By Fareed Khan
As has become normal practice in China since 1989 there will be no public commentary about the significance of this date. And the image of the protesting "tank man", which became an iconic image around the world of the Chinese suppression of the protests, will not be found in any Chinese media since the government has done everything possible to scrub the events and images of that period from the national memory.
June 4th marked the 25th anniversary of a tragic day in
history -- a subject that has become taboo in China, banned from textbooks, websites
and public discussions. It was on that
day in 1989 that the Chinese government ordered the brutal suppression of
protests for democratic reform in Tiananmen Square that resulted in the massacre of unarmed
demonstrators.
According to a Time magazine interview with an official of the Chinese Red Cross the
following year it was estimated that approximately 2,600 people were killed in
the military crackdown with thousands more being wounded. However, most estimates by Western diplomats
and organizations like Amnesty International put the death toll anywhere from a
few hundred to more than 1000. Exact
numbers of the dead and wounded are difficult to verify due to government
secrecy and the suppression of information about the events surrounding the
democracy protests by Chinese authorities.
Related:
As has become normal practice in China since 1989 there will be no public commentary about the significance of this date. And the image of the protesting "tank man", which became an iconic image around the world of the Chinese suppression of the protests, will not be found in any Chinese media since the government has done everything possible to scrub the events and images of that period from the national memory.
Related:
Those who were witnesses to the events leading up to that
day are unlikely to talk about it since doing so could bring a visit from
authorities which would then mean a long stay in a political re-education camp.
In addition to references to the
Tiananmen demonstrations being removed from Chinese information sources, any
efforts to find any references online through Western media would meet with
failure due to heavy censorship by Chinese internet search engines.
Consequently, the generation that was born in the subsequent decades are
completely oblivious to the historic and tragic events that occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
The initial demonstrations that led up to the June 4th
crackdown began in April of that year in response to the death of Hu Yaobang,
a former Communist Party leader who was considered to be a liberal reformer and
was critical of corruption in the Communist Party and the limited economic
opportunities for the country's youth. The Beijing student gatherings to mourn Hu's
death morphed into expressions of frustration and anger over lack of government
accountability, government corruption, lack of press freedoms and freedom of
speech, and the diminishing control of industry by workers.
The demonstrations were led by students from Beijing's universities and supported by the
citizens of Beijing. Media coverage of the protests galvanized
citizens in other cities and by mid-May sympathetic protests had sprung up in
400 cities around China. At the height of the protests it is estimated
that a million people assembled in the Square.
But by the end of May hardliners within the Chinese
leadership had pushed out those who were sympathetic to the protestors. They declared martial law and ordered the
"People's Liberation Army" into Beijing backed by tanks and armoured
personel carriers. An estimated 300,000
troops were brought into the capital and were ordered to use deadly force to
break up the protests. One-third of the troops were committed to clearing out Tiananmen Square of protestors. The killing along all the major routes leading
to the Square started before midnight with soldiers firing their
automatic rifles and the armoured personnel carriers firing their machine guns
indiscriminately into the huge crowds and small groups.
By June 5th the Square had been cleared of crowds and the
33-foot statue representing democracy and freedom had been destroyed. In the weeks that followed the Chinese
leadership purged government and media organizations of those who had expressed sympathies towards the demonstrators. Where possible, leaders of the
demonstrations were rounded up and jailed as
"counter-revolutionaries" although a few of the student leaders
managed to escape to Western countries. In addition, mass arrests were carried out
against thousands of workers who supported the students. Many were tried for crimes against the state
and summarily executed.
The Chinese government's crackdown on the protestors was
widely denounced by Western governments and in Western media. And in the weeks that followed the World Bank,
the Asian Development Bank and various foreign governments suspended loans to China. In addition, foreign direct investments were
cancelled, economic embargoes were imposeded and tourism to China declined substantially.
Although China suffered an economic hit in the short-term, in the long-term the West seems to have forgotten about those who died fighting for the freedoms that those in the West take for granted. In the years since June 4, 1989 the outrage that was expressed by the West has diminished, economic embargoes put in place were lifted, supported by their governments Western corporations became one of the biggest sources of foreign investment in China and contributed to the personal wealth of the Chinese leadership, and Western tourism to China increased dramatically. Today it is unlikely that Western governments or business executives even consider the events of 25 years ago or the authoritiarian ideology that permitted the massacre to occur when they talk business with the Chinese government (an ideology which continues to guide the present day leaders of China).
It has to be said that it’s a sad reality that no matter how brutally a government may treat its citizens in the long run the leaders of that government will benefit financially because Western governments and companies are willing to deal with authoritarian governments because the pursuit of profits always seems to trump struggles for freedom, democracy and human rights.
Although China suffered an economic hit in the short-term, in the long-term the West seems to have forgotten about those who died fighting for the freedoms that those in the West take for granted. In the years since June 4, 1989 the outrage that was expressed by the West has diminished, economic embargoes put in place were lifted, supported by their governments Western corporations became one of the biggest sources of foreign investment in China and contributed to the personal wealth of the Chinese leadership, and Western tourism to China increased dramatically. Today it is unlikely that Western governments or business executives even consider the events of 25 years ago or the authoritiarian ideology that permitted the massacre to occur when they talk business with the Chinese government (an ideology which continues to guide the present day leaders of China).
It has to be said that it’s a sad reality that no matter how brutally a government may treat its citizens in the long run the leaders of that government will benefit financially because Western governments and companies are willing to deal with authoritarian governments because the pursuit of profits always seems to trump struggles for freedom, democracy and human rights.
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© Fareed
Khan. All Rights Reserved.
