Economic Reform

WILMINGTON, Del. -- In 1992, the United States promised Russia to help with the difficult task of economic reform. There was talk of assistance involving tens of billions of dollars, but in the end only $4 billion was given.Still, had that money been spent wisely, economic reform would have alleviated life for Russians, half of whom are worse off economically now than under communism. Instead, however, most of this money was used to provide corporate welfare to politically connected American companies.

KIEV, Ukraine -- After a Moscow summit shadowed by fighting in Chechnya and quick criticism from Republicans in Washington, President Clinton flew to Ukraine yesterday for a little uncomplicated cheer and mutual congratulation.The United States' relations with Ukraine have recently taken a sharp upward turn, and the president and his team seemed happy to flaunt the improvement -- and also send a message back to Moscow, a reminder to Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin that Russia isn't the only player in the region.

MOSCOW -- Ukraine, where President Clinton arrives today, was for three years the place where the post-Soviet disaster was supposed to unfold -- but somehow never did.A year ago the country was hopelessly split along regional and ethnic lines. It had made no efforts at economic reform, its energy bills were skyrocketing, its finances a shambles. It faced a breakaway movement in the Crimea and nothing but difficulties in its relations with Russia.None of those problems has been solved. But Ukrainians have fended off total collapse, and the government installed in July finally seems to have found the will to push for economic reform.

BEIJING -- Chen Yun, one of China's most powerful Communist Party leaders and a leading opponent of the scope and pace of economic reforms in recent years, died yesterday at the age of 90, government officials confirmed today.A spokesman for the Chinese State Council said Mr. Chen, patron of China's hard-line Premier Li Peng, died in a Beijing hospital yesterday afternoon.The tough, outspoken Mr. Chen, a former typesetter in Shanghai and leader of the 1927 Shanghai insurrection, was a longtime ally of Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping.

The trouble with this book begins with the title. It is too early to pass judgment on Russian economic reforms. And if an interim judgment must be pronounced, it should be that reforms have begun to work reasonably well, filling long-empty shops with goods, propelling millions of workers into the private sector, and, in recent months, beginning to boost living standards.Mr. Goldman, of Wellesley College and Harvard's Russian Research Center, has for a decade been one of America's best-known Sovietologists.

BEIJING -- In an effort to assess China's shaky reform program, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is in the midst of a five-day tour of Beijing and Shanghai.The head of the U.S. central bank is meeting his Chinese counterparts, as well as senior Communist Party and government leaders.Mr. Greenspan did not make public his impressions of the meetings, but a source in his delegation said the purpose of his trip was twofold: to demonstrate U.S. support for the capitalist-style economic reforms, which some observers feel are in danger of derailing, and to assess the economic prospects of the world's most dynamic -- and potentially most chaotic -- economy.

BEIJING -- Ask old Qiu Liuren at the market how it's going and you get an unexpected earful."We ordinary people can hardly keep up. Inflation's eating us up at both ends. The customers are cutting back, and we're not able to buy as much either. It's tough right now," said the 62-year-old peanut vendor.Those are words to make a good mandarin cringe. A year since the government clamped economic controls on China's runaway economy, inflation is almost as strong as ever. Add to that gripes about corruption and rising unemployment, and you begin to understand why the government fears that citizens are being pushed too far, too fast by its program of economic reforms.

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine is heading into the first round of presidential elections tomorrow in a state of national wariness and suspicion.The candidate most likely to emerge the winner is the current president, Leonid Kravchuk, a former Communist Party apparatchik who presided over 2 1/2 years of economic collapse and is now running as the champion of radical economic reform -- even though he just appointed a Communist as prime minister.In a country so deeply divided that it would seem to have no chance of hanging together, Mr. Kravchuk is also a man who, geographically, has made a complete switch of sides.

Beijing. -- America's frustrated in Asia these days.The U.S. triumph in the Cold War in Europe has been quickly tempered by a wide range of trans-Pacific conflicts with newly self-confident Asian states increasingly willing to defy America's will.Many in Asia believe that America's problems in the region are bound to multiply unless the country adopts a far less haughty approach as it moves into what has been dubbed the "Pacific Century.""The crux of the problem is, you have a missionary, messianic zeal, which is not equal to the task of changing the world," Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding father and senior minister, told The Sun in a recent interview.

An intriguing aspect in the tug-of-war over economic reform in Russia is the quiet re-emergence of two old Gorbachev advisers. After three years in the political wilderness, Leonid Abalkin, a former Soviet vice premier, and his right-hand man, Nikolai Petrakov, have been called back to advise the government on straightening out the economy.Their return does not mean that Mikhail S. Gorbachev is on the way back. He is universally scorned in Russia. But now that Economics Chief Yegor Gaidar and Finance Minister Boris Fyodorov have been ousted and their radical Western advisers have resigned, the Russian government is unmistakably abandoning bold monetarist reform in favor of more cautious steps.