Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (118 page)

Moreover, these students had grown up at a time in Chinese history that offered no space for independent political activists to organize and test their ideas. The demonstrators were not members of political organizations, but a part of crowds with changing leaders and loosely affiliated participants. Those who rose to take high positions in the movement did so not by displaying superior judgment and strategic planning, but through their spontaneous oratory and bravado. Those who remained in the square harbored the illusion that their national leaders would recognize their patriotism and their
high morals, talk with them, take their concerns as legitimate, and deal with the issues they were raising.
⁵⁸

This hothouse student generation resembled Sun Yat-sen's description of China in the 1920s: like a sheet of loose sand. Zhao Ziyang's opponents blamed him for inciting the students and directing their spears at Deng. Zhao's supporters, in turn, blamed his rivals for provoking the students to embarrass Zhao. Both Zhao's supporters and his opponents may have tried to direct the student protestors, but in fact they had little ability to do so. The Chinese students marched to their own drummers. Even the students' own leaders could only incite the protesters gathered in the square, not control them.

After June 4, students and their families mourned those who had been killed or injured. They also mourned the loss of hope that a more open, moral China would emerge in the near future. Student leaders, considering what to do after June 4, acknowledged to one another that they had been naïve in challenging the nation's leaders and in expecting them to give up their power. Students of this generation, as well as the following generations, took away from their tragic experience the lesson that direct confrontation with the leadership would likely cause a reaction so forceful that it was not worth the costs.

The Chinese students after June 4, then, unlike their counterparts in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, stopped attacking the Communist Party. Many students came to believe that progress could only be achieved by slowly building a base, by improving the economic livelihood of more people, by improving people's understanding of public issues, and by gradually developing experience in democracy and freedom. Even some students who were not members of the Communist Party acknowledged that the leaders had been in danger of losing control over the country, and that only the party could maintain the stability necessary to promote economic growth. Many believed that despite the corrupt and self-serving officials, the Communist-led program that had brought about the reform and opening policies—and with them, the improved livelihood of the people—was preferable to any likely alternative. They hoped that after decades of stability and economic growth, a stronger base for a freer society could develop. In the meantime, the vast majority of student activists simply gave up promoting collective action and instead concentrated on pursuing their own careers.

Many intellectuals and even some high-level party officials believed that the decision to fire on innocent people was unforgivable and that sooner or
later the party would have to reverse its evaluation of the movement. Although such a change seems unlikely while those who played an active role in deciding to use force are still alive, there has been a softening of the government's position. Within two decades after the crackdown, many of those imprisoned were released and the opprobrium of having taken part was gradually reduced as the events first called a “counterrevolutionary rebellion”
(fangeming baoluan)
, became a “riot”
(baoluan)
, then “political turmoil”
(zhengzhi dongluan)
, and finally, the “1989 storm”
(1989 fengbo).

The Power of the Tiananmen Image

All of us who care about human welfare are repulsed by the brutal crackdown on June 4, 1989. The tragedy in Tiananmen Square evoked a massive outcry in the West, far greater than previous tragedies in Asia of comparable scale elicited.
⁵⁹
For instance, on February 28, 1947, as the Guomindang took over Taiwan, the Guomindang general Chen Yi killed off thousands of the most prominent local leaders so as to eliminate any local leader who might have resisted the Guomindang. In Taiwan the incident embittered relations between “locals” and “outsiders” for decades, but it received little attention abroad. In 1980, too, Korean president Chun Doo Hwan led a bloody crackdown during which he slaughtered far more people than were killed in Beijing in 1989 in order to eliminate local resistance in Kwangju. Yet the Kwangju events were not covered by Western television, and global condemnation of the South Korean leaders did not compare with the condemnation of the Chinese leaders after the Tiananmen tragedy.

In his comparative analysis of these incidents, American scholar Richard Madsen tackles this question of why Western audiences became so emotionally involved in the Tiananmen tragedy and suggests that the answer has to do with the way the events unfolded dramatically in real time on television, as well as how the students came to be identified with Western ideals. In short, Madsen concludes that the crackdown in Beijing struck a nerve because it was interpreted as an assault on the American myth that economic, intellectual, and political freedoms will always triumph. Many foreigners came to see Deng as a villainous enemy of freedom who crushed the heroic students who were standing up for what they believed in.
⁶⁰

During the Cultural Revolution, there was no comparable foreign media access in China, even though the raw brutality that occurred then affected far
greater numbers of people than did the events of June 4. Paradoxically, Deng Xiaoping's efforts to open China to the foreign press made it possible for foreign correspondents to report to the world about his crackdown in Tiananmen Square.

Before the spring of 1989, foreign reporters in China had been highly restricted in their movements and in their access to the Chinese people. Chinese officials, too, under pressure from above not to give away “state secrets,” rarely talked to the press and when they did, they were guarded. Until April 1989, when reporters began meeting with dissidents who wanted to pass on their message, they had to meet secretly so as not to get the activists in trouble.

For foreign correspondents trying to see behind the curtain, then, the Beijing Spring provided a unique opportunity. Indeed, for most foreign reporters in Beijing, covering the student demonstrations from April 15 through June 1989 was the most exciting time of their careers. During this period, they worked to the limits of their physical endurance under adverse circumstances to capture the yearning for freedom and democracy and were given air time and print space to report the exciting drama in their home media.

Meanwhile, the Chinese students were as eager for their views to reach wider audiences as the reporters were to broadcast them. For reporters, as for students, the obvious depth of support for the students from the older citizens of Beijing made it difficult to imagine that the government would fire on its own people. Many reporters later criticized themselves for being so caught up in the excitement that they, like the students whom they were covering, had failed to see the lurking dangers and to prepare Western audiences for the consequences.

By the end of May, Western TV viewers and newspaper readers had so thoroughly identified with the students fighting for democracy that the bloody finale was perceived as a crackdown on “our” students, who stood for what “we” stand for. The Goddess of Democracy statue brought home to Americans in particular the apparent yearning for all that the Statue of Liberty represents. In the eyes of Western viewers, heroic young demonstrators were being gunned down by brutal dictators. And when the reporters saw the students they had come to know being battered and killed, they were so viscerally moved that they tended to exaggerate the horrors. Some reported that as many as five thousand or ten thousand demonstrators were killed. After June 4, the story that China was on the brink of civil war continued in the
Western press even though by June 9, when Deng had met with the leaders from all the military regions, it was clear to objective observers that the situation had stabilized.
⁶¹

To Chinese leaders straining to keep control over events, the foreign media that could be seen or heard by hotel staff and residents of southern cities near Hong Kong, as well as by Chinese people overseas, became “black hands” fomenting the disturbance. Indeed, many Chinese eagerly sought the reports of Voice of America, the BBC, and CNN. Professional Chinese journalists envied the freedom of Western journalists to report events as they saw them and tried to stretch their own range of freedom in the stories they wrote.

In the aftermath of the Tiananmen incident, businesspeople, scholars, and U.S. government officials who believed that U.S. national interests required working with the Chinese government were vulnerable to criticism for cooperating with the “evil dictators” in Beijing. As the Cold War was coming to a close, many outspoken U.S. liberals were arguing that our policies should reflect our values, that we should not coddle dictators but instead should stand on the side of democracy and human rights. And what better way to display Western commitments to these ideals than to condemn those responsible for the Tiananmen crackdown? After June 4, then, Deng Xiaoping was confronted not only by disaffected youth and urban residents in China, but also by Western officials who espoused the same values as the Chinese demonstrators.

What If?

A tragedy of such enormous proportions, one that caused such extensive human suffering and was witnessed around the world, led all those who care about the welfare of humankind to ask how such a catastrophe might have been avoided. Those looking for an immediate cause of the tragedy point to the decision by Deng Xiaoping to use whatever means necessary to clear the square. Deng's critics argue that if he had not taken such a firm stance against the “turmoil” on April 26, 1989, if he had been more willing to listen to the students, or if he had used all the nonviolent means at his disposal, the square could have been cleared without such violence and loss of life. Critics of Zhao Ziyang argue that if he had given less encouragement to the students and had been more resolute in dealing with them, and if he had been less concerned about his personal image as an enlightened leader, the ultimate tragedy could
have been avoided. Critics of Li Peng claim that if he had not been so stubborn in refusing to talk with the students and to understand their concerns, so quick to condemn them, so determined to promote the editorial of April 26 that branded them as perpetrators of “turmoil,” and so rigid in his disdain for and lack of sympathy for them, the tragedy might not have occurred. Critics of Chen Xitong and Li Ximing say that had they not exaggerated the gravity of the situation and the extent of foreign involvement in their reports to Deng and other senior officials, the senior leaders, including Deng, would not have felt compelled to respond so strongly.

Critics of the student leaders say that had they not been so vain, displayed such an exaggerated sense of personal importance, and refused to consider the dangers they were creating, the tragedy would not have occurred. Some suggest, too, that if the students and the other Beijing residents had not stopped the troops on May 20 that were trying to bring order by peaceful means, the regime could have avoided the shootings that followed two weeks later. For their part, Chinese critics of Westerners argue that if Westerners had not fanned the flames of student protest and if the foreign “black hands” had not tried to destroy Chinese communism and the socialist system, the demonstrations would never have gotten out of hand.

Those who look for deeper causes point to the decisions by Deng and Zhao Ziyang to allow inflation to rise in 1988 and to lift price controls on consumer products, arousing the anger and anxiety of the citizenry. Others complain about the arbitrary exercise of power and privilege by those in high positions who intimidated the public, exercised unnecessarily tight controls over personal lives, and gave unfair advantages to their friends and relatives. Some conservatives blame the market reforms that went too far by encouraging greed and contributing to official corruption. Others believe that Deng's failure to move the country faster toward democracy and to support Hu Yaobang in 1986 was the ultimate cause of the conflagration. Deng did believe that officials at the “commanding heights” have a responsibility to make decisions and that although they should listen to constructive opinions, in the end they must do what they feel is necessary for the long-term success of the country. If Deng had done more to experiment with voting methods, to weaken the bonds of authoritarian leadership, to introduce the rule of law, and to punish corrupt officials, some say, the country could have progressed faster and avoided the challenge from the students.

Other officials, who admire Deng's handling of the Tiananmen demonstrations,
believe that in late May 1989, once the situation in Tiananmen Square began spinning out of control, the strong actions taken by Deng represented the Chinese people's only chance for keeping their nation together. Many officials believe that once Deng was unable to bring order by introducing martial law without firing on the crowds, he had no choice but to do what he did to keep the country united. When many Chinese people compare Deng's response to the Beijing student uprising with those of Gorbachev and his Eastern European counterparts to their own versions of the Beijing Spring, they believe the Chinese people and the Chinese nation today are far better off. They are convinced that given its early stage of development, China could not have stayed together had the leadership allowed the intellectuals the freedom they sought. They acknowledge the seriousness of the tragedy of 1989, but they believe that even greater tragedies would have befallen China had Deng failed to bring an end to the two months of chaos in June 1989.