V. President Nixon Visits China - Page 2

Since 1979, some 10 million visitors have come to China. 11,000 Chinese students studied at government expense in 54 foreign countries. An additional 7,000 students studied at their own expense. In 1984, the government adopted patent protection. In 1992, the U.S. and China signed copyright protection laws. In 1984, the Public Security Bureau (Chinese secret police) required all citizens over the age of 16 to carry identity cards keep better track of a moving population. Thus we see a conflicting relaxation of tensions and yet a sense of tightening of them. Crime began to increase, and graft and corruption increased. The legal system started to be better codified and lawyers recruited. Some 57,000 promising army officers received transfers to the civilian sector and given legal training prior to assignment to the court system.

In 1988, Li Peng relieved Zhou Yiyang as premier and Zhou took the post of Party general-secretary. The PLA began to make changes by selling their missiles abroad. Arms sales to Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Saudi Arabia amounted to $5 billion. Hainan Island becomes a province in 1988, as a special economic zone with no visas required by foreign visitors. Taiwan lifted restrictions on visits to the PRC and swarms of Taiwan visitors went to the mainland for the first time in 40 years. While repression continued in China against those who spoke of democracy, nevertheless millions benefited from the reforms and became unabashedly materialistic. The "Three Highs" and the "Eight Bigs" became the goal. The old "Four Musts" no longer enough sufficed. In the past, the "Four Musts" that set the outer limits under Mao had been a bicycle, a radio, a watch, and a sewing machine. In the world of Deng Xiao Ping, the "Eight Bigs" consisted of a color television, a refrigerator, a stereo, a camera, a motorcycle, a suite of furniture, a washing machine, and an electric fan. The "Three Highs" consisted of what a man needed to get a wife: a high salary, an advanced education, and a height over 5 feet six inches. The good life had come to China.