After the Malta meeting, Scowcroft flew secretly to Beijing, where he shook hands with “the butchers of Tiananmen” and assured the Chinese leaders that nothing would affect the Sino-American partnership. The Chinese accepted American reassurances almost indifferently. They were openly contemptuous of Gorbachev’s policies. The Kremlin leader, said the Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, wanted to build a new order, but he could not maintain stability in his own country. Qian also shared some surprising news with Scowcroft: the Soviets had asked China, a very poor country, to lend them money.
