Fang Lizhi
One of Bush's priorities was strengthening relations between the U.S. and the People's Republic of China (PRC), and Bush had developed a warm relationship with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping prior to taking office. Despite the personal rapport between Bush and Deng, human rights issues presented a serious challenge to Bush's China policy. In mid-1989, students and other individuals protested in favor of democracy and intellectual freedom across two hundred cities in the PRC. In June 1989, the People's Liberation Army violently suppressed a demonstration in Beijing in what became known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Bush was eager to maintain good relations with the PRC, which had drawn increasingly closer to the United States since the 1970s, but he was outraged by the PRC's handling of the protests. In response to the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the United States imposed economic sanctions and cut military ties. However, Bush also decided that Tiananmen should not interrupt Sino-U.S. relations. Thus he secretly sent special envoy Brent Scowcroft to Beijing to meet with Deng, and, the economic sanctions that had been levied against China were lifted. George Washington University revealed that, through high-level secret channels on 30 June 1989, the US government conveyed to the government of the People's Republic of China that the events around the Tiananmen Square protests were an "internal affair". Fang Lizhi and his wife remained in the US Embassy until 25 June 1990, when they were allowed by Chinese authorities to leave the embassy and board a U.S. Air Force C-135 transport plane to Britain. This resolution partly came about after confidential negotiations between Henry Kissinger, acting on behalf of US President Bush, and Deng. Other factors were a false confession by Fang, an attempted intervention by Scowcroft, and an offer from the Japanese government to resume loans to the PRC in return for the resolution of "the Fang Lizhi problem."