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That said, some columns stick in my mind, often for reasons that won't be apparent to readers. Here are 10 such columns.

The Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 were in large measure sparked by the death of former Secretary General Hu Yaobang. Hu Yaobang's "resignation" from the position of Secretary General of the CPC had been announced on January 16, 1987. His forthright calls for "rapid reform" and his almost open contempt of "Maoist excesses" had made him a suitable scapegoat in the eyes of Deng Xiaoping and others, after the pro-democracy student protests of 1986–1987 (Spence 1999, 685).

However, according to a study done by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, University of Maryland, 74% of Chinese surveyed feel that the free market is the best economic system, the highest percentage among the 20 nations surveyed. For comparison, 71% of people surveyed in the United States felt the same.

JetBlue's Valentine's Day Crisis

If you think Wall Street is doing badly right now, you should see the other guy. The Shanghai Composite is down 37% from its peak. The Shenzhen All Share is off 27%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index is down by a third.

As events in Tibet are showing, the country isn't free.

Zhou's first major domestic focus after becoming premier was China's economy, in a poor state after decades of war. He aimed at increased agricultural production through the even redistribution of land. Industrial progress was also on his to-do list. He additionally initiated the first environmental reforms in China. In government, Mao largely developed policy while Zhou carried it out.

The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was a great blow to Zhou. At its late stages in 1975, he pushed for the "four modernizations" to undo the damage caused by the campaigns.