Word: likes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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While stories like these are everywhere in China, few people but the most emotional predict the regime's imminent collapse -- or even want it. Most who do so live in Beijing, but in this respect at least, the capital seems as representative of China as Manhattan...
...Chengdu, a drab city where the sun rarely shines more than 60 days a year. Instead of smoking and no-smoking sections -- almost everyone in China smokes -- this teahouse sets aside tables for those who want coffee. Unfortunately, we are at one of them. Drinking Chinese coffee is like drinking hot water with a distant memory of caffeine; there is an atavistic link somewhere, but it is not coffee...
...succession, then all bets are off for Deng and his cronies," says the Chengdu professor. "Deng got the point that Communism doesn't work, that it tries to change human nature. He got the point about incentive. The problem is that many of the other old guys don't like his views and never have. And right now they are trying to force a serious turn back, and they're using the ammunition of a faltering economy. Well, the macroeconomic numbers are indeed bad, but most people have conveniences they have never had and never dreamed they would have...
...closer to the mark today. The economy's course is uncertain. Provincial and municipal governments will surely pursue their own interests despite efforts to restrain them. The party, with its ideology bankrupt, offers only order and is begging for faith -- and not getting it. How long can a government like that retain control and stay in power? "A regime that . . . is forced to fire on the young, who protest in the name of liberty," said French President Francois Mitterrand after Tiananmen, "has no future...
...others, the old man was exercising his birds -- by illusion. The men walked about and swung their birdcages. The movement is said to convince the birds inside that they are free. "We trick them, you know," he said. "How long can they stay fooled? Who knows? Maybe they hope. Like us. We hope. I hope. But you know, in China it is dangerous to hope. Your heart is always being broken." I said I knew...