Eric's Beijing Diary

It's late. Or early, depending on how you look at it. I am sitting here listening to Reagan's funeral on NPR. I don't know if I have time to hear the whole thing, but I wanted to hear what Maggie had to say. Her doctor would not let her deliver her eulogy live, so I was a little concerned about how she would be. I needn't have worried. Baroness Thatcher was her old magnificent self. Listening to her brings home one very interesting fact about the eighties. When I asked the freshman students in Langfang why Reagan was a great man, one of them said that he was great because he changed his world. With the exception of Muammar Qaddafi, most world leaders view Reagan as a very important figure in the modern history of the United States. After all, he brought an end to the cold war. But what is often missed is that Reagan was very lucky. He happened to be in power at a time when there were some other very unusual figures on the world stage.

First to come to mind, of course, is Margaret Thatcher. A woman of incredible resolve, and razor-keen perspective. It is hard to fully appreciate the effect she had on her world without examining the malaise that afflicted Britain before she entered office, but I really don't have time to address that part of the story. Sitting here in Beijing, I find most significant the role she played in ensuring that the return of Hong Kong to China would be done in such a way as to preserve the way of life that the people of Hong Kong, as British subjects, had come to expect.

Growing up in the cold war, I was completely unprepared for a man like Gorbachev. I guess I just had not dare to hope that there could be a change so fundamental. The change had actually started quite a bit earlier. I think it began with Kruschev's repudiation of Stalin, but really matured during the "Prague Spring" of 1968, when Alexander Dubcek began his moderate rule of Checkoslovakia. America was very interested in this development, because America had become accustomed to the frigid atmosphere of mistrust and animosity we all knew as the "Cold War." But Dubcek really had no reason to be anti-American, and plenty of reason not to be. His parents were both American citizens. I will never forget when the Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in August. In the West, most people just shrugged their shoulders and resigned themselves to the status quo they had come (perhaps too easily) to accept. Dubchek was expelled from the party and spent the next eighteen years as a clerk in a lumber yard. Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife Raisa were close personal friends of Dubcek, and certainly sympathetic with his approach. Boris Yeltsin liked to call Gorbachev the "lover of half-steps." But I think perhaps he did not give Gorbachev enough credit. Everything that Boris Yeltsin did was made possible because of everything that Gorbachev did.

Finally, of course, Deng Xiaoping was determined to build a China that was much more pragmatic than it had been ("Who cares whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice."). Deng was not a newcomer by any means. He had been with Mao since the beginning. But there were issues that separated them. In general terms, it was Deng's pragmatism, which was always a source of irritation to Mao. But in the end, the rift between Mao and Deng centered around the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). To the very end, Mao considered it his crowning achievement. Deng thought it was a disaster. During his visit to the United States in 1979, actress Shirley Mclaine told him about a discussion she had had with a nuclear scientist who told her how rewarding it was to be sent to the countryside. Deng said simply, "He lied."

During their negotiations on Hong Kong, it was Deng who offered to Margaret Thatcher the option of a 50 year interlude during which there would be "one country with two systems." This broke the deadlock and they were able to reach an agreement. That story isn't over, of course, because there is still lots of debate about what level of self-determination the people of Hong Kong should enjoy, but I believe that history will thank Margaret Thatcher for creating the deadlock, and Deng for bringing it to an end.