Word: gorbachev
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...China's President, Hu Jintao [July 7], noted that the Communist Party vowed to quadruple China's per-capita income by 2020 but made no promises about advancing democracy or civil rights. The Chinese have learned some lessons from the former Soviet Union. In the 1980s Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, encouraged by Western assurances, pursued glasnost (openness) before perestroika (restructuring) and saw the Soviet Union split apart in 1991. Like the U.S.S.R., China consists of many cultures and ethnic groups. Chinese leaders have decided, very wisely, to pursue their policies in the right sequence. They will safeguard their territorial integrity...
...organized," says an American official. "They're not happy, and they're saying, 'I told you so.'" But Blair is still stuck with the mess. A trip next month to Washington to pick up a gold medal from Congress for his steadfast support is being managed to minimize the "Gorbachev effect" - getting applause abroad for things unpopular at home. And no matter how Iraq resolves, it is likely to be Blair's last big foreign adventure. There's no other place Bush might fight where he will follow. That leaves Blair the hard slog of Labour's core mission: fixing...
China still has a long way to go. Beijing even now has been less forthcoming than the Soviets were during their crisis 16 years ago. Mikhail Gorbachev finally admitted that Chernobyl was a disaster (with some caveats, to be sure) 18 days after the explosion; Beijing is still being less than honest about SARS, unless you really believe that, as of last week, there were just two cases of the disease in Shanghai (pop. 17 million). Chernobyl eventually helped promote positive change in the Soviet Union as citizens grasped just how awful the system had become. Gorbachev realized that "even...
...before he himself got seriously ill that I must be prepared to assume the highest responsibility one day. I knew what he meant. He tried to ensure that event. In December 1983, two months before his death, Andropov sent a written message to the Central Committee plenum, suggesting that "Gorbachev should be entrusted with actual leadership." I did not know that he did this. And neither did the plenum. In 1988, I learned that Chernenko had simply cut off that part of the message and concealed it. And so he became General Secretary. If Chernenko did not exist...
Elsewhere in the issue, we mark our 80th anniversary by looking at the past eight decades and picking 80 days that changed the world, an idea that grew out of the impact of 9/11. Mikhail Gorbachev recounts for us his first day on the job running the disintegrating Soviet Union--and how he broke the news to his wife Raisa the night before he accepted the post. Robert McNamara takes us inside the White House on the pivotal day of the Cuban missile crisis, while Betty Friedan describes the scene at an official Washington lunch where she and some colleagues...