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China needs honesty
about June 4
By Wang Dan ¤ý¤¦
On June 4, 1989, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime sent its army in to
suppress peacefully protesting students and other citizens, a move that sent
shockwaves around the world and came to be known at the June 4 Incident, or
Tiananmen Square Massacre. Although 23 years have passed since those events took
place, memories of what happened have not faded, except in China itself. The
Chinese government finds it difficult to understand why, so many years after the
event, people around the world still cling to the issue. In fact, the reason is
quite simple: When a government openly deploys armed forces to slaughter people
in its own capital city, it has gone beyond humanityˇ¦s bottom line; it is a
tyranny among tyrannies.
When it crushed the democracy movement, the Chinese government challenged not
just the Chinese people, but the basic dignity and ground rules of the whole
human race. If such behavior is tolerated, social order cannot be maintained.
That is the main reason why the June 4 events marked out the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) as an enemy of humanity.
Western countries may do business with Beijing and show it feigned courtesy, but
in their hearts they still regard Chinaˇ¦s rulers as barbarians.
People around the world have, for many years, been calling for the events of
June 4 to be reassessed and for those involved in the 1989 democracy movement to
be rehabilitated. However, things have moved on and perhaps now it would be more
fitting to call for the official verdict on June 4 to be overturned. The
difference is that rehabilitation would have to be done by the CCP, whereas
overturning the verdict would be a decision made by ordinary people and
facilitated by objective developments.
Of course, if the CCP were to reassess June 4 of its own accord, that would
doubtless be the best way of resolving the questions that surround the events,
because it would allow society to pay the smallest price. Rumors have recently
circulated that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (·Ĺ®aÄ_) and other CCP figures have been
talking among themselves about June 4, and these rumors have given people some
hope that things might change. However, current indications are that the CCP is
extremely unlikely to take the initiative in resolving the issue.
Although there is no evidence to confirm such reports at the moment, some things
could be taken as grounds for assessing whether the CCP is getting ready to
resolve the June 4 problem. For example, the authorities could allow exiled
activists from the 1989 movement to return to China, or permit Chinese to
discuss June 4 openly, or they could engage in collective dialogue with the
Tiananmen Mothers, and so on. However, we have seen no change or progress
whatsoever in these areas.
Chinaˇ¦s process of reform and opening up has been going on for more than three
decades and it has been accompanied by increasingly serious corruption. As a
result, many possibilities for resolving political issues are impeded by
concerns over economic interests. Even if individual leaders are willing to make
a few changes, opposition from gigantic political interest groups is sure to
prevent them from doing so. In view of this reality, any expectation that the
CCP will take the initiative to reassess and rehabilitate June 4 is no more than
an illusion.
Chinaˇ¦s political situation has reached a stalemate. The authorities are fully
aware of the publicˇ¦s dissatisfaction and hopes for democratization, but they
are hopelessly entangled and paralyzed by the old system and groups that have a
vested interest in its continued existence. The only possible way of breaking
this stalemate is to further strengthen civil society and move as quickly as
possible toward concentrating, mobilizing and integrating popular pressure
groups. A movement built from the bottom up, such as through street protest
movements, would put the authorities under massive pressure to make historic
concessions and such concessions would, in turn, activate popular forces. The
starting point for such a process must be a resolution of the June 4 issue. That
is what is meant by ˇ§reversing the June 4 verdict.ˇ¨
We are now 23 years on from June 4, 1989, but nobody can be sure when the
verdict on those events will be overturned. However, anyone who has researched
history and drawn lessons from it must be aware that a ruling clique as corrupt
as the CCP is bound to crack sooner or later. When and how this will happen, we
do not and cannot know, but that day will surely come.
Wang Dan is a visiting associate professor at National Tsing Hua Universityˇ¦s
College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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