Word: deng
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...assessment neatly fits the China of the past decade. Since the much harsher repression of the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976 and since Deng began his program of economic reform in 1979, the country has become for many of its inhabitants a more hospitable and prosperous place. Possibly the most remarkable indicator of this is the 132.8% rise in per capita income between 1978 and 1987. Meanwhile the economy boomed at an average annual rate of almost...
Much, however, depends on the Beijing regime. Revolutions are usually triggered by the intractability and violence of governments, and the declaration of martial law showed that Deng Xiaoping and Li Peng were prepared to crush the protests with military force. Violence can, and often does, achieve its aim of suppression. It can also galvanize an opposition and make compromise unthinkable...
...choice that faced China was between a serious erosion or even collapse of government authority and a massacre in Tiananmen Square. Deng and Li Peng would not risk anarchy, so they called in the military, but at least initially were hesitant to give it a free hand. That left it to the soldiers, their trucks blocked by mobs of pleading countrymen, to ponder another saying of Mao's: "Whoever suppresses the students will come to no good...
...marched. Thus the ships neatly symbolized the peripheral role that Washington played throughout last week. With the explosion of people power, the State Department could do little but advise Beijing to use caution, and it had only a few desultory comments about the historic handshake between Mikhail Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping. Finding American officials who were even slightly uneasy about the freshly minted Sino-Soviet friendship was almost impossible. Was George Bush worried? "No problem," said the President. "A healthy development," said Secretary of State James Baker. Only Vice President Dan Quayle displayed a hint of wariness. Yes, he said...
...that reduces global tensions deserves a cheer or two. If warmer relations between Beijing and Moscow lead to reduced military competition, to political liberalization and to economic reforms that integrate both nations into the global marketplace, make that three cheers. Indeed, given the domestic changes launched in 1979 by Deng and in 1985 by Gorbachev and the relationship the U.S. now enjoys with both countries, a return to the threatening dogmas of the Stalin and Mao eras is difficult to envision...