GODFREE ROBERTS—Mao, a passionate developmentalist, had offered to travel to Washington in 1944 to talk with President Roosevelt, “China must develop. This can only be done by free enterprise. Chinese and American interests fit together, economically and politically. America need not fear that we will not be co-operative. We cannot risk any conflict”. Mao’s message never reached the President so, in 1949, he wrote Truman, then Eisenhower. Both ignored him.
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G. ROBERTS—Deng’s withdrawal of Mao’s tuition subsidies crushed the dreams of millions, while his decision to maintain them for African students touched off race riots in Nanjing, where students rampaged through the Africans’ quarters. Beijing students carried banners (“No Offend Chinese Women,” “Kill the foreigners!”), screamed insults at Deng, and marched on Party leaders’ living quarters at Zhongnanhai. Workers echoed students’complaints. One explained that everyone in her industry had much less opportunity to participate within the system than in the 1970s, when meetings were called for every problem and people could raise opinions that today would result in their dismissal. By the Fall, State-owned companies had dumped millions of workers into an unprepared labor market, where inflation consumed their six months severance pay in six weeks.
