CONFIDENTIAL
The Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Howe QC MP
etc. etc. etc.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London
SW1
BRITISH EMBASSY,
PEKING.
26 January 1987
Sir,
ANNUAL REVIEW: CHINA
China: Internal
If I had written this despatch at the end of December, I would
have been able to cover the student demonstrations which took place in many Chinese cities during the month. But I would not have been able to write about either the past or the future in the light of what followed: the biggest political upheaval in China
since the end of 1978.
2.
During January, the leadership launched a campaign against "bourgeois liberalisation" within and outside the Chinese Communist Party and Hu Yaobang was sacked as General-Secretary of the Central Committee. Although there is still a lot to learn about the causes, proximate and otherwise, of these developments, it is already clear that Deng Xiaoping believes that the principal threat to his policies now comes more from the right than from the left and that the time has come to make it clear that reform does not
mean that he has in mind, or will tolerate, the emergence of a plural political system in China or the re-emergence of capitalism.
-
3.
Whether the campaign against "bourgeois liberalisation" will lead to much rather than somewhat colder political weather
remains to be seen. It also remains to be seen whether the campaign will lead to a slowing-up of reform in the economic sphere.
/As
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