Word: foreign
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...factional strife and confronted by a clamorous, hostile public, the Communist Party leadership faced its most serious challenge in the state's 40- year existence. Every hour seemed to bring a fresh rumor, especially after the government ordered the restriction of China Central Television and the end of foreign television transmissions. Deng remained very much in charge, stripping power from Zhao Ziyang, the Communist Party leader who only days earlier had been host of a banquet for Gorbachev. Premier Li Peng assumed control of the party as well as the government, but the bond between the Chinese people and their...
Then at 10 a.m. the government announced that all satellite dishes operated by foreign television networks would be shut off. Viewers around the world watched in amazement as the minutes ticked by, concerned that as soon as the plug was pulled, the crackdown would begin. By noon Saturday in Beijing, all live broadcasts had ceased...
When it happened, suddenly a million or more marchers were streaming into Tiananmen, perhaps ten times as many as had been there the day before. It was the largest demonstration in modern Chinese history. People poured out of factories and hospitals, the Foreign Ministry and kindergartens. And not just in Beijing. By midweek the ferment had spread to at least a dozen other cities, with another hunger strike taking place in Shanghai. In some provincial cities, plans for a general strike were reported...
...achievement almost proved short-lived. As the number of demonstrators in the square dwindled to nearly none, the students decided to employ one of civil disobedience's most sacred weapons, the hunger strike. With a large contingent of foreign press on hand for the Gorbachev visit, the decision seemed a brilliant public relations ploy. But the choice of tactics also harked back to the sensibility of a much earlier...
...Havel animated and excited, Dubcek reserved and stiff. "I was expecting every miracle today except that I would meet you," said the playwright. The aging politician recalled one of Havel's plays, though none have been performed in Czechoslovakia since 1968. Havel leaped up and gathered a stack of foreign editions that had been smuggled into the country. "I will sign them for you in green ink because green is the color of hope, and I am an optimist." Answered Dubcek: "I was always an optimist. I remain an optimist; I have never lost my spirit...