The EconomistJune 1st 2019 China 53T
hree decadesafter troops used murderous force to clear prot-
esters from Tiananmen Square and central Beijing, covering up
that crime has become a bit of a chore. China’s security machine is
ready to censor, arrest and imprison those who speak too candidly
about events in 1989. But 30 years on this work of repression is car-
ried out with cold, bureaucratic efficiency—a far cry from the ter-
rors of June 3rd and 4th when soldiers and tanks shot and smashed
their way into the ceremonial heart of Beijing, as loudspeakers me-
tallically intoned that the army “loves the people”.
The most recent jailing linked to the Tiananmen protests oc-
curred on April 4th this year. A court in the south-western city of
Chengdu sentenced an activist, Chen Bing, to three-and-a-half
years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. His
offence: labelling bottles of baijiualcohol with the iconic image of
the lone protester who stared down tanks near the square. That
picture, and any other reference to Tiananmen in 1989, is political-
ly taboo in China. Each year, as the anniversary approaches, the
relatives of those killed by the army, including the mothers of
school pupils gunned down in cold blood, are placed under sur-
veillance or taken on enforced trips out of town.
The cover-up is a headache for internet and social-media com-
panies, which are obliged to employ armies of people to erase
banned content. In order for these 20-somethings to be able to
spot and delete references to Tiananmen, they must first be taught
what happened there, the New York Times reported in January from
one “content-reviewing factory”.
Such ignorance was once thought impossible. In all, hundreds
of people, if not thousands, were killed in Beijing and some in oth-
er cities. Tens of thousands, at a minimum, were arrested for in-
volvement in what was declared a “counter-revolutionary riot”.
Suspects were snatched from homes and workplaces, or off the
streets. The protests had drawn students and workers, magistrates
in court uniforms and police cadets, and journalists from state
media who marched beneath banners reading “We want to print
the truth”. None was safe. Many endured re-education meetings.
The unlucky were jailed. A few, having suffered horrors in prison,
were exiled. Millions witnessed these terrors or their aftermath.
Zhao Ziyang, the Communist Party’s leader in 1989, was ousted
during the unrest for opposing military action. In internal debates
Zhao had called the protesters patriotic and endorsed their de-
mands for a more accountable government, tougher anti-corrup-
tion measures and the observance of constitutionally guaranteed
freedoms. He was purged and detained until his death in 2005. In a
letter written from house arrest in 1997, he warned that the people
would not forget the protests or the party’s demonisation of them.
Yet there has been much forgetting, some of it the work of par-
ents who see no good in filling children’s heads with politics. It is
not hard to imagine the dream of modern party leaders: that all
China should forget the passions, fears and dashed hopes of 1989,
so that future anniversaries pass without a flicker of dissent. The
same party leaders surely hope that foreigners let go of memories
of 1989, too. Even as blood was being scrubbed from Beijing streets,
Communist officials argued that they had crushed the protests to
avoid civil conflict, and to restore party unity so that China could
be stable and prosperous. Their argument today, in essence, is that
China has succeeded because of that use of force, not despite it.
It frustrates party officials that so many in the West doubt that
claim, and suggest that China is weakened to this day by that lega-
cy of violence, paranoia and intolerance of debate. It angers them
that foreigners pay such heed to independent-minded people,
whether religious believers, feminist campaigners, environmen-
talists or left-wing students working with unofficial trade unions.
China’s leaders want the outside world to believe that they rule
in a majoritarian compact accepted by almost all their citizens.
They would include in that social contract the grim dystopia that
they have built in the far-western region of Xinjiang, where per-
haps a million members of the Muslim Uighur minority have been
sent to re-education camps and millions more endure unsleeping
high-tech surveillance. Party leaders insist that most Chinese ap-
prove of this, believing it a price worth paying for eliminating rad-
ical Islam and the threat of terrorism.
Communist bosses should be careful what they wish for. No-
body knows how stable their support is because China is so secre-
tive, and because the broad contentment of a country enjoying
economic growth is easy to mistake for informed consent. But if a
Tiananmen anniversary ever does pass without a flicker of dissent,
that would be a dangerous moment, setting up the Chinese nation,
and not just its rulers, for a backlash across the democratic world.
For the party’s swaggering, authoritarian ways are a challenge to
the universal values which help to define the West. That is true
even though President Donald Trump is a disturbing outlier. He
has described the violence in Beijing 30 years ago as a “strong,
powerful government” quelling a “riot”, albeit with horrible force.Made reality, the party’s dreams would make the world recoil
For sure, foreigners have been guilty of a certain narcissism in
imagining that ordinary Chinese, as they grow richer, will aspire to
Western freedoms. But dissent in China matters. It allows Western
governments to say that their disputes are with China’s leaders,
not its people. It is because not all Chinese are seen as agents of the
party-state that they are welcomed in the West as students and
business partners. The party should be grateful that some citizens
want a more transparent, accountable government, and distrust
propaganda. They should welcome intra-party disagreements that
pit reformers against hardliners. They should be glad that the
chore of censorship never ends, on June 4th or any day. For a se-
renely unified, nationalist Chinese autocracy, unequivocally
backed by its people, would be a terror to the world. 7Chaguan Tiananmen, 30 years on
What if China’s rulers pay no price for the massacre in Beijing?