Word: yaobang
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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China's top military leaders have not always gone along with Deng's changes. Last year Deng, 83, was forced to remove his chosen successor, Hu Yaobang, from his most important offices partly because he was seen as antimilitary. His successor, Zhao Ziyang, is also a reformer, but one who is apparently acceptable to the PLA. When the new ranking system takes effect in the fall, Zhao is considered a strong candidate for promotion to senior general, the highest military grade...
...flaw in Deng's retirement plan was that he bet on the wrong man. His handpicked successor, Hu Yaobang, 72, a keen reformer, was dismissed as party leader in January for failing to control student demonstrators who were demanding freedom and democracy...
When students took to the streets late last year to press for greater democratization, the warning signal was not lost on China's leadership. Hu Yaobang, a onetime disciple of Deng's, was forced to step down as party leader in January, admitting to "political errors" for failing to contain the protests, and the party pursued a campaign against "bourgeois liberalism." Chinese officials worry about the growing number of cases of corruption, fraud, theft and prostitution that have come to light since the reforms began. The outside world cannot be blamed for all such symptoms of social malaise. Says...
Zhao has also been the party's acting general secretary since Hu Yaobang was ousted last winter. He said he does not want the job permanently...
...Khrushchev was swept from power 23 years ago for attempting reforms far less daring than Gorbachev's. More recently, when Deng Xiaoping's economic liberalization in China began to spill over into the political sphere, hard-liners rose up and forced the ouster of reformist Communist Party Chief Hu Yaobang early this year. Even if such internal party opposition does not stop Gorbachev, how far can he push change without unleashing democratic forces that could ultimately destabilize Soviet society? Mindful of that danger, Gorbachev warned the editors and propagandists that openness "is not an attempt to undermine socialism...