AMONG westerners in Beijing there is a degree of scepticism about whether Deng Xiaoping lived out his natural life or whether the end was timed carefully with the help of advanced medical techniques. At dinner parties in the diplomatic compounds quite serious people speculated that Deng had been dead for some time and the announcement was made only when it suited.
Pragmatic to the end, Deng passed away at a convenient time for the party leadership. He lived long enough to allow his designated successor, President Jiang Zemin, to consolidate his power base. He held off until after this year's Spring Festival so his death did not spoil the nation's holiday mood. He departed long enough before July 1st so as not to spoil the festive mood when Hong Kong reverts to China.
Such scepticism is the price a government pays when it does not allow a free press. The detailed story of last week in Beijing may emerge only years from now. But from all the available evidence, this seems to be what really happened.
Deng, suffering from Parkinson's disease and lucid for only about two hours a day, had a serious stroke on Friday, February 14th. Some papers in Hong Kong said he was rushed to Beijing's Military Hospital 301. In fact he was given emergency treatment in his modest family home in a lane near Tiananmen Square, where state of the art surgical and medical equipment had been installed.
His condition caused such concern that President Jiang Zemin and the Prime Minister, Mr Li Peng, rushed back to Beijing on Saturday. On the same day the family handed over a letter to the party leaders asking that when he died the body be cremated and his ashes scattered on the sea.
Clearly the end was near. But doctors managed to get the old communist fighter's condition stabilised by the beginning of the week. Senior officials were told that he could even last to the end of the month. Then a deterioration set in. Editors of the state run media were informed on Monday that he might die by the end of the week.
At 92, however, the system of a sick man can collapse at any time. On Wednesday afternoon Deng began gasping for breath. He developed an infection and his lungs filled with fluid. There was no longer any question of keeping him alive. In such circumstances a person simply cannot breathe.
The Chinese leader died, according to the official statement, at 21.08 local time (13.08 Irish time) on Wednesday, February 19th. The news spread unofficially through the top levels of Chinese power in a flash.
Before midnight there was a burst of activity in the senior editorial offices in Beijing of People's Daily, the official party newspaper. Hong Kong began to buzz with rumours. I got a call from a journalist in the British territory at 10.30 p.m. to say he had just been told by an important Chinese official to cancel a meeting the next morning. No explanation was given.
In Beijing a reporter from the Asian Wall Street Journal was detained and held for two hours when making a regular check of Deng's home.
The Chinese authorities themselves let the cat out of the bag. Late that evening television broadcast an item about the death of another senior official, the former defence minister, Qin Jiwei. There was no mention of a wreath from Deng Xiaoping, though three days earlier a letter of condolence had been sent in his name. Hong Kong's celebrity fortune teller, Koon Lung, spotted this and rang the editor of the city's Daily Express to tell him. (To predict is glorious).
With the story clearly leaking out everywhere, Beijing was forced to making the announcement before it was quite ready, executives of the People's Daily told some western visitors. The international media were told of a major announcement coming, then at 2.43 a.m. on Thursday (6.43 p.m. Irish time) as Beijing slept the official Xinhua News Agency wire announced that Deng had died.
The party controlled Chinese media had a head start, but they are not designed to cope with breaking stories, and all the Beijing papers were late on the streets the next morning.
Looking back it is possible to spot some careful steps taken to prepare for the announcement of Deng's death. On Tuesday the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges were swept by rumours of his condition, and both Chinese and foreign currency stocks fell by between seven and 10 points.
Next day China's leading securities newspaper reported the share collapse with no explanation, but noted that traders said that they would rebound unless there was "major negative news".
"Major negative news" was clearly in the offing. A hint of whom it might concern came in the shape of a mysterious report close by on the economic theory of Deng Xiaoping.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman at the regular Tuesday briefing said there had been no "big" change in Deng's health. But before he had always confined himself to saying Deng was as well as a man of his age might expect to be. "So is there a small change?" he was asked. No reply.
Diplomats were picking up the vibes. The Irish Ambassador to Beijing, Mr Joe Hayes, happened to be in Hong Kong the day of Deng's death. At 11 a.m. he called to see a pro Beijing member of the Provisional Legislature, Mr David Chew, who told him he had been in touch with people ultimately connected with the Chinese leadership. He said: "You can tell your government Deng won't live."
In the end the media got their story. The fortune tellers didn't do so well, failing to predict the biggest story in China for a decade. Nor was there any earthquake, the usual indicator of the end of a dynasty. Mao's death in 1976 was preceded by an earthquake in Tangshan which killed 250,000 people.
A few days ago there was actually a meteor shower over Shangdong province, a Chinese paper reported, only the fourth since the Communist Party came to power. That will have to do.