THOUSANDS OF children clad in violet, red and green approach the podium at high speed across the huge thoroughfare between Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, where senior Communist Party cadres, international diplomats and foreign and domestic journalists have just watched a vast display of China's rising power pass by, to mark six decades of the People's Republic of China., writes CLIFFORD COONANfrom Beijing
The tanks and missile-launchers have just gone past, and we are waiting for the next stage. A wag among the journalists quotes the scene in the film 300 where the Spartan king, Leonidas, says: “This is where we hold them! This is where we fight! This is where they die!”
Then the children run, waving pompoms and applauding loudly, and the attack is over.
These children are not all Communist Youth League members, but they are aware of the fact that the Communist Party is the only show in town in China, and after 60 years of rule, the party is probably more popular than ever.
The children have sat down in Tiananmen Square, site of the brutal crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in 1989, but for them it is simply the central plaza in a city of some 18 million people. They have waited since before dawn to cheer and dance and sing for the arrival of the parade.
The atmosphere is similar to that in Dublin’s Phoenix Park in 1979 when Pope John Paul II came to visit. It is a mixture of expectation (after vast preparations), curiosity and belief. A million people are said to have seen the pontiff in Phoenix Park, a crowd of truly Chinese proportions.
Comparisons between the Communist Party in China and the role Roman Catholicism used to play in Ireland are crass, but useful, in explaining why communism is so popular in China, and why the party has about 76 million members. Communism functions as a secular way of motivating the people, just as Catholicism did, in a religious way, in Ireland for so long.
The analogy is particularly useful in explaining why the regime’s founding father, the late Chairman Mao Zedong, is again so popular, even though he fell out of favour for inspiring the period of ideological frenzy known as the Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976, which destroyed millions of lives in China. Mao is also held responsible for the Great Leap Forward, a disastrous agricultural experiment that caused a famine in which millions died.
The official view of Mao these days is that he was 70 per cent good, 30 per cent bad. His portrait still gazes down on Tiananmen Square in downtown Beijing. He is invoked on numerous occasions on this day of celebration, although the primary aim is to give a massive show of support for the current leadership, headed by Hu Jintao.
As one journalist tweeted during the parade, “the incredibly blue skies (not digitally enhanced) have me believing anything Hu is saying right now”. On the streets of Beijing, it is hard to find dissent, but it’s hard to find wild enthusiasm either, except for the bouts of euphoria whipped up by big events such as the parade.
Young people wearing beanie hats and low-slung Prada jeans, and with their faces permanently underlit by unlocked iPhones bought in Hong Kong, are just as likely to be pro-party as the ageing ideologues – they’ve done well out of 30 years of reform.
“I know that there is still a big gap between China and other developed countries, but I feel China has developed pretty fast. I am proud of our country,” says Zhang Xiaona, 23, an advertising graduate from Heilongjiang and a card-carrying party member.
Another party member, Tong Yixiao, 23, a researcher from Jiangsu, says: “Although the general economic situation is not very good, and it is difficult for graduates to find job, I think it will only last for a short period. It is because of the financial crisis. So I am very positive about China’s further development in future.”
Xu Zhipeng, 22, a member of the Communist Youth League from Jiangsu province, is a big fan of the idea of a socialist country with Chinese characteristics. “I can feel China’s fast development,” he says. “When I was little, I remember we children did not have many toys. Now children almost have everything for fun. But lately I hope China does more work to improve our legal system and to solve the big gap between the poor and the rich.”
Justin Moran, of Amnesty International, which is tireless in highlighting civil rights abuses in China, says Amnesty has logged eight separate incidents of people being oppressed for their beliefs ahead of the 60th anniversary shindig. These include high-profile people of integrity, such as Zeng Jinyan, Yuan Weijing and Liu Xiaobo.
And even in random interviews, there are dissenting voices. One young woman believes that the party has done a great job but that things might change.
“The Communist Party founded our new country,” she says. “At the time they were pretty good, but now they are more and more capitalistic. ‘Communist’ is just a name. Within the party, there is a dark side, since we don’t really have democracy. And the party does not have any connection with me.
“I actually think the real Communist Party might vanish in the next few decades. The anniversary is just a big show. Chinese people are really hard-working people. I am pretty confident for China’s future development. Until now, China has done a great job in its economic and other development. I believe China’s development will be better in future.”
