There was a gasp in the audience when they heard the difference.

I have been silent a long time. I have been quiet and restrained myself. Now I will cry out like a travailing woman. I will both gasp and pant.

That year marked the last gasp of the authoritarian bureaucratic regime that emerged in the early 1920 s, and that had become so isolated from the public that its legitimacy had evaporated.

Indeed, 23 years after dissident Fang Lizhi took refuge in the US embassy following the crackdown in Tiananmen Square, Chen s only option was to take the same last gasp leap into the arms of American diplomats.