PROSPECTS FOR THE PRINCELINGS

As the eldest son of the late paramount leader, Deng Pufang, 51, has experienced the tumult that came with his pedigree. During the Cultural Revolution, fanatical Red Guards either pushed him or made him fall from a four-story building. The fall broke his spine and paralyzed him from the waist down. But after his father made his third comeback, in 1978, the paraplegic Pufang used his connections to create the Chinese Federation for the Disabled, which is now a multimillion-dollar charity.

Pufang and his siblings have all prospered because of the fame and power of their father; without him, life could get tougher. The youngest daughter, Deng Rong, 48, has been the most visible of the children because she was Deng Xiaoping’s official translator. She is the most cosmopolitan and elegantly dressed of the Deng daughters. In recent years, Deng Rong made a career–and loads of money–writing a biography of her father. Her eldest sister, Deng Lin, 55, has enjoyed similar financial success. She is an artist whose work has been exhibited in Hong Kong, Macau, Tokyo and New York City.

Second daughter Deng Nan, 52, is the only Deng child who holds a government post; she is vice minister of the State Science and Technology Commission. The youngest offspring, Deng Zhifang, 46, has been involved in property development and investment. He was director of two Hong Kong-listed companies, one of which has been tarnished by a financial scandal. Ever since, Deng Zhifang has kept an extremely low profile. And if history can offer any guide, that is a tactic his siblings would be well advised to mimic. During the last major power shift in China, Mao Zedong’s family plummeted from privilege. His daughter was retired into obscurity, his nephew was thrown into jail, and his wife Jiang Qing, implacable enemy of Deng, was arrested, tried and convicted of treason for her role as ringleader of the Gang of Four in the brutal Cultural Revolution. She spent 13 years in prison, where she committed suicide in 1991.