I met Deng Xiaoping two days later. He was 84 years old, but clearly in command of the situation; for two hours, he spoke freely, without referring to any notes, declaring that relations between our countries had finally been ““normalized.’’ Later that day, I met with Zhao Ziyang, then general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. He himself brought up the Tiananmen protest, which would lead to his own downfall. He complained that ““the students have a naive and simplistic view of things.’’ I replied sympathetically: ““We have our hotheads, too.’’ Then Zhao posed a seemingly rhetorical question: ““Can a one-party system ensure the development of democracy?''
There is much debate about the differences between the way reforms were conducted under my leadership and in China. Those differences were real and, indeed, inevitable. China and Russia have different histories and traditions, and China’s economy was unlike ours in many respects. But it is not quite correct to say that while Deng emphasized economic changes, we focused on political reforms. After all, we too started with an attempt at economic reform. But the entrenched and dogmatic nomenklatura stood in the way of any such attempt and thwarted the economic changes we proposed in 1987.
In the final analysis, I think one cannot democratize the economy while leaving all the rest as it was before. Even within a one-party system, greater pluralism is necessary.
Economic reform was a great success for Deng’s leadership. But the issue of political reform is still there; it has simply been put on hold. Now the Chinese are approaching a stage at which the issue of democratization will become more acute. They will have to conduct political reforms. How are they going to do it? In their own way, I think. We have to hope for the best from this process. All of us have a stake in the stability of the huge world called China.
