1989: The CCP’s Near Escape } 471
In the event, the perspective that won out was not Zhao Ziyang’s. The
dominant view was that the CCP faced a powerful movement trying to undo
its control over the state and hegemony over society, and that further con-
cessions and tolerance would embolden rather than placate that movement,
which was backed by a coalition of capitalist powers hostile to the very ex-
istence of CCP rule over socialist China. Internally, a protracted struggle
would have to be waged against “spiritual and intellectual infiltration” by
Western powers and their ideas. Externally, the PRC would need to remain
vigilant and strong.
The Impact of “6-4” on China’s International Status
The CCP’s response to the uprising that shook China in spring 1989—a
resort to military repression that left at least hundreds of civilian protestors
dead, an episode widely referred to as “6-4” for “June 4” in China and as
the Beijing Massacre in the West—radically redefined the PRC’s relations
with Western countries. In the first instance, Western public opinion was
dismayed at the killing of unarmed civilian protestors in Beijing streets.
The international media had flocked to Beijing to report on Gorbachev’s
historic summit visit to China in May. Once in that city, however, foreign
journalists turned their attention to the student protest movement, and
many were still on site on the night of June 3–4. Much of the violence of
that night and the next day unfolded before the vigilant and shocked eyes
of the international media. Brought into homes by television and firsthand
newspaper reports, PLA brutality evoked deep Western sympathy for the
brave Chinese freedom fighters. “Tank man,” a lone civilian who blocked
a column of tanks by refusing to move aside on the morning of June 4,
became a powerful symbol of what Westerners perceived as China’s brave
resistance and the regime’s brutality. Anger at the CCP leaders who ordered
the use of force paralleled sympathy for China’s protestors. Both impulses
translated into demands on democratically elected Western governments
to take action supporting China’s struggle for liberty and punishing CCP
rulers who seemed to stand athwart the course of history. As Figure 17-1
shows, positive US views of China fell precipitously after 6-4 to the lowest
level since 1973. Fifteen years of improving American perceptions of China
were wiped out in one day.
The Beijing Massacre altered Sino-US relations in another way as well.
Prior to 6-4, the way had seemed open, in American eyes at least, to a grad-
ual, step-by-step liberalization of the PRC political system via leadership by
reform-minded leaders like Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang, and perhaps even
Deng Xiaoping himself. Modernization theory, immensely influential in the
United States, had linked increased standards of living plus increased social