It seems highly likely, therefore, that during his intensive meetings in Moscow last week with Lithuanian Communist Party leader Algirdas Brazauskas and ten of his senior associates, Gorbachev elaborated on Gerasimov's implied threat of economicretaliation.
An important straw in the wind concerning Moscow's coming economicretaliation for Baltic restiveness may have been last summer's decision by the Soviet Ministry for Energy to eliminate funds for a second pipeline to Mazeikiai from the USSR.
An outright rejection of the sanctions would lead to a confrontation with the United States, and Beijing knows Washington brandishes economic tools that would make for harsh retaliation indeed one that China is highly unlikely to invite upon itself.