Word: generality
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Deng and Gorbachev are looking for a peaceful international climate that will make it easier for them to divert resources to the industrial, agricultural and consumer sectors. The Chinese welcome Gorbachev's declared willingness to rely less on the threat or use of force in Soviet foreign policy. Says General Wang Zhenxi, deputy director of foreign-army studies of the Chinese Military Science Academy in Beijing: "Should Gorbachev's domestic reforms be successful, it would be helpful for world peace and stability." But, he quickly adds, "so far we've seen nothing to demonstrate that the Soviet Union has abandoned...
Chinese officials, especially those in the military, remain skeptical. General Jiang Hongji, a retired divisional commander and former military attache in Moscow, says the Soviet pullback "doesn't count for too much in a military sense," since the division that was withdrawn could return on short notice. General Chai Chengwen, first deputy chairman of the Beijing Institute for International Strategic Studies (BIISS), a think tank connected with the National Defense Ministry, says, "The Soviet Union is looking for excuses to delay its withdrawal from Afghanistan." From Deng on down, Chinese spokesmen say that Kampuchea, still occupied by Moscow's Vietnamese...
Nonetheless, General Chai predicts that "if the Soviets continue their domestic reforms and accompanying adjustments in foreign policy, eventually the Three Obstacles will be eliminated and Sino-Soviet relations will be normalized." That could mean, he says, not only a Deng-Gorbachev summit but an exchange of high-level military visits as well. Americans, he adds, should not be alarmed: "For Sino-Soviet relations to be transformed into a more moderate and relaxed state would benefit all humanity...
...foreign policy official of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee predicts that Gorbachev will visit Beijing by 1990: "Two years to remove the two remaining obstacles -- that is a challenge for us, but one we can meet." If so, traveling salesmen will have paved the way for the General Secretary...
Indeed, Dukakis' instincts on foreign policy reflect his political instincts in general. Above all, he is a straight arrow, a good-government reformer whose idealism on occasion comes perilously close to prissiness. He has always been a believer in process more than in ideology, of playing by the proper procedures. Soon after he first arrived in the Massachusetts statehouse, this outlook came crashing into reality: it took a resounding electoral defeat to turn him into a pragmatic politician. When it comes to dealing with the messy and murky challenges of the real world, he cannot count on getting such...