Word: li
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Although George Bush's personal ties with China date back to his years as head of the U.S. liaison office in Beijing (1974-75), the President seemed as unsure of the situation as anyone. Bush met with an old tennis-playing crony from his Beijing days, Wan Li, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. Afterward, Bush issued a cautious statement that appeared both to back the students, by saying that the U.S. encouraged the worldwide growth of democracy, and to encourage the government, by vowing that he was committed "to expanding normal and constructive relations...
...match with the President), ostensibly for reasons of health, and headed home. But instead of returning to Beijing, he landed in Shanghai, where he was put up in a guesthouse outside the city -- possibly under house arrest. On Saturday a statement was read on Chinese television saying that Wan Li supported Li Peng -- dashing the hopes of protesters that Wan would convene an emergency session of the National People's Congress to consider Li's removal...
...demanding that the P.L.A. not be used to quell the uprising. "The army must absolutely not shoot the people," it read. Two days later, the military's Liberation Army Daily quoted a letter from the P.L.A. general staff (also dated Monday) urging troops to study carefully a speech by Li Peng denouncing the uprising as a counterrevolutionary threat...
...considerable risk to their careers, 500 intellectuals, including Ba Jin, China's best-known writer, signed a letter denouncing Li and urging an end to press censorship. Until the hard-line faction emerged victorious, China's official press and television reported with neutral accuracy on the pro- democracy demonstrations. By contrast, last Friday's prime-time TV news was constricted to official statements of support for martial...
...apparent triumph of the hard-liners reduces those goals to impossible dreams. But it does not by any means solve Deng's political problems. On the contrary, Li Peng is widely regarded as a drab mediocrity -- and a potential scapegoat for having allowed so much popular discontent to surface. Deng might | try to push him aside once order has been restored. And what price have the hard-liners had to pay to guarantee the military's allegiance? "The party must control the guns," Mao wrote. "The guns must not control the party." But in China's postwar history, the military...