Thursday, June 04, 2009

Tiananmen Square massacre: 20 years on

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre that ended the student revolt and the 1980s fragile Chinese experiments with democracy. The event will be studiously ignored in China which makes it all the more important the subject gets a good airing elsewhere in the world. Yesterday I looked at how China used the media to control the message it wanted to get out to deny the massacre ever took place. Today I want to look at the events of June 1989.

The massacre was the culmination of a 50 day long stand-off between the government and demonstrators from 15 April to 4 June 1989. The proximate cause of the protests was the death of Hu Yaobang on 15 April. Hu was a youth icon and a former General-Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party dismissed in 1987 due to his sympathy for the growing student democracy movement. Hu was well respected as a party liberal and reformist. Some said he died of a “broken heart”. Whatever the cause, his death ignited student anger and frustration at the lack of progress. The anger began at Beijing University and spread to the streets.

Tiananmen Square was an obvious fulcrum for the protest. It is the largest plaza in central Beijing and got its name from the Tian’anmen the “Gate of Heavenly Peace" - the entrance to the Forbidden City. It was also a significant landmark in Chinese history. In the 36-hectare square stood the massive monument to China's revolutionary martyrs - the Monument to the People's Heroes - and also the mausoleum containing the embalmed remains of Mao Zedong. It was here 40 years earlier Mao had proclaimed the People’s Republic and it was here where students gathered in 1976 to protest the decision to end the mourning of popular Premier Zhou Enlai who died that year.

13 years later, the students were back to occupy the square and were joined by hundreds of thousands of professors, writers, journalists, workers, residents and government employees. The people were proclaiming a new version of the republic. In the square, marchers laid white flowers mourning the death of Hu Yaobang. Each march was larger than the last. Many went on hunger strike as momentum grew. More than a million demonstrated in Beijing and thousands more in dozens of other cities. All openly challenged CCP rule and demanded political reform to go with the economic reform. At the end of May, a ten-metre tall replica of the Statue of Liberty appeared in the Square near the defaced portrait of Mao.

Sensing a serious threat to their power, Deng Xiaoping and the old guard adopted a hard-line attitude. On 26 April, party mouthpiece The People’s Daily condemned the marches and branded them “turmoil”. The students responded on a placard, 'Pleading on behalf of the people is absolutely not turmoil'. A week later, the party imposed martial law. Students and residents commandeered 270 buses for barricades to keep the army out. By the middle of May students were arriving from all over China. The party was forced to cancel a ceremonial welcome for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev planned for the grandeur of the Great Hall overlooking the square. At Beijing University posters compared Deng Xiaoping, the party's de facto leader, to the hated Dowager Empress.

On 31 May, the government made the first arrests of the protest. The 11 arrested were leaders of a motorcycle club that played an important role in the demonstrations. Several hundred bikers had become one of the most vivid features of the protests, screeching around the city. According to the official New China News Agency they were arrested for “disturbing the public order” and the motorcycle club was disbanded. It was an ominous precursor for what was to happen four days later.

According to the New York Times on 5 June, the two month long demonstration was crushed the day when the government decided “to teach the students a bloody lesson”. On 2 June, Communist Party elders approved the decision to put down the "counter-revolutionary riot" by force. Some 150,000 troops with tanks and machineguns were in the city facing 5,000 students in the square.

Age writer Peter Ellingsen was a Tiananmen eye-witness. Watching the marches, he said it felt like someone had pulled the cork out of the bottle. The genie of democracy was loose but after seven weeks the army was about to destroy the cork, bottle and all. He saw the fightback on the night of the 4th: “On top of the tanks, soldiers in full battle gear fired into the shadows. The noise was deafening. I heard the flat thud of people being hit before I saw them fall. The tanks rolled over bodies in their way. One young man was squashed into the bitumen; his organs fanned out around his corpse."

By 2am, hundreds were dead. The troops and tanks had massed on the northern apron of the square and rolled over the tent city of 3,000 unarmed student protestors and half a dozen hunger strikers. The soldiers kept firing, hitting those standing well away from the square. Student leaders urged their followers to flee while they could. Many walked out singing the national anthem; others were killed where they stood. No-one knows the full death tally, it may be in the thousands. According to the government, 300 soldiers and “law-breaking criminals” died.

By the morning of the 5th, the army had regained control of the square leaving only the memory of the anonymous act of defiance by the “tank man of Tiananmen”. A British tabloid named the tank man as Wang Weilin, aged 19, but this is not verified. Nobody knows what happened to him. And yet his bailing up of seventeen tanks while carrying his shopping was captured forever as the iconic moment of Tiananmen.


But most of the story has been lost. An incensed Hong Kong built a Pillar of Shame to mourn the victims. China blithely moved on. As James Fallows wrote last week, Tiananmen is a lost memory. Chinese history students can recite chapter and verse of the Japanese cruelties in China from the 1930s onwards but most will not have any idea what happened in Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989. This is the ultimate success of the Chinese government in repressing the memory. “For a minority of people in China, the upcoming date of June 4 has tremendous significance,” said Fallows. “For most young people, it's just another day.”

7 comments:

Hong Hai Er said...

Your writing skills is impressive but lack of independent viewpoints. You're only taking the Americans' viewpoints and pretending that they're yours. That's disappointing ! Let me tell you something. I am old enough to remember what happened 20 years ago. There is always some important details missing intentionally in many western journalists' coverages of "June 4". The Chinese Government had given long enough time to warn the students to get out of the Square. It's the students' choice to stay in the Square to confront with the government. So, they bore the consequence as a result of their free choice. There were many student protesters who had taken the warning seriously and left the Square, thus ended up safe and not get hurt. Those who stayed to confront were the fools who became human shield for those student leaders who insisted the most to stay in the Square but then were also the fastest ones to dump the mass and fled to the western countries. Those student leaders were no angel of democracy. Instead, they're selfish and pretentious. Every Government has its duty to restore public orders, yes, by all means if no better alternative. Your police in Australia had just used excessive force to restore orders from an Indian students against racism rally a few weeks ago. Where is your masterpiece to condemn the Australian police brutality ? Putin in Russia had gassed his own people to death when he tried to smoke the Chechen Rebels out of the Moscow Theater. Yet I don't see western journalists whining about Putin year after year. You guys only picked on China because Chinese government doesn't talk back.

Best Regards...

Derek Barry said...

Thank you for taking the time to write, Hong Hai Er. However I must point out I used mostly Chinese sources for my story, not American.

just a few other points:

Firstly, why did the Chinese Government feel the need to warn the students to get out of the square? Why did the protest need to be put down violently?

Secondly, I have written about Putin critically on several occasions, for an example see here.

Thirdly, you are correct - I haven't yet written about the Indian violence but I do intend to, as it says important things both about Australian racism and also about hyberbolic media reaction, this time in India.

Hong Hai Er said...

Your research skills and efforts deserved with a lot of credits. I do believe you have collected these details from Chinese source not Americans.

However, as an Australian journalist commenting Chinese affairs, why did you quote from an American newspaper, the New York Times ( According to the New York Times on 5 June, the two month long demonstration was crushed the day when the government decided “to teach the students a bloody lesson”.

(note: "to teach the students a bloody lesson" isn't even any Chinese expression. )

and then an American writer / journalist - James Fallows ( As James Fallows wrote last week, Tiananmen is a lost memory. Chinese history students can recite chapter and verse of the Japanese cruelties in China from the 1930s onwards but most will not have any idea what happened in Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989. This is the ultimate success of the Chinese government in repressing the memory. “For a minority of people in China, the upcoming date of June 4 has tremendous significance,” said Fallows. “For most young people, it's just another day.” ). They are neither protesters nor government. They were outsiders of this confrontation.

You cited that

--- Age writer Peter Ellingsen was a Tiananmen eye-witness. Watching the marches he said it felt like someone had pulled the cork out of the bottle. The genie of democracy was loose but after seven weeks the army was about to destroy the cork, bottle and all. He saw the fightback on the night of the 4th: “On top of the tanks, soldiers in full battle gear fired into the shadows. The noise was deafening. I heard the flat thud of people being hit before I saw them fall. The tanks rolled over bodies in their way. One young man was squashed into the bitumen; his organs fanned out around his corpse." ----

Bravo ! I like original materials such as this one coming from an eye-witness. According to Peter Ellingsen, "The tanks rolled over bodies in their way. One young man was squashed into the bitumen; his organs fanned out around his corpse." It will be more convincing if Mr. Ellingsen had some pictures as hard evidence to support such a claim of what he had witnessed.

I assumed all the western journalists who had made the most claims in the world about eye-witnessing tanks rolling over and crushing the students' bodies should at least had taken some pictures and smuggled the pictures out, if not all, some.

Only if they really had these pictures, they would have published all with no delay because these are hard evidences to nail the Chinese Government.

Most non-Chinese journalists were staying in their hotels that night and the next morning. The last batch being forced to depart was not in big number.

If there were any western journalists really being able to eye-witness the tank crushing the students' bodies, would they not take a lot of pictures to show the crimes of the CCP to the world ?

Since you claimed that Mr. Ellingsen was one eye-witness. Have you asked Mr. Ellingsen whether he had tried to take pictures of what he claimed ?


----------------

Hong Hai Er said...

Now I answer your questions :

[ why did the Chinese Government feel the need to warn the students to get out of the square? ]

In western countries, you guys need to apply for a permit in order to hold a rally, to strike and to demonstrate. Not only that, you guys have to cooperate with the police and follow the police's instructions and advices for the sake of public safety and orders. In China, these students demonstrated with no permit. They occupied the Square, sometimes chanted slogans, sometimes, hunger strikes, sometimes rock concerts, sometimes open-air press conference, they also camped out there. Yet, the Chinese Government had put up with the mess for almost two months long. Such kind of things won't happen in any western countries not because you guys are more democratic but because you guys would have zero tolerance right at the very first day of illegal gathering. Of course, you're not going to face with the problem of how to get these people out and restore laws and orders.

Zhao Ziyang had gone to talk to the students and tell them to leave but the students ignored his advice.

The government imposed Martial Law as an attempt to restore laws and orders. Imposing the Martial Law to warn the students to leave was the best move of the government to separate innocent protesters from the non-innocent protesters.
Many students had gone home or leaving Beijing and returning to their home provinces accordingly.

However, those student leaders were out of their minds and mobilized 200 die-hard strikers as pioneers covered by 1000 voluntary guards to launch a hunger strike and occupy the Square as a gesture to defy the Martial Law.


Why did the protest need to be put down violently?

After giving enough time for the innocent protesters to go home or go back to their provinces, for those who had turned a deaf ear to the government's non-violent approach; who had chosen to stay in the Square and to defy the Martial Law, violence was the choice of no choice to re-take the Square.

Hong Hai Er said...

Why did people protest back then ? The Chinese government was corrupted. The corruption was threatening people's daily life security. However, the people have no access to voice their complaints, concerns, opinions or suggestions therefore they broke out eventually and marched down the street. Go ask anybody who had participated in the demonstration. If and only if there were other alternatives that they could have communicated with the government about their concerns, they wouldn't bother to strike at all. This is the critical point of the entire movement from the people's angle of viewpoints, not from the troublemakers' viewpoint, not from the government's viewpoint.

Western countries have a well established PR culture and system to handle with the public's complaints therefore a lot of confrontations are avoided and resolved before it sprouted. This is one important point that China needs to work hard to catch up with the West.

As a journalist from the Western country, if you really care for promoting peace in China, you can write more about this complaint-handling system in your Public Administration culture because your Chinese readers (civilians / government) will benefit so much by reading your introduction to this system.

Cheers ....

Derek Barry said...

thanks again for your detailed responses.

Let me tackle your points one by one.

The phrase "to teach the students a bloody lesson" was used by the NY Times not the Chinese authorities so it was not a Chinese expression but an American one.

I had to quote from an American paper of 5 June 1989 because the Chinese media of that day were under strict instructions not to report on the massacre unless it was to dismiss it as "criminal violence". I would not trust what the People's Daily printed that day as being credible.

That question to Ellingsen is a good one and one I would certainly like to ask him.

While I take your points about permits, I'm not sure police would have acted early here in Aus if something similar happened. And something similar HAS happened when Aboriginal protesters set up a tent embassy outside the national parliament in 1972 and it survives, despite being illegal, to this day.

You say "imposing the Martial Law to warn the students to leave was the best move of the government to separate innocent protesters from the non-innocent protesters." Who decides which protesters are innocent and which are not? What makes them innocent? Innocent of what? I grant that there were probably hardline student leaders that were determined to create a confrontation but surely everyone who attended was there because they believed that they could force institutional change?

As for your explanation why people protested, I accept that government corruption was (and probably still is) an issue in China as it is everywhere else. But surely it was also about something else, the right to engage in democracy as an active citizen who cares about the way their country is governed?

Finally, thats an excellent point you make about western public administration and one which I'll looking at more closely.

Thanks again for your stimulating engagement with this article.

Derek

Hong Hai Er said...

Innocent protesters are the majority who strike purely for against 官倒 ( corruption by government officials / "the party of princes 太子党 ", such as the son of Zhao Ziyang, buying at low and selling at high )

Non-innocent protesters are those troublemakers resisting non-violent measure to resolve conflicts, and insisting confrontation, leaving no room to the other side in negotiation and then later hijacking the mass movement and chanting regime-change-type slogans trying to turn the movement into something like a color-revolution.

I don't agree that everyone who attended was there because they believed that they could force institutional change, at least not with those protesters that I know personally. Unfortunately, the political climate is still not opened enough for Chinese to talk about 6-4 openly and freely. You're not going to hear voices from a good variety of people who had participated with the demonstration. However, once you met a few, the few will introduce you to others, others will connect you with others. I sincerely hope you can talk to more people and different kind of people because that's the only way to find out what the majority of the protesters really had in their minds back then when they marched down the street. There are a lot of details not being recorded because Chinese journalists suffer from political pressure, western journalists suffer from language limitation and Chinese protesters don't feel comfortable to talk about it especially with strangers. These details will be lost in the long river of history if nobody is going to do something to make a difference.

May be you can start with those who had settled in Australia long enough to enjoy the freedom of speech.

-----------------

Pardon me for my ignorance about Australia. I will look up the case of the "tent embassy" you mentioned. Like I said before that western countries are more mature in handling public relation with the mass. I am sure there will be a lot of things that Chinese can learn from Australia should more Chinese people get to learn about the "tent embassy" case. Please consider writing for exporting the good culture of Australia to help people in developing countries to share and to enjoy your country's success.

Best of luck !