M******8
发帖数: 10589 | 1 http://www.raskb.com/transactions/VOL64/VOL64-3.docx
“You are Dead, the Square is Dead”: The 1989 Chinese Pro-Democracy
Movement
by Karen EGGLESTON
You are dead, the Square is dead.
They say now is a great victory,
thinking that death can protect their criminal existence.
We live on,
We give our hearts to you,the dead ones,
to let you live again through our lives,
to complete the mission which you left incomplete.
by Gu Cheng and Yang Lian
The unprecedented student and mass demonstrations in China starting
in April 1989,and especially the massacre in central Beijing on the night of
June 3-4,called world attention to events in China. Those were weeks filled
with determination, courage, hope,excitement, sacrifice,anger, tension,
despair, and tragedy. Why? If “an answer” is to be found, history cannot
be ignored. This paper will first review the historical background of
student-led popular protest in China, then the actual sequence of events
that spring,and lastly consider the aftermath of the massacre and what may
lie ahead for China.2
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Student protest in China dates back to 542 B.C. when students in
village schools protested to the government only nine years after Confucius
was born. In 1126 students at the Imperial College, after petitioning the
emperor to resist the Northern invaders, led hundreds of thousands of
ordinary Chinese citizens in protests which resulted in a change of foreign
and domestic policy. Other student protests and strikes continued during the
Sung and Ming dynasties, often involving students in factional political
struggles.3 (Involvement in, and manipulation by, factional political
struggles continues to be one of the least successful characteristics of
Chinese [page 40] student protest—witness 1987 and Hu Yaobang, 1989 and
Zhao Ziyang).
Twentieth century student activism, although distinct from its
dynastic precedents in many respects—a modern educational system, younger
students, and most importantly, nationalistic issues—nevertheless inherits
its legitimacy from the longer history of Chinese student protest.4 In 1895,
young provincial literati who were in Beijing for the national examinations
gathered in front of Tiananmen, the Gate of Heavenly Peace leading to the
Forbidden City Imperial residence. They gathered at that auspicious and
politically crucial place to protest the humiliating terms of the Threaty of
Shimonoseki. Their protest,as Andrew Nathan has pointed out,5 was in many
ways transitional: traditional in form but modern in content,for their
themes of nationalism, modernization, and “saving China” continue, in
essence, today.
The real foundation of the modern Chinese student movement, however,
occurred almost a quarter century later, seventy years ago: the May Fourth
Movement of 1919. Approximately three thousand Chinese college and
university students gathered in front of Tiananmen protesting China’s
humiliating policy toward Japan. Their action led to months of
demonstrations and strikes by students,workers,and merchants,the dismissal
of prominent officials seen to be traitors to China’s national interests,
China’s refusal to sign the Versaille Peace Treaty, and the promotion of an
unprecedented Chinese intellectual revolution.
The year 1919 was just the beginning. From the continued protest of
Japanese aggression and exhortations to “save China,” through the “co-
optation-with-a-twist’’ after the Communist victory in 1949,the history of
the student movement reflected the main currents of Chinese political
history.
Twentieth century Chinese student activists in many ways have
inherited from their Confucian forbears what can be termed a “Confucian
protest ideology,” a “protest ideology”being not the issues of protest
themselves, but rather “the ideology which delineates the student role in,
and obligation to, protest.”6 This “Confucian protest ideology” existed
within the rigidly ritualistic and dynastically manipulated institution of
Confucian philosophy, as an obligatory, moralistic duty to express loyal
dissent.
A true Confucian scholar was obliged by Confucian precepts to express
dissent to the emperor, even at great physical danger to himself, to point
out imperial errors and to advocate correctly virtuous policies. Such
dissent embodied the highest form of loyalty: the belief that with self- [
page 41] initiated reform, the emperor could govern most correctly, fulfill
the mandate of heaven and promote the welfare of the people and the kingdom
. This tradition, although rarified by the years and transformed by China’s
revolutionary twentieth century history, nevertheless has left its imprint
on Chinese student protest to today.
The notion of an educated elite with a special political role to play
, embedded in Confucianism, fit nicely into the modern nationalist tool of
Marxism-Leninism, and meshed with the Chinese reality of an elite group of
intellectuals with a vital role to play in China’s modernization process.
Even as student protesters attacked Confucianism itself—in the May 4th
Movement, in the Cultural Revolution, and in 1989 by decrying the “
feudalistic” tendencies such as nepotism and corruption apparent in
contemporary China—they nevertheless could and did retain the erstwhile
Confucian notion of an intellectual elite with a moralistic duty to express
loyal dissent. Later in this paper, those facets of the recent student
protests which reflect this heritage will be elaborated upon.
The terms “loyal” and “dissent” were often contradictory,
especially in the eyes of the rulers. What is left today of loyalty in
dissent—i.e., calls for reform rather than revolution, and appeals to the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to change itself rather than for the people to
overthrow its rule entirely—stems more from political realism than
Confucian loyalty. The CCP, despite its corruption, its hollow ideological
appeals and its murderous grip on its own aging rule, is nevertheless
currently the only viable political power in the PRC.
The study of Chinese student protest history reveals several
important points. First of all, nationalism, defined in terms of struggling
for national sovereignty, national strengthening, and national modernization
, has been the hallmark of twentieth century student activism. From
protesting the humiliating terms of defeat by Japan in 1895,through
opposition to Japanese aggression in terms of the Twenty-one Demands in 1915
, the takeover of Shandong and the Versailles Peace Treaty in 1919, student
calls for a united front against Japanese invasion in the 1930s, and
protesting civil war in the 40s, to visions of a strong and modern China
which did not reflect the CCP’s version of “truth” in the very different
outbursts of 1956, 1966, 1976, 1978, 1986 and 1989—nationalism has always
been, in a popular official Chinese phrase, the “key link.” The most
common student slogan of the movement this year was, “The students love the
country,and loving the country is not a crime!”
A second historical fact of Chinese student protest is that Tianan- [
page 42] men—the gate itself, the square only after 1949—has been the
focus. In 1895 and again in the famous protests of 1919, students gathered
in front of the gate; during the Sino-Japanese war, the capital fell to
invaders; then Mao Zedong, after proudly proclaiming the People’s Republic
of China in 1949 from atop the gate, tore at the fabric of the new polity in
the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and accepted a Red Guard arm
band atop Tiananmen. In the 1976 Tiananmen Square Uprising, and repeatedly
in 1985, 1986,and 1989, the square was the destination of marches, the
gathering point for protesters, and the most sensitive political symbol for
the CCP. Just a march by the gate and the square, on April 27th and a week
later on May 4th, proved the triumph of the student demonstrations. In the
weeks that followed, the battle over the square symbolized the ebb and flow
of the political upheaval itself. Between the hunger strikers and the
reception for Gorbachev, between the students and people on one side and
troops trying to enforce martial law on the other, everything centered on
the square. In the end “saving” the hardliners’ “face,” with the square
its image, led to the bloody June 3-4 crackdown.
Tiananmen has been and inevitably will continue to be used, and
misused, as a symbol, by the pro-democracy movement, by the government and
Party,and by the international media. Recently, almost all references to the
bloody crackdown speak of the “massacre in Tiananmen,” despite the fact
that most of the violence did not take place on the square itself. The
Chinese government uses the supposedly completely bloodless recapture of the
Square by government forces as a technical loophole with which to refute
condemnation of the “Tragedy in Tiananmen.”
Thirdly, modern Chinese history suggests that student-led popular
protest goes through stages in which the motives, issues, and political
players change, often in somewhat predictable patterns. Most protest
movements begin with a direct appeal by students to the government, followed
by direct appeals to the people and segments thereof (e.g., fellow students
and intellectuals, workers, merchants, party members, journalists), appeals
directed to different ruling factions, feedback by the populous, and
appeals to fellow citizens based on the martyrdom of student protesters. Of
course, all of these are also open to manipulation.
Historically, appeals to the people to rise up against victimization
of dissenters has had varying effectiveness. In the 1930s, condemnation of
the government for harsh suppression was much less successful than appeals
to form a united front against the common threat of Japanese [page 43]
aggression. Again in 1989,early “victimization” rallying cries—urging
Chinese to cry out against the beating up of students by police following
the confrontation at Xinhuamen—had little effect. Broader appeals to
nationalistic causes, such as anti-inflation, anti-corruption, and pro-press
freedom slogans, aroused greater sympathy and affirmed the students,
nationalistic credentials. Although setting out to be martyrs is an unfair
characterization of most student protest activities, the sacrifices which
students make in the struggle are not unacknowledged by the students
themselves as a way to underscore their cause. For example, John Israel
records the attitude of a Chinese activist preparing for the famous December
9,1935 demonstration, who thought that “certainly our influence would be
still wider if there were deaths.”7 This last spring, in an interview in
late May, Chinese student leader Chai Ling said,” People ask me what the
next step is. I feel very sad. I want to tell them the next step is
bloodshed. Only when the square is washed in blood will the masses wake up.
But how can I tell my fellow students that? They will do that if asked...
but they are still children.”8
The June 4th massacre, the agony of innocent and even uninvolved
lives snuffed out by a senile and power-hungry octogenarian oligarchy— this
tragedy is nonetheless, as exiled movement leaders have affirmed, the
closest to assurance of victory in the future for the pro-democracy movement
as there could be.
One final lesson to be drawn from history is that most Chinese
intellectuals, both before and after the CCP came to power, embraced
communist ideology basically out of nationalistic yearning for a way to “
save China,” to modernize and strengthen their homeland. The party itself
periodically embraced and then attacked the intellectuals, distrustful of
their ultimate loyalties, perhaps rightfully so. Communism for the majority
was never a goal in itself, but a means to “save China.” Democracy is an
“ism” of wide appeal and vague definition mostly because it, too, is a
tool with which to “save China.”
A knowledge of the history of Chinese student movements helps to shed
light upon not only what parts of the legacy still shape the present, but
also how student activists and their intellectual advisors have learned from
past mistakes. One prominent example is what the student activists of 1989
learned from the shorter protests of 1986—87:
The protesters learned to organize meticulously and to guard against
infiltration by agents trying to discredit the movement by yelling ‘‘down
with the Communist Party!” They learned to present more specific peti-[page
44] tions and demands. In fact, some would legitimately argue that
the protesters got so specific that in the end they left no leeway for the
government to negotiate and save face. They learned to stick to
nationalistic slogans that had an appeal to the general populous and
specifically to workers, such as anti-corruption, anti-inflation, pro-rights
to organize and demonstrate, and pro-press freedom slogans, instead of the
need for higher funding for education, better school conditions, and better
job assignments and salaries for college graduates. In 1986, press freedom
was a secondary and later-phase issue, whereas in 1989,press freedom was
among the initial issues of student protests In 1986, a student-worker
alliance died before it even hatched; two and a half years later, workers
joined the student demonstrators at first as supportive spectators and later
as participants, establishing an autonomous workers, union on the eve of
the declaration of martial law.9
Although CCP leadership disunity was a key catalyst in allowing the
movement to develop, one thing which perhaps the activists did not learn as
well from previous protests is the danger and fickleness of emphasizing or
appealing to individuals in the leadership. Mao Zedong called out the so-
called “little generals “ in 1966, exiling them to the countryside a few
years later. Deng Xiaoping hero of the 1976 Tiananmen Uprising, by the late
1980s had become a neo-Mao in his own right, clinging to power through force
and destroying self-appointed successors. Hu Yaobang,at first a villain in
the early stages of the 1986 protests, became a victim for the cause in 1987
and was by 1989 practically a “saint” for democracy in China. His
successor Zhao Ziyang, originally seen as a corrupt high official like all
the others, suddenly became the student hero, then dubbed the arch-villain
and toppled by the Deng-Yang-Li Peng triumvirate and their octogenarian
powerbase. A justified conclusion is that without change in the political
system, nothing will ultimately change.
In fact, despite lessons in specific tactics, one may question just
how far China has come in the 70 years from 1919 to 1989; the slogans,
calling for Mr. Science and Mr. Democracy to save China, live on, and they
will surely reappear in even greater force before the end of the century.
Numerous parts of the movement last spring indicate that elements of
a “Confucian protest ideology” continue to animate China’s young
dissenting elite. Loyal dissent—that complicated, often contradictory idea
—was evident from the start. Students abandoned their Mapai (Mazhang
faction) and Tuopai (TOEFL faction), symbols of their disillusionment,
political apathy, and selfcenteredness, and instead committed themselves to
[page 45] sacrifice for national hope. Students called upon the Party to
live up to its own anti-corruption, pro- “democracy” statements, and to
reform to save the nation’s future. They presented their call at
considerable personal risk, and they knew it. The spirit of sacrifice for
the nation inspired protesters to defy previously effective official threats
of retaliation. The early slogans which called to uphold the CCP and quoted
Deng’s reformist statements were not pure sarcasm, but rather expressed a
fervent hope that real progress was possible. “The people love the PLA and
the PLA loves the People” was a cry of bittersweet sarcasm and desperate
authenticity: please don’t go against the People!
Wuerkaixi, the student leader who scolded Chinese Premier Li Peng on
national TV, avowed that he had originally wanted to join the Party. The
hunger strike was a clever tactic, a world-media attention-grabbing maneuver
, but it was also the ultimate in loyal dissent. In these early stages of
the movement, the hope was genuine that loyal dissent would inspire
begrudging but authentic progress.
Even the cynics who would insist that students were ultimately aiming
to topple the government from the start—not to be denied for some—
nevertheless have to admit that up to that point in late May the government
still had the option of relenting, negotiating, and moving forward on anti-
corruption measures without resorting to violence. Such is the essence of
loyal dissent.10
When the Party and government leaders visited hunger strikers hos-
pitalized after collapsing from exhaustion, one student’s talk with the
leaders, broadcast more than once on national television, embodied what
appears to be the modern Chinese protest ideology. He spoke of the serious
problems facing the nation—e.g., overpopulation, a low economic base, a
poor educational level—which confront any person or group ruling China. The
people, however, were losing hope in the Party. He said he took the drastic
measure of hunger striking because, “If the CCP has no hope, China has no
hope. “ He emphasized that the leaders had to use the knife against
corruption by starting with their own sons (cong erzi kai dao) in order to
restore faith in the Party.
In addition to initially loyal dissent, the influence of Confucian
protest ideology on the student protesters is also evidenced by the students
’ conviction that they were an elite on a mission for the common people.
The press receiving office and press conferences on the Beijing University
campus and other campuses definitely effused an aura of eliteness. That
student leaders struggled among themselves for the ultimate leadership[page
46] posts was perhaps sadly inevitable. Apparently Wuerkaixi was voted out
of top leadership for reasons other than purely tactical differences. Phil
Cunningham observes that Chai Ling became supreme commander in late May
largely because she lacked the ego problems of other student leaders.11
As one observer noted, although Westerners seem to assume that the
Chinese student protesters want the same liberal democracy which the West
sees itself as enjoying, the Chinese students “in their pursuit of
democracy,... created a system much like the one they wanted to reform:
operated on personal connections, or guanxi.... The self-governing
Association had a standing committee, liaison offices with provincial
students’ organizations and the foreign press, and a tireless propaganda
department.”12 A member of Gaozilian, the protesting students’ top
organization, complained on the morning of fateful June 3rd,”We don’t
decide any policy. People just sit around arguing over who’s going to fill
what position and what their responsibilities in the hierarchy should be,”
Earlier in May, one Beijing University student was called a traitor for
opposing an on-campus demonstration in favor of continuing a class boycott.
She responded defiantly, “What kind of democracy is that, if I can’t even
give my opinion? It’s no better than the Cultural Revolution!”13
Just as the government always threatened the activists by harking
back to the Cultural Revolution, so the activists themselves could not
escape their own history and ideological conditioning. Reportedly a student
leader described Wuerkaixi as “having no major errors in his thought.” The
May 4th edition of Beijing University’s independent student newspaper
claimed that “the tide of democracy allows no obstruction; all must comply
with this trend. If not, they will be condemned by history.”14 The same
rhetoric which once pronounced the inevitability of Communism, now condemns
Marxism itself to the “garbage heap of history.” The intolerance of
opposition, however, seems identical.
The elite factor is also well illustrated by the competition between
Beijing University, home of the May 4th Movement, and Beijing Normal
University, Wuerkaixi’s home university and one of the most prominent in
the 1989 movement. At Beida, as Beijing University is known, after a big
character poster announced the hunger strike, only forty students signed up.
According to one commentator, when the news came back to Beida that 200
students volunteered to hunger strike from the Normal University, the Beida
number of volunteers shot up to three hundred.15
The outpouring of support and concern for the hunger strikers from
society, the extreme sensitivity and sympathy of the official press, the [
page 47] efforts of officials to show at least the image of dialogue, the
careful official enumeration of how the government sent food, medicine, and
shelter to aid the hunger strikers in an otherwise highly condemnatory
report16—these all illustrate the power, acknowledged even by the CCP and
government leaders, of the hunger-striking image: the youthful intellectual
elite sacrificing themselves for the betterment of the nation. One might
note that none of the public executions were of student or intellectual
leaders, and even the most severe official reports affirmed that the
majority of the students were patriotic.
Thus, the history of Chinese student activism and the notion of
righteous intellectual dissent helped lay the groundwork for the development
of the 1989 pro-democracy movement, to which we now turn.
SPRING 1989
After ten years of Deng Xiaoping’s Open Door, reform policies were
meeting increasingly hard times. “Friction” between the “two track”
mixed market and planned economy, and the opportunity for manipulation
between the two by corrupt guandao, were undermining the economy. In the
Fall of 1988,after efforts at price reform unleashed double digit inflation
and large scale, panic buying, the leadership initiated the Zhili Zhengdun
campaign, the official catch phrase for cracking down on inflation while
dealing with corruption. “Deepen reform” was tacked on to the end of
Zhilizhengdun to try to convince the world that reforms would continue, not
merely be put on hold. Li Peng and other hardline conservatives had gained
the upper hand. The Party admitted mistakes in the implementation of reforms
, but grew impatient with those who emphasized the problems lying ahead
instead of the progress which had been made. As the 70th anniversary of the
May 4th Movement approached, young intellectuals recognized that the heros
of 70 years previous—Mr. science and, most of all, Mr. Democracy—were
still far from accomplishing China’s salvation. The government tried to
emphasize science and patriotism; students, in at first small but ever-
swelling numbers, opted for nationalism and Mr. Democracy.
The Chinese pro-democracy movement last spring went through at least
five discernible stages.17 The first phase developed in the week and a half
between the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15th, and the People’s Daily
editorial of April 26th which condemned the budding movement as a small,
villainous group inciting chaos in order to overthrow the CCP[page 48] and
socialism. Typically, the movement began with big-character posters at Beida
, other Beijing campuses, and other universities in major metropolitan areas
, mourning Hu Yaobang’s death and expounding upon what he had come to
represent: reform, liberalization, and democracy. There were calls for
dialogue with the government, demonstrations in front of Xinhuamen (“New
China Gate”), and even an attempt to storm Zhongnanhai, the Beijing
government compound. Police chased away the demonstators and beat up several
of them.
Student leaders learned a valuable lesson from previous movements and
the storming of Xinhuamen: they must at all costs avoid any violence which
would give the Party and government leadership an excuse to crack down on
the movement, and they must guard against infiltration by those who would
discredit the movement.
The press was not free to cover the reality of the student protests,
and with each misrepresentation, the calls for freedom of the press would
grow stronger and gain greater legitimacy and public support. Only by
denying the official press a shred of proof for their condemnatory articles
would the movement have a chance to convince a critical mass of people,
journalists and Party members included, that the Party line which castigated
their actions and motives was fallacious.
The students called not only for freedom of the press, of speech and
of assembly, but also for the rehabilitation of Hu Yaobang and condemnation
of the “anti-bourgois liberalization campaign” which followed Hu’s
sacking in 1987. They also petitioned to have the personal finances of top
officials made public and for corruption to be dealt with severely. Such
were the “demands” listed on the student petition which three students
held up as they knelt on the steps of the Great Hall of the People on April
22. An estimated fifty thousand fellow students on Tiananmen Square waited
with them for premier Li Peng, or any government official, to come out to
accept the petition. Fearing that they would be barred from the square on
that Saturday, the day of’ the memorial service for Hu Yaobang, the
students had come to the square the night before and had waited all night
for the memorial service the following morning. No one came out to recognize
the student petition. It was a day of mourning, not only for Hu Yaobang,
but the complete disregard of the government for the petitioners’ concerns.
Many were moved to tears.18 Chai ling reportedly said, “From that day on,
I began to work for the governing body of the students.”19 The following
Monday, April 24th, students began boycotting classes. At Beijing University
, students held a large rally, and students at[page 49] several campuses
began setting up their own speaker systems, broadcasting their petitions,
their reasons for boycotting classes, and tapes of news from the Voice of
America.
Deciding that things had gone too far, the Party leadership—its
unity to be splintered to an unprecedented extent by the developing crisis—
issued the April 26th editorial ‘‘take a clear stand against turmoil”
which appeared on the front page of the People’s Daily, the Beijing Daily,
and other newspapers. It characterized the movement as a throwback to the
Cultural Revolution, incited by a small group who grabbed power from
official student organizations, took over school speaker systems, and forced
students not to attend class. Activists were labeled radicals who roamed
about the country as the infamous Red Guards had, trying. to overthrow
socialism and CCP rule, leading to disorder and lawlessness. If allowed to
continue, the editorial emphasized, years of reform progress would be ruined
and the country would descend into chaos.20
A joke among young Chinese intellectuals said that when Jiang Qing,
Mao Zedong’s infamous wife and member of the Gang of Four, read the April
26th editorial in her jail cell, she cried “Let me out! It’s obvious that
Yao Wenyuan21 is out and working, so I want out too!”
Despite this bitterly sarcastic joke, student dissenters took the
editorial as no joking matter. The second phase of the movement began the
next day, April 27th, when students angered by the harsh editorial, and
especially for being characterized as yi xiao cuo—”a small group,” a term
used to describe the Gang of Four—staged the largest student demonstration
in China to date.
The estimated 50,000 students from over 30 colleges and universities,
who demonstrated that Thursday, broke through several lines of policemen as
the students chanted “The People love the People’s Police, and the People
’s Police love the People!” By three or four that afternoon the student
ranks were marching triumphantly past Tiananmen, and then continued to
follow the second ring road on its circuit of the city, past the foreign
resident section at Jianguomenwai and north again to their respective
campuses. In well-led rounds, they chanted ‘‘The People’s Daily/ babbles
like a clown/ central TV / turns truth upside down!”22, “The students’
petition is not turmoil!”; ‘‘Down with official corruption!;” and of
course ‘‘The students love the country/ loving the country is not a crime!”
They were cheered on by some 250,000 citizens23 who lined the streets
and gathered at bridges over the ring road to have the best view hours[page
50] before the students passed. People brought water, soda, and food to
the students, most of whom marched a total of 25 miles from their campuses
northwest of Beijing to the square and back on a clear, hot spring day
without breaking ranks to stop for food or drink.
Everyone knew it was historic. A worker told me, ‘‘We really
support the students, but we can’t be involved ourselves, or else the
government will crack down on them.” A high school student came up to me
near Tiananmen, and informed me that at least two high schools were also
boycotting classes in support of the college students’ demonstrations. One
elderly Chinese man who saw me taking pictures came over and said ‘‘duo
zhao ji zhang”—take a few extra pictures today, as if to say, “Let
everyone know of this great event.”
If Deng Xiaoping and other officials had counted on the students
being cowed into submission by the editorial on the 26th—in the manner of
“the emperor has spoken: thou shalt cease to dissent!”24—then they were
overwhelmingly proven to have understimated the students’ resolve.
A People’s Daily editorial on April 29th, although emphasizing
stability, nevertheless was more accomodating. On the same day, Chinese
government spokesman, Yuanmu, held a “dialogue’’ with student
representatives, televised live according to the students’ wishes. The
participants were the official, not student-elected or dissenting student
leaders. Gaozilian, the top umbrella student organization, declared that the
meeting was not a dialogue at all. After watching it, I would agree that
the students’ questions were by-and-large quite tame, Yuanmu’s attitute
quite patronizing. A similar so-called dialogue was held April 30th between
twenty-nine students from ten Beijing campuses and two leaders, Beijing
mayor Chen Xitong and Education Minister Li Tieying. They were shows of
conciliation by the government, and the students interested in authentic
dialogue and tangible results dismissed them as such.
The hardliners made a show of their “great restraint,” saying that
the editorial was never directed at the students in the first place, but
rather at the villainous few who continued to plot and scheme. Perhaps the
authorities knew that another demonstration the next week on the 70th
anniversary of the May 4th movement was inevitable, and in the face of
contradictory opinions within leadership ranks over how to deal with the
student unrest, hoped that the movement would die off of its own accord
subsequently. Moreover, decisive suppressive action was all but impossible
while representatives of the Asian Development Bank were in Beijing, and
before the international media swarmed into the capital for[page 51]
Gorbachev’s visit.
Whatever the government and Party leaders may have thought, their
inaction in this early phase left the people and the students with the
impression that popular action and a show of numbers could in fact bring
about positive, albeit grudging, change.
When Zhao Ziyang returned from North Korea, he reportedly criticized
the harsh April 26th editorial. In his speech to the Asian Development Bank
representatives, Zhao expressed confidence in the future and a more
conciliatory attitude toward the demonstrations. On the same day, after the
government had rejected the students’ proposed terms for dialogue, and in
commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement, students
in the tens of thousands took to the streets again. The Party and government
surely saw the fewer numbers on May 4th, and the decision of a majority of
students to return to classes the next day, as the beginning of the “
fizzling-out” of unrest.
Journalists were confused and emboldened by the changing and con-
tradictory official line. Some journalists became outspoken critics of press
censorship, calling for reform and liberalization for the media.25 The
search for effective means of voicing these concerns led to a huge bicycle
demonstration in Beijing on May 10th, and proposals on campuses for a hunger
strike. After repeated government refusal to hold talks with the new
student organizations, which were officially denounced as illegal, several
hundred students began a hunger strike on Tiananmen Square. The third phase
of the pro-democracy movement, that of the week-long hunger strike, began.
The hunger strikers called on the government to refute the editorial,
recognize the student organizations as legal, and affirm publically that
the student movement was patriotic, not counterrevolutionary. The students
were not so naive as to assume that softer rhetoric, without any concession
on these critical points, would prevent a crackdown on activist students
before long. It took equal naivete and audacity, however, to think that the
leadership might actually grant the student organizations legality,for “had
this demand been granted, the students would have achieved the legalization
of the first completely independent political organization in PRC history.
”26 Not surprisingly, preliminary talks collapsed.
The strikers’ numbers grew to two or three thousand, some students
refusing water as well as food. Gorbachev’s schedule had to be changed many
times to avoid the square and the massive daily demonstrations of people, a
million strong and spanning the entire social spectrum, including[page 52]
government organs and Party members, showing concern and support for the
hunger strikers. Press coverage, unprecedentedly open and sympathetic,
brought the colorful moving spectacle to Chinese throughout the country.
Although some campuses, such as Nanjing University where I was
studying, had been involved in the movement from the beginning, it was
during this third phase, the Beijing hunger strike, that the movement really
spread nationwide. Nanjing was almost never even mentioned in the national
or international press, but there were huge demonstrations with participants
numbering in the tens of thousands, including workers as well as college
students. A few students even joined in a sympathetic hunger strike, and
over a hundred began a march on foot to the capital, but before either got
very far, the situation in Beijing took a dramatic turn for the worse.
On May 18th, Li Peng and other officials had met with representatives
of the hunger striking students, including Wuerkaixi and Wangdan. The
proceedings were televised live, according to the students’ wishes.
Although very obviously physically exhausted, the students energy,
commitment, and palpable personal sacrifice for their vision of a better
future for China came across as a moral victory over the government.
Wuerkaixi’s eloquence under pressure clearly outshown the staid officials
opposite him, even though nurses at one point rushed to revive the student
leader with oxygen. In contrast, not only were Li Peng’s words abrupt, but
his delivery was at times almost comic. In one long pause it seemed evident
he had lost his train of thought. He ended by asking the students to convey
his sincere regards to the hunger strikers, except that he said it like a
growling lion, as if he were announcing the students’ execution instead.
As it turned out, he was simply practicing for the special meeting
the next night when the he announced the declaration of martial law for ‘‘
parts of Beijing.” Zhao Ziyang “called in sick,” that is, sympathetic
with the opposition, “sick” in the same way that Wan Li was ‘‘sick”
when he returned to Shanghai and was actually detained and “convinced” to
side with the hardliners.
Zhao Ziyang, earlier one of the targets of the student drive against
corruption, by now was a virtual hero of the protesters. His isolation from
the hardliners was becoming more obvious. In his meeting with Gorbachev
earlier that fateful week, he revealed the state secret of a 1987 agreement
to defer to Deng Xiaoping on all policy decisions. As commentators later
pointed out, he was “publicly washing his hands of everything that had gone
wrong in China for the past few years.”27
[page 53]
Early Friday morning May 19th, Zhao visited students on the square.
The General Secretary spoke to the hunger strikers in a somewhat broken
voice, clearly moved by the students’ conditions and probably also by
knowledge of his own downfall. He started by apologizing, “I came too late.
” Students replied, “At least you came at all.” Zhao said he hoped they
would live to see and to create China’s future—for “I am already without
effect” (wo yi wusuowei).28 Other than these few phrases,his speech was not
too different from the official line at the time, and since the internal
power struggle was as yet unknown to most, general reaction to his speech
was mixed. Some of my Chinese colleagues found it disgraceful that the
hunger strikers mobbed Zhao asking for his autograph on shoes, pampnlets,
and scraps of clothing.
When martial law was declared in Zhao’s absence, it was clearer that
he had been essentially purged. By May 19, Deng Xiaoping had the crucial
military power benind his hardline position, but it had not come without
some effort.29 The indecision within the military and key leadership
concerning a crackdown led to the tense, uncertain, yet hopeful dragging on
of the fourth stage of the movement, May 19 through June 3-when Beijing was
under declared but unenforced martial law.
On the morning of May 20th, it gradually became apparent that Beijing
-resident “people power” had stopped the troops on the outskirts of the
capital. Chinese news reports were quite remarkable, with the hardline
juxtaposed to sympathetic coverage of the movement. That Sunday’s evening
news contained a critical sign of hope; prominently reported was a speech by
Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth emphasizing that the most despicable
part of authoritarian rule was the use of the military to settle internal
political struggles.30
Despite marital law, on Tuesday May 30th Beijing saw a demonstration
of a million strong calling for the lifting of martial law and removal of
the hated Premier Li Peng. As the days drew on, however, reports from the
capital emphasized that order had been restored to the city.31 The people
disassembled road blocks, and students joined policemen in directing traffic
. There was essentially no crime, unusual for such a large city; even
criminals feared citizen wrath, knowing that any excuse would be used to
call the situation “chaotic” and to justify enforcing martial law.
The People’s Daily, the official Party-run newspaper, published an
article about how Beijing residents’ public values had returned. People
were polite to each other, understanding and helpful despite the many
traffic inconveniences; store clerks served people politely in a city infam-
[page 54] ous for its horrible service attitudes. Peasants selling
vegetables in free markets did not raise prices despite unprecedented demand
, simply because, as one peasant said, “At such a time, everyone must have
a conscience.” One elderly lady declared: “Troops will enter the city over
my dead body!”32
One of the great ironies of the hardline rhetoric and Chinese reality
is that a “spiritual civilization” of high public morality and feeling of
togetherness in struggle to better the nation, although supposedly the
fruit of the realization of communism, actually was more closely
approximated by the struggle against communist hardliners. Beijing in late
May saw a collective spirit of decency and compassion realized through
struggle for individual rights and freedoms.
Days passed. A full week passed. Almost two. The demonstrations
against martial law and open calls for the resignations of Li Peng, Yang
Shangkun and Deng Xiaoping himself, dissipated into a tense “normalcy.”
Although no one was sure what was happening in the leadership, it was
obvious that an internal power struggle had taken the limelight from the
students on the square—and then the whole nation was left in the dark.
Such strong tension could not continue indefinitely, and despite
cynicism and realistic misgivings to the contrary, young Chinese
intellectuals were willing to hope that, as Li Peng had said May 25th when
he finally did reappear on national TV, the troops had not reached their
destinations because “the People’s Army loves the People.”33 “Love”
ironic words!
The large number of out-of-town students who had gone to Bejing to
join in the protests reportedly exacerbated the food supply problem in
Beijing, but it was undoubtedly more strained by the huge contingent of
troops ringing the city who tearfully accepted food and water from the
residents blocking their entry, since the troops had no food or water with
them. Logistics later straightened out; the martial law troops encamped on
the outskirts of Beijing received daily news coverage for putting up with
innumerable hardships and helping the people. The government and Party wrote
letters of regard; officials visited them; singers entertained them; and
schoolchildren gave their red scarves to the “Uncle People’s Liberation
Army soldiers.”
On May 27th, Li Tieying gave a televised speech commemorating the
anniversary of the International Red Cross and calling upon all nations to
uphold international laws of humanitarianism as China does.34 Such bitterly
ironic words.!
[page 55]
Meanwhile, as the student numbers on Tiananmen Square dwindled,
thirty students at Beijing’s Central Academy of the Arts were hard at work
—nonstop for three days and nights—remodeling a statue of a man holding a
flag with two hands into the “Goddess of Democracy.’’ Some fifty thousand
Beijing residents flocked to the Square to see the statue- raising. With
the symbol in place, the students could have left Tiananmen, but a minority
voted to stay, so stay they did.35 Many students in other cities by this
time had either returned to classes or had gone home for the rest of the
semester.
On June 3, the noon news prominently featured a report by the Beijing
propaganda department entitled “clarify the real nature of the turmoil and
the necessity for martial law.” There were some clashes between
demonstrators and police involving stones and tear gas.
Hearts sank. Everyone knew from the start that the movement’s
commitment to nonviolence was its safeguard against suicide.
In Beijing,a severe warning on TV admonished residents to stay
indoors: if anyone ventured out, their safety could not be guaranteed.
Beijing residents knew it was a declaration of war.
The brutal crackdown during the darkness between June 3rd and 4th
ushered in the fifth, final,and tragic phase of the movement. Estimates
place the deathtoll in the thousands. Rumors in Nanjing and elsewhere shot
it up to tens of thousands. Amnesty International puts the figure at 1,000
dead in Beijing, another 300 later in Chengdu.
Why should this be “phase five”? Was it not simply the tragic end
of the movement? Yes and no. Despite the slaughter which continued with
random military fire in Beijing the next few days, protest continued. There
was suicidal defiance in Beijing. Violence broke out in Chengdu. Reports of
demonstrations came from all parts of the country, except the already well-
repressed minority areas. In Nanjing, numerous demonstra- tions of hundreds
and thousands of people in mourning, many wearing white shirts and black arm
bands, carried hand-made wreaths to the central square near our school.
Funeral music announced the solemn marchers as they went by. Angry slogans
of defiance appeared on walls and at the railway station. They accused
military strongman Yang Shang- kun of trying to become emperor, and they
urged people to defy the murderous Li-Yang-Deng triumvirate. There were
ominous rumors of civil war.36
[page 56]
AFTERMATH
The massacre in central Beijing, brought home to people around the
globe by graphic media coverage, shocked the world. Executions of so-called
‘‘ruffians” in the next few weeks kept the revulsion center stage.
Western powers and even Japan imposed sanctions on the PRC.
China denounced the international “anti-China wave.” Authorities
moved swiftly to round up the movement’s leaders, with thousands of arrests
. They published and televised a list complete with detailed descriptions of
the twenty-one most wanted student leaders. National television waves
filled with hour-long, on-the-hour “news” recounting the official version
of events: unprovoked attacks by armed civilian ruffians on highly
restrained, self-sacrificing and patriotic soldiers, many of whom were
savagely beaten and burned to death.
Leaders not seen for weeks or longer reappeared as they visited the
martial law troops one-by-one, day-after-day—all but Zhao Ziyang, of course
, whose “mistakes” received much of the blame for the whole “
counterrevolutionary rebellion.” Deng Xiaoping himself made a definitive
speech on June 9th, praising the troops and defying rumors that he was
deathly ill or already deceased: Thank goodness this counterrevolutionary
revolt occurred while we veteran revolutionaries were still around to
recognize its essence and take correct, decisive action. If one reads
closely, one can see in Deng’s speech an almost silent plea not to blame
the Open Door and economic reforms themselves for the turmoil.37
In truth, Deng sacrificed much more in early June than what he
reportedly termed “a little blood. “38 Yet, as cruel a human calculation
as it may seem, the fact remains that the number killed in the massacre was
miniscule compared with China’s population, and civil war would have been a
much worse fate. Stability, despite all its abuse by the tyrants of the
world, still has its virtues.
As a friend working for CNN in Beijing commented, many Chinese,
especially the older generation, took the crackdown much as if it were a
natural disaster. Many have befallen China, with a great toll in human
suffering; but for most, life goes on, and one looks out for one’s own. As
professor Roderick MacFarquhar of Harvard has noted, ‘‘During the past
forty years, the CCP has visited far greater disasters upon its long-
suffering people: the campaigns of the early 1950s resulted in at least 800,
000 executions; the Great Leap Forward caused up to 28 million deaths; the
Cultural Revolution, perhaps another half million. By those standards,[page
57] the Tiananmen Massacre may seem a minor mishap, but it was the first
time that the regime turned its guns on peacefully demonstrating people in
Beijing with the world and the rest of China looking on.”39
Now the Party is moving to patch up its shredded image by reforming
from the inside, as is Deng’s wont: never admit room for opposition to
Party policy, always reform the Party from the inside.40 The Party’s
efforts to regain legitimacy include a highly-touted anti-corruption
campaign, moves to close the wide gaps in income distribution, cutting
inflation and trying to convince the people and the world, especially for
the 40th anniversary of the PRC, that the situation has never been better.
Many of those they are trying to convince know better.
The PRC economy, whose poor shape was one of the prime factors
unleashing the unrest in the first place, has not improved. Economic costs
of the political unrest itself were in the billions of dollars. Estimates
are that China lost one billion US dollars in lost man-hours and damaged
property, and continued losses due to worker resentment have cut into
productivity. China lost another estimated one billion dollars in precious
foreign exchange as a result of virtually non-existent tourism after the
crackdown.41
The effect of China’s instability on the international business
community is far-reaching. Previous investments will continue to operate,
but myriad new investments have been cancelled or postponed. The Wall Street
Journal, for example, quotes one Western trade official as saying that of
five Fortune 500 companies that had planned a total of $650 million in new
China operations, all but one have cancelled42
In addition, government and aid groups have restricted loans. Com-
merical banks have tightened credit. A five-fold increase in the trade
deficit in the first half of 1989,a growing foreign debt, large-scale
unemployment, and acute shortages of energy and raw materials plague the
Chinese economy. Agriculture, once Deng Xiaoping’s success story, has hit
hard times as well. Workers’ motivation is at an all-time low. Nevertheless
, stability and the rhetorical lifting of martial law have persuaded some to
lift sanctions. A good harvest has somewhat ameliorated the agricultural
malaise, and Chinese people, disgusted with politics, have turned with
renewed vigor to making money. As a whole, however, with the Party and
government preoccupied with political problems, and the economy in the hands
of old, disproven economists, China’s economic problems are quite daunting
.43
Politically, Ted Koppel has said, “If China was normal during the[
page 58] Cultural Revolution, then China is back to normal.”44 Actually,
Chinese and Westerners alike make many references and comparisons to the
Cultural Revolution without a very thorough knowledge of what they mean.
Deng Xiaoping himself compared the student unrest to the Cultural Revolution
, but as Dr. MacFarquhar has pointed out, “Tiananmen Square of 1989 was
virtually the mirror image of Tiananmen Square of 1966.”45 What really does
resemble the Cultural Revolution, however, is the government propaganda,
starting with the April 26th editorial.
Last May one of my Chinese term papers was a comparison of the two “
authentic versions” of the 1976 Tiananmen Incident, i.e., the Gang of Four
’s vilification of the uprising immediately following in Spring 1976 and
the reaffirmation of the righteous “revolutionary uprising” by Deng
Xiaoping when he regained power in 1978. The 1989 Chinese hardline
propaganda eerily revives many of the techniques that the Gang of Four
employed. Both, for example, feature a pre-defined verdict of the movement
as counterrevolutionary and the accusation that the dissenters were
destroying ten years of hard-won progress; in 1976,ten years of the
revolutionary egalitarianism of the Cultural Revolution; in 1989,ten years
of economic reform and the open-door policy. Both Gang of Four and post-
June 4th Chinese propaganda resort to blatant rewriting of history and
dwelling upon loopholes, such as the “completely peaceful” clearing of the
square itself. Salient in both is the incredible irony of rhetoric
typifying the oppressive force as righteously indignant and self-sacrincing,
values properly attributed to the now-silenced victims of suppression. As
in the Cultural Revolution, recent propaganda has glorified the supreme
leader and castigated the “top capitalist roader in the Party” —to use
Cultural Revolution terminology not far removed from 1989 propaganda— or “
bourgeois-liberalist’’ Zhao Ziyang. The former Party General Secretary now
goes the way of five previous heir-apparents in PRC history: official
ignominy as an anti-Party conspirator, or at least as one who committed “
serious mistakes.”
Foreign newspapers were seized, the Voice of America jammed, foreign
satelites cut off, and “evil influences from the West” criticized in the
arts. Official books and a video tape blasting the “counterrevolutionary
revolt” appeared, including a new tape of old songs popular during the
Cultural Revolution such as “Socialism is Good,” Without the Communist
Party There Would Be No New China,” and “Party, Beloved Mother.”46 Talk
of class struggle has even resurfaced.47 The PRC’s system of justice has
been abused and ignored, as the People’s High Court [page 59] instructs
lower courts not be slowed and distracted by “details’’ in prosecuting
the “counterrevolutionary traitors,”48
The educational system is once again prey to ideological cheapening.
College admissions have been cut drastically, especially for schools most
active in last spring’s movement. No new students can enroll in graduate
programs in philosophy, history, international politics, or public
administration. Students are to receive from a few weeks to a full year of
military training for freshmen at Beida. Graduate students must first labor
in a factory or in the countryside a year or two before continuing their
education.49 In early June, it was even announced on the 6:30 am news that
ideological education was too lax at the kindergaren level!
What will the future bring? If the exciting and then tragic events of
April, May and June teach us anything, it is that the future is largely
unpredictable. Although professional cynics would have us believe that they
predicted June’s disaster from day one, they fool nobody. No one—not the
so-called experts, not the Chinese people, not the highest Chinese
leadership—no one knew exactly how events would unfold. Because the future
is so critical and intriguing, however, everyone tries to predict it anyway.
In conclusion, therefore, I would like to posit a few “certainties”:
Most obviously, Deng will die. He reportedly has already had surgery
for prostate cancer and is taking strong pain-killing drugs. Post-Deng PRC
politics are far from clean Secondly, the facts of the 1989 movement and
crackdown will probably never all be known, for history always has been
rewritten by the victorious. Thirdly, one of if not the critical factor in
Chinese politics for years to come will be who commands the loyalty, or
which loyalties, of the military. Finally, the student movement will come
again, and there will be a re-reckoning of the June 4th massacre. This is
perhaps my most dangerous prediction, since it is also my fervent hope and
conviction.
The potential for further unrest is not to be underestimated. The
persistence of thinly-veiled hatred and ridicule of the current PRC regime,
by no means restricted to intellectuals, can nevertheless be illustrated by
recent political humor circulated among educated youth in Beijing. According
to one joke, a convicted “counterrevolutionary” questions his prosecutor
as to why he received a fifteen-year prison sentence whereas all the others
are to be imprisoned only ten years. The prosecutor tells him that he had
divulged a very sensitive state secret. What secret was it? “Li Peng is a
pig.”
A second pointed joke is set in an airplane about to run out of fuel.
[page 60] The situation becomes even more serious for the five people on
board—President Bush, Deng Xiaoping, Zhao Ziyang, and two crew members—
when they discover that there are only four parachutes on board. One crafty
crew member announces that he will demonstrate for them how to use a
parachute; he then quickly jumps to safety. President Bush, declaring that
he is the leader of the United States, indeed of the whole free world, grabs
the second parachute and makes good an escape. Deng Xiaoping then anxiously
declares that since he too is a very important leader and China cannot do
without him, he must also parachute to safety; he hastily grabs one and
jumps. Two are left in the doomed plane. Zhao Ziyang turns to the young crew
member and magnanimously offers to give him the last remaining parachute.
At this juncture, the joke’s narrator departs from standard mandarin
to render his or her best imitation of Zhao’s thick accent, mimicking the
exact tone and words that Zhao used to address the hunger strikers on
Tiananmen Square the day before martial law: “I am old, without effect (wu
suo wei). You are young...”
When the crew member, extremely moved by Zhao’s generosity, goes to
put on the last prachute, however, he discovers that there are actually two
left. Deng Xiaoping, in his haste, had grabbed a backpack instead of a
parachute.50
Dr. MacFarquhar writes that “for the first time, it appears more
likely than not that the Communist regime will not long outlive its first
generation. In the long trajectory of Chinese history, the PRC is beginning
to look like one of the great founding dynasties which have left indelible
marks upon the polity, but imposed such terrible hardships on the Chinese
people that they were tolerated only for a few decades.” 51 Perhaps. There
are many who hope so.52
NOTES:
1. Author’s translation from the Chinese in Jiushi Niandai (The
Nineties), Hong Kong: Going Fine Ltd., 16 June, 1989: 8.
2.The author gratefully acknowledges the support of a Dartmouth
Reynolds Scholarship to study at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center in Nanjing 1988-
89 and a Fulbright Grant to study in Seoul 1989-90. She also would like to
thank the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch for sponsoring this paper,
presented in Seoul on 11 October 1989. The chronology of the spring events
described herein is based upon the author’s experiences in the PRC and her
contact with young Chinese intellectuals who were both involved in and
perceptive[page 61] observers of the pro-democracy movement. For the sake
of Chinese friends, professors, classmates, and relatives, all personal
sources remain anonymous.
3. Chow Tse-tung, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in
Modern China,Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960: II.
4. The historical background of Chinese student-led popular movements
which follows draws heavily upon the author’s Comparative Historical
Analysis of Twentieth Century Student Activism in China and Korea. Asian
Studies Honors Thesis, Dartmouth College, June 1988.
5. Andrew J. Nathan, Chinese Democracy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
Inc. 1985: 44-45.
6. Eggleston, Comparative Historical Analysis: 7.
7. John Israel, Student Nationalism in China 1927-1937. Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1966: 120.
8. Quoted on the Ted Koppel TV special ‘‘Tragedy at Tiananmen: The
Untold Story” hereafter “Tragedy at Tiananmen”).
9. For more on worker participation in the protest movement, see Merle
Golaman ‘‘Vengeance in China.” The New York Review of Books, 9 November
1989: 5-9; and Andrew G. Walder, ‘‘The Political Sociology of the Beijing
Upheaval of 1989,” Problems of Communism, September-October 1989: 30-40.
10. For a similar view of the protesters’ motives and ideals, as well
as an excellent analysis of the factors shaping this remonstrative
moderation, see Andrew J. Nathan, “Chinese Democracy in 1989: Continuity
and Change,” Problems in Communism, September-October 1989: 16-29. Nathan
concludes that ‘‘if the exercise of free speech that is guaranteed by the
Chinese constitution is illegal, then the students and intellectuals
denounced by [Beijing mayor] Chen Xitong did commit subversion. But the
democrats continue to see their relation to the regime differently. In the
words of the biographer of China’s first remonstrator, Qu Yuan: ‘It was
his fate to be faithful and yet doubted, to be loyal and yet suffer slander
—can one bear this without anger?’”(p. 29).
11. ‘‘Tragedy at Tiananmen.”
12. Sarah Lubman, ‘‘Students for a Democratic Bureaucracy: Chinese
Protesters Don’t Understand the System They Crave,” The Washington Post
National Weekly Edition, 7-13 August 1989.
13. Ibid.
14. Both quoted in ibid.
15. Commentator on ‘‘Tragedy at Tiananmen.”
16. Beijing Party Secretary Li Ximing’s report on the development of
the movement up to 20 May, quoted in Guang Jiao Jing (“Wide Angle”), Hong
Kong, 16 June 1989: 94-98. Concerning the efforts to assist the hunger-
striking students, see pp. 96-97. According to the report, along with the
efforts of the Red Cross and various official departments, the Beijing
Military District contributed one thousand cotton quilts to keep the hunger
strikers ‘‘cool in the day and warm at night.” All of these things, he
concludes, show that ‘‘the Party, the government, and the whole society
showed great solicitude for, took good care of, and adopted a responsible
attitude towards the hunger striking students” (p. 97).
17. In the following account of the movement, I present a ‘‘students
’-eye-view” of the unfolding events. For analyses of the intellectual
antecedents of the movement and the elite[page 62] politics of Party
disunity, see, for example, ‘‘Tiananmen 1989: A Symposium,’’ Problems of
Communism, September-October 1989: 2-48.
18. Author’s conversation with Beijing students, 22 April 1989.
19. Quoted in “Tragedy at Tiananmen.”
20. Renmin Erbao (The People’s Daily), 26 April 1989: 1.
21. Yao Wenyuan, the infamous propagandist of the Gang of Four.
22. As translated by Perry Link in ‘‘The Chinese Intellectuals and
the Revolt,” The New York Review of Books, 29 June 1989: 36.
23. According to an estimate in “Beijing Spring,” TIME, 8 May 1989:
36.
24. ‘‘Tragedy at Tiananmen.”
25. For more on the role of the media in the protests, see Walder, ‘
‘The Political Sociology’’ (note 9), pp. 38-39.
26. Nathan, ‘‘Chinese Democracy in 1989,” 25.
27. “Tragedy at Tiananmen.’’
28. Chinese Central TV news, 19 May 1989.
29. For an analysis of the PLA’s role in the crisis, see June Teufel
Dreyer, ‘‘The People’s Liberation Army and the Power Struggle of 1989,”
Problems of Communism, September-October 1989: 41-48.
30. Chinese Central TV News, 21 May 1989.
31. See Renmin Erbao, ‘‘Beijing jieyan di yi tian” (The first day
of Beijing martial law, through the ninth day), 20-29 May 1989: 1.
32. Luo Pan and Qin Shuwen, “4Dangjin Beijingrende gongde yishi” (
The current public morality consciousness of Beijingers). Renmin Erbao, 24
May 1989: 4.
33. Li Peng, in a meeting with three ambassadors newly accredited to
Beijing, said that martial law troops had not reached their destinations in
Beijing not because the troops “lack this ability,” but ‘‘because our
government is the people’s government, our army is the people’s own army.
” In the same newscast, Premier Li Peng remarked that jieyan, what was
declared for ‘‘parts of Beijing,” was distinct from junguan, ‘‘rule by
the military.” even though their English translation is identical: martial
law. Thereafter, many young Chinese intellectuals ridiculed Li Peng’s ‘‘
linguistic brilliance” along with his ‘‘skills of oratory.” Also, in the
same newscast, an official from the Foreign Ministry made the point that
his ministry, as part of the government, was ready to help the new
ambassadors, thus publicly refuting the widespread if rather incredible
rumor that the Foreign Ministry had declared itself independent of the Li
Peng government. (Author’s transcriptions of CCTV news, 25 May 1989).
34. Eleventh item on the CCTV evening news, 27 May 1989 (author’s
notes).
35. ‘‘Tragedy at Tiananmen,” and other media and personal accounts.
36. Despite the swift crackdown on student and worker activists, it
nevertheless took the government over two weeks before they declared all
exit permits issued before the crackdown invalid. Two days before they did
so, my Chinese husband and I left Beijing.
37. See Renmin Erbao, 10 June 1989: 1. For an English translation, see
Lawrence R. Sullivan, “Documentation: The Chinese Democracy Movement of
1989,” Orbis, Fall 1989: 580-583. According to this version, for example,
Deng says “Perhaps this bad thing will enable us to go ahead with reform
and the open-door policy with a more steady and better—even a faster—pace
” (p. 581).
[page 63] 38.Quoted in ‘‘Tragedy at Tiananmen.”
39. ‘‘The End of the Chinese Revolution,” The New York Review of
Books, 20 July 1989: 10.
40. See Uli Franz, Deng Xiaoping (trans. Tom Artin) Boston: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich 1988.
41. ‘‘Beijing’s Economic Ills Pose a New Threat of Social Upheaval,
” Wall Street Journal, 3 August 1989: 1.
42. Ibid.
43. For analyses of the stagnating PRC economy and the recent CCP
policy reversion to strict central planning, see Roger Sullivan, ‘‘China
Marches Toward Stagnation,” Asian Wall Street Journal 3-4 November 1989;
Louise De Rosario, ‘‘Three Years of Hard Labour,” Far Eastern Economic
review 30 November 1989: 68-69; and Robert Delfs, ‘‘Power to the Party,”
ibid, 7 December 1989: 23-25.
44.”Tragedy at Tiananmen.”
45. ‘‘The End of the Chinese Revolution” 8.
46. “Foreign Newspapers Seized in Beijing,” San Francisco Chronicle
15 July 1989: A10.
47. In his speech commemorating the PRC’s 40th anniversary, new Party
General Secretary Jiang Zemin spoke of the “serious class struggle’’
needed to defeat bourgeois liberalization; see “Jiang Zemin tongzhide
jianghua” (Comrade Jiang Zemin’s Speech), Guangming Erbao (Guangming Daily
), 30 September 1989: 1.
48. ‘‘How China’s Legal System Works, San Francisco Chronicle 23
June 1989: A23.
49. ‘‘China is Planning 2 Years of Labor for its Graduates,” New
York Times 13 August 1989: I.
50. Author’s conversations in Beijing, January-February 1990.
51. ‘‘The End of the Chinese Revolution” 10.
52. Since the presentation of this paper, the startling events in
Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union have served to underscore, for those
reflecting upon “Beijing Spring,” that the choice of dialogue versus
crackdown is a conscious decision, that what the Chinese students struggled
for—anti-corruption, press freedom, the right to assemble, even the
resignation of all the top leaders and political as well as continued
economic reform—was not as unthinkable as it may have seemed not so long
ago. Of course any direct comparisons are suspect for overlooking
fundamental differences between countries and regions. Nevertheless, it
seems to be accepted that the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe were
somehow ‘‘inevitable” since mass demonstrations left the ruling leaders
with ‘‘no choice” but to relent, resign, reform. Was the PRC ‘‘
inevitably” doomed to darkness? If the choice of the CCP senile-ocracy,
through power of reverse example, helped to tip the scales in Eastern Europe
toward dialogue instead of crackdown, then perhaps something good has come
of China’s tragedy. And perhaps for China, horror can give way to, even
itself spawn, new hope. As a Chinese proverb says, ‘‘The darkest part of
the night is just before dawn.” | M******8
发帖数: 10589 | 2 看来，中共关于1989年北京大屠杀的那些欺骗宣传和掩盖事实的努力，都不过是掩耳盗
铃而已，海外人士没有相信的，包括华人。
如果哪个华人说他相信，只能说明他本身是骗子。 | c*******n
发帖数: 2764 | 3 老将又出来自欺欺人了
【在 M******8 的大作中提到】
: 看来，中共关于1989年北京大屠杀的那些欺骗宣传和掩盖事实的努力，都不过是掩耳盗
: 铃而已，海外人士没有相信的，包括华人。
: 如果哪个华人说他相信，只能说明他本身是骗子。
|
|
