Minxin Pei explains why, even in death, the Soviet Union’s last leader remains an anathema in Beijing.
CLAREMONT,There was a time when well-meaning, if not wishful-thinking, Westerners thought that “China’s Gorbachev” was the highest compliment they could pay a Chinese leader who looked like a reformer. But when Zhu Rongji, the straight-talking mayor of Shanghai, visited the US in July 1990, and some Americans called him that, the future premier was not amused. “I am not China’s Gorbachev,” Zhu reportedly snapped.
