Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China's post-Mao stability and the
man who ordered the massacre at Tiananmen Square, died just short
of his stated goal of seeing the return of Hong Kong to China on July 1,
1997. Jiang led China in celebrating Hong Kong's return to Chinese
control. For Jiang, 1999 was also a banner year because in December
of that year the former Portuguese colony of Macao was also returned
to China.
The honeymoon period between China and the Western world came
to an abrupt end in 1989 after the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The
disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 deprived the United States
and China of the common foe that had in the 1970s driven them into
each other's arms in the first place, and the two countries were soon
eyeing each other resentfully and suspiciously. Relations between
China and the United States grew increasingly rocky during the
1990s as the United States and China began thinking of each other
more as rivals than allies or strategic partners. From China's perspec-
tive, the American-dominated Western world seemed to be harassing
and criticizing China constantly about anything and everything,
including its human rights abuses, its oppression of Tibet, its mistreat-
ment of girl orphans, its burgeoning trade deficits, and its piracy of
foreign intellectual property (including CDs, videotapes, movies,
books, and computer program software). Beijing flew into a towering
rage in 1995 and fulminated against Britain in its newspapers for
weeks when Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, held
free elections for the colony's Legislative Council and introduced other
democratic institutions. (Beijing dissolved the Legislative Council
immediatelyafterittookcontrolofHongKonginJuly1997and
replaced it with its own Provisional Legislature packed with
unelected, pro-Beijing appointees.) Also in 1995, Beijing was infuriated
that the United States granted a travel visa to Lee Teng-hui, President
of the Republic of China on Taiwan. Lee's purpose in going to the
United States was to give an address at his Ph.D. alma mater, Cornell
University. But Beijing perceived ulterior motives behind Lee's trip
and excoriated him and the American government for weeks over his
brief visit to the United States. During the flap over Lee's visit, the
campus of Nanjing University was plastered with government posters
denouncing Lee and the United States. Ordinary university students,
however, seemed to care very little about their government's
anti-American tirades and were consistently friendly and polite to
American students.
Paranoia in the Chinese leadership and populace grew in the 1990s
as more and more people became convinced that the United States
