Word: hued
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...change while remaining wary of political reforms. Personal experiences during the chaotic Mao years, particularly the anarchy of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), convinced Deng that even a modest amount of dissent could rapidly spin out of control. Uneasily, he let his protege explore possible avenues of change. Under Hu, members of the Communist Party went so far as to question the party's right to rule, and they encouraged greater freedom of expression among artists and intellectuals...
There seems little doubt that Deng personally engineered Hu's downfall. The two men, who have been friends and ideological allies for 40 years, are said to have bitterly quarreled in recent weeks. Deng reportedly berated Hu for failing to take effective and decisive action to stop the student protests. Hu also crossed Deng by standing up for writers who have been critical of the party and its rigid policies...
However rancorous the exchanges between China's two top leaders may have been, it is unlikely that Deng acted impetuously over a clash of wills. In pushing Hu from the No. 2 spot, Deng knew he would destroy his own carefully crafted succession scheme and fuel a conservative backlash that could present serious obstacles for his economic reforms. Deng's move may have been defensive, a pre-emptive strike designed to stop conservative forces, which were revving up to exploit the student demonstrations by seeking to roll back the economic and social reforms. In short, it is quite possible that...
Even before Hu's ouster, the crackdown on dissent was under way. Early last week three prominent intellectuals were singled out for "bourgeois tendencies." On Monday it was announced on television that Astrophysicist Fang Lizhi, charged with defaming party leaders and slandering socialism, had been dismissed from his post as vice president at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, where the student protests began in early December. Fang's boss Guan Weiyan was charged with failing to keep Fang in line and was similarly dumped from his job. Writer Wang Ruowang, scolded for maintaining liberal ideas, was expelled...
Still, the atmosphere in Peking last week was redolent of more repressive days. Hu's public demotion was certainly not as cruel as the brutal treatment he received during the Cultural Revolution, when his head was shaved and he was forced to crawl on his hands and knees. But the painful return to forced self-criticism did not seem far off when Hu owned up last week to "mistakes on major issues of political principles." China's newspapers also ran self- criticism, bizarrely apologizing for stories written last fall. No less chilling was the group of scientists who appeared...