Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (122 page)

The level of concern can perhaps be measured by the extent to which the Chinese public was kept in the dark about the turmoil in Romania. When Ceau
escu ordered his troops to fire on civilians on December 17, 1989, the Chinese press did not report his action, but four days later simply reported that Ceau
escu had declared a state of emergency in order to protect socialism from terrorist activities. When it became more difficult to avoid reporting on the huge Romanian clashes, the Chinese press only acknowledged that some windows in the office of the New China News Agency (Xinhua) in Bucharest had been shattered by bullets. And on December 27, two days after Ceau
escu had been executed, the
People's Daily
noted in a single sentence on the lower part of page 4: “Romanian television announced on December 25 that the Romanian Special Military Court had condemned Ceau
escu and his wife to death and had carried out the sentence.”
⁴⁵
Brent Scowcroft, who was in Beijing at the time, said that Chinese leaders who had frequently praised Ceau
escu as proof that communism could survive a liberal onslaught panicked when they heard about the events in Romania.
⁴⁶

For Deng, the execution of Ceau
escu was particularly disturbing. Ceau
escu had pinned the golden star of the Socialist Republic of Romania, Romania's highest award, on Deng during his visit to China in October 1985. As early as July 1965, when China still had some links with the Warsaw Pact, Deng and Ceau
escu had shared their views on how to achieve their common desire to gain greater independence from the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Ceau
escu had been allowed to address mass audiences during his visits to China in 1982 and 1985. And it was during Ceau
escu's 1985 visit that Deng had asked him to convey to Gorbachev the conditions for improving Sino-Soviet relations, paving the way for Gorbachev's visit to Beijing in 1989.
⁴⁷
The
People's Daily
in early September 1989 quoted from an interview with Ceau
escu in which he declared, “Cooperation between Communist parties and socialist countries should be made stronger than ever before.”
⁴⁸
Meanwhile,
Referenced News
contained detailed translations of Western reports—reports not available to the general public—that described growing opposition to Ceau
descu.
⁴⁹