Word: shangkun
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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DIED. YANG SHANGKUN, 91, former Chinese President and unreconstructed Marxist who in 1989 gave the order for the People's Liberation Army to fire on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square; in Beijing. A veteran of the Long March, Shangkun was an acolyte of Mao Zedong, and later his victim, imprisoned for 12 years during the Cultural Revolution. Rehabilitated in 1978, he was put in charge of the army by longtime revolutionary compatriot Deng Xiaoping...
...National People's Congress now under way, Jiang Zemin, 67, the current party general secretary, is scheduled to become the fifth President of the People's Republic. Some observers expect that example to spread down the ranks. Coincidentally, when Jiang takes over from retiring Yang Shangkun, 86, it will mark the first postrevolutionary Chinese government without a single prominent veteran of the famed 1934-35 Long March led by Mao. The passage of time has made that separation at last irreversible...
...make room for younger leaders, eight of the Politburo's 14 members, are to retire; all are over 65. Among them: President Yang Shangkun, Vice Premier Yao Yilin and Defense Minister Qin Jiwei. None of this indicates that China's rulers are contemplating any political relaxation. Yang and others who are leaving the Politburo will retain their government positions and their grip on power...
Baker held marathon talks with Qian, President Yang Shangkun, Premier Li and party chief Jiang Zemin, ticking off U.S. concerns about political repression, arms sales, the trade imbalance, North Korea. A senior State Department official, recalling Baker's eight months of shuttle diplomacy that led to the Middle East peace talks in Madrid, called the discussions in Beijing "every bit as tough and difficult, if not tougher." At one point President Yang told the secretary that some problems "cannot be solved for the time being, and the two sides may well leave them aside." On the eve of his departure...
...visit will be laden with symbols lending themselves to manipulation by the Beijing government. Scenes of Baker at Tiananmen Square or meeting with Chinese President Yang Shangkun offer poignant snapshots of the Chinese leadership's renewed respectability. Whatever the secretary of state discusses with the Beijing leadership, whether human rights, arms proliferations, or trade concerns, the Chinese citizenry will be presented with one view: that the United States needs Beijing...