Shanghai Welcome Shanghaied : Gorbachev Exits to Sound of One Last Protest
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev ended his historic four-day visit to China today much as he began it--upstaged by protesting Chinese students.
Gorbachev wound up his trip in Shanghai after a successful Beijing summit during which his handshake with senior leader Deng Xiaoping symbolized the reconciliation of the Communist superpowers.
But his special Aeroflot flight left a city--and a country--convulsed with a growing, student-led campaign for democratic reform.
As during his three days in Beijing, the massive protest forced major alterations in Gorbachev’s schedule, with planned stops in the historic heart of Shanghai canceled because of the demonstrators.
More than 100,000 jubilant people poured into the city center banging drums, blowing whistles and shouting slogans calling for democracy and freedom.
“We are saying what we have been waiting to say for 40 years,” claimed one banner, referring to the 1949 Communist Revolution.
One student marcher held up a banner saying “China needs a Gorbachev” and a group of several hundred students crashed through a police cordon trying to get close to Gorbachev.
But they were miles away from the Soviet leader, who was then laying a wreath at a monument to the great 18th-Century Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.
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