An Opening to the Middle Kingdom

• Share

(3 of 3)

A self-described salesman, Reagan could not resist preaching the virtues of democracy to his Chinese audiences. At Fudan University, he sounded like a solicitous parent: "I draw your attention to what I am about to say," he told 500 students, who sat rapt and serious, "because it is so important to an understanding of my country. We believe in the dignity of each man, woman and child." Then he quoted from the Declaration of Independence. Reagan, who had earlier visited the excavation site of the vast terra cotta army protecting the tomb of the Emperor Qin, warned that the two nations must "escape the fate of the buried armies of Xian—the buried warriors who stood for centuries frozen in time, frozen in unknowing enmity." The Fudan students, most of whom understood English, interrupted his speech nine times with applause. At the end, Reagan, his actor's head bobbing, clapped back. He told the students, "I just go home with a dream in my heart that we have started a friendship between two great peoples."

Chinese authorities, who had censored his anti-Soviet remarks from national television broadcasts the week before, beamed his Fudan speech live on Shanghai television, though without translation. Official press accounts the next day, however, omitted his references not only to the Declaration of Independence, but to the Bible and the contributions of two Chinese immigrants to the U.S., Architect I.M. Pei and Computer Entrepreneur An Wang.

Reagan's great leap forward with the Chinese was actually a return to the more amicable ties established by Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter. In his first two years in office, Reagan neglected the People's Republic and boosted arms sales to Taiwan, despite a 1982 promise by the U.S. not to do so. Taiwan, Deng warned Reagan last week, remains a "knot" in Sino-American relations.

The President's trip brought a personal flavor to the growing rapprochement. Having spent time with Deng and the rest of the top echelon, said a White House aide, "the President sees them as human beings, not as some anonymous red horde." For Deng, the "most important progress is that I met the President for the first time." A major concern of U.S. diplomats is whether Deng, 79, will be able to install a new generation of leaders who share his distrust of the Soviets and fascination with free enterprise. If he cannot, the door to the Middle Kingdom could slam shut as quickly as it opened. —By Evan Thomas. Reported by Robert Ajemian and Laurence I. Barrett with the President