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elements which they now enjoy. Leaving the way open for talks with the non-official student bodies may in this
context provide a useful means of defusing the situation.
But neither do the students have a clearly worked out
programme. Calls for greater democracy and freedom of the press may be useful rallying cries but they do not
easily translate into something the authorities could
reasonably offer.
3.
The authorities will be pleased that they have been
able to contain the situation so far. But they must be
increasingly anxious to bring the demonstrations to an
end. They would certainly not wish Mr Gorbachev to be
confronted with the sight of large numbers of students
demonstrating in favour of democracy. They have already
been embarrassed by the way this has overshadowed the
meeting of the Asian Development Bank in Peking which has
been attended by Nationalist Officials from Taiwan for
the first time in forty years. The nearer
Mr Gorbachev's visit comes the more likely they are to react firmly and if so, very probably, violently to
demonstrations.
4.
They will also be relieved that, despite evident
sympathy from the people of Peking, the demonstrations
have not spread to any significant extent to other
sections of society. But a bloody confrontation would be just the spark needed to win the students active rather than passive sympathy.
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