Official refusal to discuss the Tiananmen Square massacre cannot mute the significance and power of that day, writes CLIFFORD COONANin Beijing
THURSDAY MARKS the 20th anniversary of the June 4th crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, a time of dramatic upheaval that still resonates in China today.
Near the square yesterday, workmen were preparing Chang’an Avenue, the Avenue of Eternal Peace, for a huge parade to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Communist Party’s accession to power, but the June 4th massacre will be marked with tight-lipped silence and a steadfast official refusal to revisit the events of that day.
Shiny Mercedes and Buicks now swish along the road at the point on the avenue where a lone and unknown protester stood in front of the tanks with his shopping bags 20 years ago, briefly halting the advance of the People’s Liberation Army.
The Communist Party has forbidden discussion of the events of that day nearly 20 years ago, and the official line is that the crackdown, officially called “the political incident” was necessary to ensure stability.
“Facts have proven that the socialist road with Chinese characteristics that we pursue is in the fundamental interests of our people and it reflects the aspirations of the entire nation,” was how foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu put it late last month.
China is a very different place these days. Since 1989, the government has begun to implement some of the freedoms the students had sought, such as getting rid of rules dictating where Chinese could live or work and even the person they could marry.
The last two decades of astonishing economic advances have taken millions out of desperate poverty and given a generation of Chinese a say in their destinies. One of the students’ key demands was for an end to the corruption that blighted daily life in China.
The Chinese government is engaged in a highly public campaign to crack down on the corruption which it once denied existed, though in the absence of a free media or speech, critics say the campaign is doomed to fail.
But some things have not changed. All power in China flows exclusively from the Communist Party and independent political activity is forbidden. Nearly all of China’s active dissidents have been exiled or imprisoned.
Wang Dan was a history student at Peking University and was one of the most famous leaders in Tiananmen Square.
After the crackdown, he was arrested and jailed twice, before going into exile in the US.
“China has changed a lot but it’s only in one perspective and that is the economic perspective. I admit there’s been strong growth, but it’s an unhealthy growth,” Wang says.” It is based on social injustice and also based on the one-party system.
“If the western countries want to observe what’s going on in China, they must bear in mind that this is a market economy but it’s a very unique market economy because it’s a one-party system.
“All of this situation can be linked back to the 1989 crackdown and the biggest problem of these past 20 years is that the economy decided everything. And in this way, the economy destroyed the morality.”
The crackdown has become an increasingly historical problem.
Students entering university this year were not born when the massacre happened and even this year’s graduating class were small children when it took place.
Many of them are unaware of the political movement that captured the attention of the world 20 years ago.
“Because of what they have done, reform of the Chinese political system has stagnated for 20 years,” says Pu Ziqiang, a lawyer who was on the square as a student.
“In the last 20 years I have suffered threats and harassment by the police,” Pu says. “Everything the police do to me is illegal. During those 20 years, I also have thought a lot. In my view, what we called ‘democracy’ was kind of empty at that time. ‘Democracy’ is specific and concrete.
“We did not have a clear target. It contained more emotion than reason. But the government did not treat us properly. It was a crime,” Pu continues.
“Now my hope is that the government will carry out a thorough investigation of the June 4th movement to solve this incident and to create understanding in our society.”
Last year’s Charter 08 campaign, a petition calling for legal and political reform, was the closest thing to a pro-democracy movement that China has seen for years. One of the chief architects of Charter 08 and one of China’s best-known intellectual critics, Liu Xiaobo, has been detained.
Liu spent two years in prison for his role in supporting the Tiananmen students. Liu also prevented more bloodshed by successfully negotiating with the army the evacuation of the last remaining students on Tiananmen Square in the early morning of June 4th.
The San Francisco-based rights group Dui Hua estimates that 30 people remain in prison for offences related to the Tiananmen crackdown. The prisoners – then mostly young workers – were jailed for burning army trucks, stealing equipment or attacking soldiers as the military advanced toward the protesters.
Cui Weiping, a professor at the Beijing Film Academy, recently presented a paper at a seminar in which she called for open discussion of the events of that day. “What kind of negative impact has it had on our society for us to keep silent and to conceal the event for two decades? How has it harmed the spirit and morality of this nation?” she wrote.
“If the situation remains the same for another 10 years, June 4th will no longer be a crime that was committed by a small group of people, but one that we all participated in.
The possibility of a public demonstration on Thursday to commemorate the crackdown is very unlikely. The only signs will be people wearing white, China’s traditional colour of mourning.
Tomorrow, Clifford Coonan talks to mothers who lost their children during the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square.