BY MICHAEL MARTINA
BEIJING Tue Aug 12, 2014 8:49am EDT
A man looks out from a window next to a portrait of late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping wearing military uniform in a gallery at Dafen Oil Painting Village, in Shenzhen, South China’s Guangdong province, April 24, 2011.
CREDIT: REUTERS/JASON LEE
(Reuters) – China’s state television is airing a serial on late leader Deng Xiaoping, a rare portrayal of a top politician that state media have trumpeted as a sign the Communist Party is easing its grip on officials’ sensitive legacies.
The 48-part drama series chronicles a period between 1976 and 1984, when Deng began pushing China toward market reforms that ignited its transition into the world’s second largest economy.
“In recent years, China’s restricted areas of speech have obviously decreased. This series marks significant progress,” the Global Times, a tabloid owned by party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, said in an editorial on Monday.
But the show has prompted debate about how producers will approach sensitive internal conflicts that have more or less been air brushed out of official party accounts.