Tiananmen Square Massacre – the 20th Anniversary

Anthony Lee

Twenty years ago (June, 1989) I joined fellow students at the Great Court of the University of Queensland to mourn the massacre of students and civilians in Beijing. Many of us had hoped that the protest would mark a new beginning. It was not to be but the dream is still alive.

Growing up in Hong Kong and Australia meant that I only became aware of what China was like through the mainland students on campus. The reformist leader Hu Yaobang’s died in April 1989. 1989 was a pivotal year for China and the world. Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost had led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The end of Mao and Gang of Four had allowed Deng Xiaoping to liberalise the economy and to a much lesser extent the political system. Hu Yaobang (once a Deng supporter) had called for even greater liberalisation. Hu’s call angered the party and forced his resignation from leadership.

Civilians honouring Hu Yaobang in Tiananmen Square were joined by university students. Mourning soon turned into protest against corruption and a call for freedom of the press and democratic reform. Via the People’s Daily, Communist hardliners denounced the protestors as opportunists wanting to create civil unrest. This enflamed the situation because the students believed that their cause is just. They believed they were following in the footsteps of pervious generation of Chinese students. Feelings were so strong that many students began a hunger strike to have their demands addressed by the government.

On May 19, Zhao Ziying, Hu Yaobang’s successor, went to the square to persuade students to end their protest. Zhao, a reformist, wanted conciliation but was opposed by the party. Zhao failed to end their protest and Premiere Li Peng declared Martial Law. The party placed Zhao under house arrest and was not heard from again until his death in 2005. The party chose Jiang Zemin (Shanghai’s Party Secretary) to replaced Zhao because he had not sympathised with the students in Shanghai.

In Beijing, the local PLA (People’s Liberation Army) sympathized with the protestors and so soldiers from outer provinces came in to enforce Martial Law. On the night of the June 3, soldiers moved in on the students. Soldiers attacked the protestors and there were eyewitness accounts of soldiers firing on unarmed civilians and even armour vehicles running over students. The government reported 241 deaths but some believe the deaths were in the thousands. During the subsequent occupation the image of the lone young man blocking a line of PLA tanks became an icon for democracy in China. Students and protestors who did not escape were captured and jailed.

The protest was a great political setback for Deng and there was growing opposition to his economic reforms. Deng used a tour of Southern China to reassert his economic policy. This allowed the 3rd generation of communist leadership under Jiang Zemin and Premiere Zhu Rongji (also from Shanghai) to achieve great economic growth. However this growth was not universal and it created a wealth-gap between rich coastal provinces and the impoverished interior.

In 2002, Jiang and Zhu retired. Hu Jintao took over from Jiang while Wen Jiabao took over from Zhu. Wen was Zhu’s former right hand man and also an ally of Zhao Ziyan. Hu and Wen were not from Shanghai. They both served as officials in China’s interior and perhaps for this reason purposely addressed the wealth-gap that they inherited from Jiang. In spite of the lack of democratic reforms, China has moved on from the dark days of the Cultural Revolution. Hu-Wen leadership response to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake was vastly different to how the Gang of Four dealt with the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. In 1978, while traveling by rail from the Northern city of Dalin to Beijing, I could still see official attempts to hide the earthquake’s destructive power. The Gang of Four was not interested in saving the earthquake’s victims. Jiang Qing (Mao’s wife and one of the Gang of Four) was quoted as saying “There were merely several hundred thousand deaths. So what? Denouncing Deng Xiaoping concerns 800 million people.” In contrast, Wen Jiabao travelled within hours to Sichuan, the centre of the 2008 earthquake. Wen, like Zhou Enlai, were both known as the people’s Premiers.

The Chinese people are rightly proud of China’s recent economic and technological achievements. China is only one of a handful of nations who have sent men into space. However the growing trend towards nationalism both in China and elsewhere in the world is troubling. With the world’s economy now relying on China, it is becoming harder and harder to raise human rights concerns. If the United States has trouble convincing Chinese leaders the value of democratic reforms then what chance does Australia have? This does not mean we should forego the struggle for democratic reforms in China but vocal protests by the likes of Senator Bob Brown against President Hu Jintao does not help. Ordinary Chinese in China will not hear of these protests and many might even interpret such protests as anti-Chinese sentiments that echo past Western oppression of China. The Chinese leadership may be opposed to democratic reforms but it does not mean that they don’t value good governance and the rule of law. China’s amazing economic growth would not have been possible without initial foreign investments which in turn needed a legal system. Furthermore the growing middle class expect more from the authorities. Even here, every step forward will often mean two steps back. For instance, while Wen Jiabao made a great effort towards the relief of Sichuan earthquake victims, official responses have not always been so encouraging. Parents wanting to investigate the shoddy workmanship of collapsed schools, were rounded up, detained, and threatened.

Tiananmen in Chinese means “Gates of Heavenly Peace”. Ironically, there was no peace on June 4, 1989 but in the years that follow some things have changed for the better and some for worse. When I visited the current China Project exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Arts (GOMA) in Brisbane, I realised that even though there are people who want to silence dissent, dissent will always find a way to express itself, even in art! Imagine if Zhao Ziyang or Hu Yaobang had succeeded. We would probably have seen a more open and confident China. Good governance would be the Chinese Communist Party’s mandate rather then hyped up nationalism. The world owes a debt to those slain or maimed on June 4, 1989. We must not forget them. The dream will live on.