Good Behavior

Beijing frees two dissidents and opens its oil fields to the West

THE GESTURES GAVE NEW MEANING TO DENG XIAOping's "kaifang" (opening up) slogan. China's prison police released two student leaders who spearheaded the Tiananmen protests in 1989, freeing former Peking University student Wang Dan, 23, four months before the end of his four-year sentence and paroling graduate student Guo Haifeng, 27, three months early. Why the leniency? Because such gestures might help Beijing attract the Olympics in 2000 and pre-empt moves by the Clinton Administration to link human rights with the granting of most- favored-nation trade status.

"The Chinese know they have to wipe off stains on their hands before they can...

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