World, Thoughts, Flummoxed

There has just been a mass fight along the border between India and China. Unfortunately, the extreme nationalism within China could lead to a majority believing the propaganda. Metaphorically, it is a severe headache for the Indian prime minister, who also has to deal with Pakistan disputing a border very close by. In terms of China, he is doubtlessly aware that the PLA and the PRC government are far less likely to restrain themselves.

June 4th is the anniversary of the culmination of a protest movement that had been in place since April. Rather bizarrely, it was the death of senior political figure Hu Yaobang which concentrated the minds of many on the nature of the Peoples' Republic of China.  Deng Xiaoping (left) with Hu Yaobang who had a coincidentally Mao-style haircut. 1989 is also the year in which authoritarianism collapsed in eastern Europe, which can be partially credited to the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev, whose implied policy of "non-interference" meant that the Soviet army would not be used to suppress the general public or even physically crush them, as had happened in 1968. The politburo of the Communist Party of China had been divided since the PRC had been founded 40 years earlier. Paramount leader Deng Xiaoping was a semi-reformist who had done away with the brutal chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Despite being more open minded than his extreme predecessor Mao Zedong, he could be per