BEIJING - Deng Xiaoping, who rose from rural Sichuan Province to the pinnacle of power for a quarter of the world's humanity, was cremated yesterday after the country's top leaders paid him traditional homage at the military hospital where his body had lain since his death last Wednesday.
As authorities prepared for a tightly controlled memorial service today with 10,000 invited guests at the Great Hall of the People, Chinese state television showed Deng's family members and the new leadership filing by Deng's body. The leaders then bowed as a group before it three times in the traditional manner.
The body - its puffy face disfigured by disease and death - lay on an open bier surrounded by flowers and covered with a giant Chinese flag. Members of Deng's family - who along with officials wore black armbands and white paper flowers signifying mourning - wept profusely at the hospital and later in a hall at the cemetery's crematorium, with one daughter crying out that "grandfather hasn't died," and another approaching to kiss his face in farewell.
In front of the body at the hospital was a bouquet presented by his widow, Zhuo Lin, and their five children, with a silk streamer that said: "We will love you forever." There were also bouquets with streamers from each of the seven Communist Party Standing Committee members with the words: "Profoundly grieve respected and beloved comrade Deng Xiaoping."
Deng's hand-picked successor, Jiang Zemin, the president and Communist Party chief, shook hands with the family but did not offer any remarks.
Afterward, Deng's body was placed in a crystal sarcophagus and carried by high-stepping soldiers to a white van that bore him to Babaoshan cemetery in western Beijing in a 40-car procession, which state-run television said was witnessed by 100,000 people. Other witnesses put the crowd at a fraction of that number.
At the cemetery, the official funeral party once again bowed before Deng's body. The bowing contravened the Deng family's expressed wishes but appeared to represent a need by Jiang and other leaders to show respect for the man who had dominated Chinese politics for a generation and who had been their political patron.
People along the route also wore white paper flowers, and after the body passed, most of the crowd laid the flowers along the road and in nearby bushes.
Such outward demonstrations of mourning have, for the most part, been suppressed, especially in Tiananmen Square, where the 1989 student-led protests culminated in demonstrations by thousands of Beijing residents.
and then in a bloody crackdown by Chinese troops.
The government announced that martial law will be in effect for Tiananmen Square during Tuesday's memorial service, where Jiang will deliver a eulogy. No foreigners have been invited to the service.
Other cities in China have been ordered to prevent public gatherings commemorating Deng during the six-day mourning period, which ends Tuesday. Deng's death at the age of 92 was caused by complications of Parkinson's disease and a lung infection.
Although China's leaders are trying to make a show of unity and stability, there already have been some cracks in the facade. Former Communist Party general secretary Zhao Ziyang, Jiang's immediate predecessor who was ousted during the Tiananmen uprising, had asked to attend the memorial service, according to the Reuter news agency, but was turned down by Jiang.
Zhao has been under a loose form of house arrest, able to travel and play golf regularly as long as he gets permission first.
But the rejection of his request to attend the service was seen by analysts as evidence that the current leadership still regards him as a potential threat and as someone who might still rally relatively liberal people within the party.