Gorbachev at Great Wall: Great Play in Soviet Media

Soviet television viewers were treated Wednesday to pictures of their president strolling along the Great Wall of China and joking with young people about Chinese cooking.

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s visit to China dominated the state-run media, taking up all 45 minutes of the evening television news program “Vremya” and most of the first two pages of the government newspaper Izvestia.

State-run television showed Gorbachev’s speech to Chinese intellectuals before its evening news program, and his news conference in Beijing after the news program was over, giving viewers several hours of virtually uninterrupted coverage of Gorbachev’s visit.

The news broadcast also carried Gorbachev’s interview with Chinese correspondents and reports on the activities of his wife, Raisa, and of Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze.

Images of Gorbachev

Many of the images of Gorbachev at the Great Wall showed him talking to young people. Students are at the heart of the protests for democratic reform in China that have turned into a defiance of authoritarian rule unseen in 40 years of Communist rule.

Official Soviet television did not show pictures of demonstrators on Beijing’s Tian An Men Square as it did on Monday night.

In the televised report, Gorbachev said repeatedly he was impressed by the desire of Chinese youth for better relations with the Soviet Union.

“This has been preserved not only among the old, but the young as well. This is very important,” Gorbachev told a Soviet television interview. “This is my strongest impression.”

The Soviet leader has been careful in his public statements not to get into the middle of the dispute between protesters and the Chinese government .

At one point, talking with Chinese young people at the Great Wall, Gorbachev reached out to hug a young woman. At another point, talking about Chinese food, he said: “It is said Chinese cooking is some of the best in the world. Now I can confirm that.”

Gorbachev said he hopes Chinese students will once again come to Moscow to study, as they had done before the rift 30 years ago between the Communist giants.