Word: deng
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...democracy movement, the government lost much of its authority, leaving itself isolated and condemned at home and abroad. There are even fears that Chinese Communism may be reaching backward for a discredited tool. Warned a Western diplomat: "Everything that has gone on has been preparation for Stalinist terror. Deng Xiaoping is an old Communist who , believes that when you don't observe party discipline, you are dead...
...after days of invisibility, as Deng and his conservative supporters, appropriately clad in Mao suits, paraded across the television screen to show their grip on power late last week, the contradictions -- and the questions -- remained. For the time being, the old men seemed to be in control again. But for how long? If the Chinese were being cowed into submission, a long- standing compact between them and their government had been broken. Tiananmen Square and Beijing might belong to the P.L.A., but the struggle for control of China is far from over...
Many suspect that Yang is the true champion of the military push into Tiananmen. While Deng heads the shadowy but omnipotent Central Military Commission, the President has placed relatives in key positions in the military hierarchy; one of the units involved in the Tiananmen massacre was under the personal command of his brother Yang Baibing. If Deng, through loss of face or life, ceased to rule China, Yang Shangkun might attempt to maneuver himself into the leadership of the Central Military Commission and replace Deng as China's most eminent leader...
...bloody assault by Deng's armed troops ended all that, and also the Goddess of Democracy, which was crushed by a tank once the troops gained control of the square. Even so, the events of the past seven weeks immunized vast numbers of people against the traditional propaganda bromides and convinced them that the government was not invulnerable: it was only an agency of brutal power. If the student campaign failed, it at least succeeded in forging a historic new link between China's intellectual community and its masses. As an observer said earlier in the week, "It will...
Although the link could prove tenuous, the observer just may be right. And if he is, that bond between two once disparate elements could haunt Deng and his successors for a long time to come. A similar connection between intellectuals and workers gave rise to the Solidarity movement that rocked Poland in the early '80s. China's leaders had been fretting about the similarities between the student movement and the Solidarity campaign. Tellingly, when officials ordered arrests last week, three of the 14 people who were briefly detained were members of a new, unauthorized union...