Deng possibly has ancestry from ethnically Hakka Han family in the village of Paifang (), in the township of Xiexing (), Guang'an County in Sichuan province,[REF][REF] approximately from Chongqing (formerly spelled Chungking).
Deng's father, Deng Wenming, was a middle-level landowner and had studied at the University of Law and Political Science in Chengdu.