Tireless crusader joins ranks of top leadership
By Wang Shanshan (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-03-14 07:12

Ping Yali, the blind athlete who won China's first Paralympic gold medal in 1984, credits her momentous milestone to Deng Pufang.

"It was all because of him that I achieved something in my life, and I hope welfare for the disabled will soon reach the same level as that of normal people now that he is a State leader," she said yesterday.

Deng Pufang - elder son of late leader Deng Xiaoping - yesterday became the first physically-challenged person to join the top leadership in the country when he was elected CPPCC vice-chairman.

He has been paralyzed waist down since 1968 after jumping out of the window of a Peking University building after being tortured as the son of a "disgraced politician".

After a short stay at a Beijing hospital, Deng was sent to a "home" for disabled soldiers in the suburbs to live with 10 other persons in a large room.

There was no medical care and meals were mostly rough grain with pickled vegetables. The only two who could move around were an elderly man who was hard of hearing and an intellectually-challenged boy - they took care of the others.

In her book, Deng Xiaoping and the 'cultural revolution', Deng Rong recounts how Pufang's roommates were sympathetic to her elder brother.

"In his period of utmost difficulty, these friends gave him the most precious thing care and warmth."

And Ping said Deng is paying back by "working hard despite poor health".

Deng embarked on his path of providing welfare for the disabled in 1983; and after 25 years, the ups and downs of his life have forged his personality - calm and determined.

"He belongs to the kind of people who always hide their own sorrows and try to cheer others up," said Ping.

Equal rights for the disabled are the goal of Deng's work for he understands better than most how much disadvantaged people yearn to be treated equally.

He established the China Disabled Persons' Federation and the China Disabled People's Performing Art troupe; launched the China National Disabled People's Games; had barrier-free facilities built across the country; and was instrumental in having thousands of special education schools opened.

In 2003, he was awarded the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights.

(China Daily 03/14/2008 page1)