look at them, they smile all the time…")

It’s pretty much the story our pres­ident Chirac wanted us to swallow, as he came back from his trip to China: people don’t have the same values other there, they don’t have the same views on freedom. Business is what matters to them, because demo­cracy brings only troubles, espe­cially when the pop­u­lation reaches over a billion.

They sure do some good work other there. One proof is that Chinese tanks are really robust.