It's the
money, not Tiananmen that counts
By John Feffer
WASHINGTON - China has come a long way since 1989. Its expanding economy is the
envy of the world and the engine of growth in East Asia. Entry to the lucrative
China market is sought by businesses competing ferociously worldwide.
Internationally, Beijing has also been playing a larger and more constructive
role, as in its mediation in the North Korea nuclear crisis and hosting six-way
Pyongyang talks.
Each of these successes and attainments, however, must be qualified. Economic
growth has been unevenly distributed, and corruption remains endemic. China's
new international profile has been accompanied by increased military
expenditures and muscle-flexing in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.
Despite all its achievements, perhaps the largest question mark hanging over
China's success remains Tiananmen Square, where the Chinese People's Liberation
Army killed hundreds of unarmed pro-democracy protestors on June 4, 1989, and
injured hundreds, perhaps thousands of others. The exact death and casualty
toll is not known and may never be.
Beijing's decision to crush the protest cost not only lives but international
standing, business relations and lucrative contracts. For a while, Beijing was
a pariah.
The government remains outwardly confident of its decision to crush the protest
15 years ago. "In 1989, the Chinese government adopted resolute measure[s] in a
timely fashion to safeguard social security," says Sun Weide, spokesman and
press counselor for the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC. "The measures we
have taken are absolutely correct. The most important thing is to ensure
stability and development," he told Asia Times Online.
Such talk of stability resonates with the international business community, for
whom China's huge market overwhelms all other considerations. In 2002, China
became the largest recipient of foreign direct investment, and investment
continued to rise in 2003. The European Union is considering a relaxation, or
possibly a lifting of the arms embargo imposed after Tiananmen - in large part
to assist the European high-technology sector to gain an edge in the Chinese
market. American companies, both military and civilian, for years have pressed
the United States government, which also imposed arms sales sanctions, to
remove obstacles to increased investment and trade. Despite Tiananmen, what
counts for international business is the economy and how to profit from China's
prodigious growth.
While both the Chinese government and international business prefer to focus on
stability and development, the issue of Tiananmen Square - literally heaven's
gate - and all that it represents in terms of political reform continues to
haunt China.
Two letters
This past March, Chinese army doctor Jiang Yanyong wrote a letter to several
high government officials calling for a public acknowledgement of the errors of
1989. As reported in Asia Times Online, Jiang accused the government of killing
innocent protestors and then covering up its crime with lies. Jiang aided and
comforted the wounded and dying as a doctor on the night of June 4, 1989. He
was horrified by what he saw. In 2003, similarly shocked by the Chinese
government's incompetent handling of the severe acute respiratory syndrome
epidemic, he contacted Western news agencies and thereby pressured the Beijing
authorities into acknowledging the severity of the crisis. His most recent
Tiananmen letter expands his whistle-blowing role into potentially more
dangerous territory.
"The letter has highlighted an issue the ruling party desperately wants to bury
and forget," says Minxin Pei of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, DC. "But
June 4 has been etched into China's collective memory. Had Dr Jiang not raised
it this year, someone else would have. And I expect that 'the reversal of
verdict' on Tiananmen is not whether, but when and how."
Sun Weide of the Chinese embassy disagrees. "History has proven that the
political conclusion over the 1989 political disturbance is the correct one. A
small number of people are spreading rumors so as to disrupt the Chinese
government efforts to develop the country and its economy."
When top Chinese Internet blogs posted Jiang Yanyong's letter, the Chinese
government temporarily shut them down. Back up after a week, one of the
largest, Blogbus, asked its users "not to post any news about current events,
sensitive content or political comments".
This has not prevented other groups from raising the issue of Tiananmen. In
May, 67 prominent Chinese intellectuals from both within and outside China
issued an open letter demanding "that those responsible ... openly ask for
forgiveness of the people in written and oral statements, and bow their heads
three times to the dead".
While discussion of Tiananmen continues within certain quarters in China, it
remains an officially taboo subject. The letter writers, according to Agence
France Presse, decry this lack of discussion: "We don't believe that forced
silence and memory relapse will bring about reconciliation or democracy in
public life."
"The fading of historical memory is a natural thing," says Orville Schell, a
China expert and the dean of the graduate school of journalism at the
University of California, Berkeley. "What is unnatural is the willful, amnesiac
effort of Marxist-Leninist parties in trying to expunge unpleasant historical
events and facts from memory. In the best of times, it's difficult for a people
to stay in touch with the unpleasant aspects of their history. But with a
government actively encouraging people to forget, it's even harder."
Human rights
It is difficult to assess whether human rights in China have improved since
1989. Most China-watchers agree that there have been improvements on the
ground, at a micro-level, in how the average individual lives. At the
macro-level, however, the Chinese government has resisted liberalization. It
has also continued to imprison its most outspoken critics, including 60
cyber-dissidents according to Reporters without Borders, a France-based
non-governmental organization that monitors free speech and press freedoms
worldwide.
"In areas such as personal liberties - freedom of movement, access to
information, and economic opportunities the improvement has been significant,"
says Minxin Pei of the Carnegie Endowment. But, he adds, "Chinese citizens'
political rights - defined in terms of their ability to contest the ruling
party's decisions through free speech and association - have not improved.
Ironically, China today is at the same time more free socially but politically
more repressed - not vis-a-vis 1989, but vis-a-vis the mid-1980s, the golden
age of China's reform."
Orville Schell agrees. "What's changing is the way people live and interact.
What remains the same is the old structures that were laid down in the 1950s -
the state security, the People's Liberation Army, the control of the [Chinese
Communist] Party over crucial aspects of political life."
In 2003, the administration of US President George W Bush decided not to
introduce a resolution at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
criticizing China's record. The administration argued that it had entered a
human rights dialogue with China, and Beijing had promised to take certain
steps. In March 2004, claiming "backsliding" on the part of the Chinese, the
Bush administration resumed its tradition of condemning China's human rights
record at the UN. The resolution, like all of its predecessors, was voted down.
"The United States has always felt that human rights are an area where we have
serious differences with the Chinese," said a State Department official,
speaking on condition he not be identified further. Human rights, the official
continued, "are not swept under the rug. They are a part of the relationship.
On the other hand, this doesn't prevent us from pursuing our own interests.
There are threats that we and the Chinese both see - North Korea comes to mind
- though we don't necessarily agree about everything."
Some critics have argued that the US has not pushed China hard enough on human
rights; others complain that the current administration has focused too much on
human rights to the exclusion of other issues such as the trade deficit or
joint anti-terrorism work.
"I don't think that we can expect US government actions to do much in terms of
changing the human rights situation in China," argues Andrew J Nathan,
professor of political science at Columbia University. "There aren't a lot of
strategies that work." He believes that providing a list of names of political
prisoners to the government and pushing for their release has had some effect,
as have motions at the UN Commission on Human Rights. Perhaps more significant
in the long run, however, are the less visible, more patient efforts of
non-governmental organizations in such fields as women's rights, judicial
reform and environmental protection.
It's the economy, comrade
The Chinese government tends to discuss human rights through an economic
filter. According to the government's latest white paper on human rights, 2003
was "a year of great, landmark significance for progress in human rights in the
country". When asked about the most significant events in 2003, Sun Weide,
Chinese embassy spokesman in Washington, stressed that "the living standards of
the Chinese people have continuously improved and per capita GDP in 2003
surpassed $1,000 for the first time in Chinese history". The same white paper
acknowledged that "there is still much room for improvement of the human rights
conditions". Sun argued that a major challenge for China is to feed one-quarter
of the world's population on only 7 percent of the world's arable land. "One of
the improvements most needed is to raise the living standards of the Chinese
people," he said.
The Chinese government's economic approach to human rights derives in part from
its Marxist world view. But it also connects to the origins of the Tiananmen
Square protests. One of the major reasons for growing public dissatisfaction
with the government in the late 1980s was rising inflation and a slowdown in
economic reform. China's economic turnaround in the 1990s, meanwhile, appeared
to assuage this underlying unease. Argues Nathan, "The constant growth of the
economy and the bringing under control of inflation and corruption have
contributed to the population accepting this regime and considering it better
than the risk of an unknown change."
Nathan identifies several other reasons why another mass protest has not broken
out in China, such as safety-valve institutions that enable people to seek
redress within the system and international successes, such as winning the bid
for the 2008 Olympics. Force, too, has been a compelling factor. "The fact that
the regime was willing to crack down and shoot people and firmly repress anyone
who challenges it," Nathan points out, "contributes to people accepting the
regime."
Orville Schell, of the University of California at Berkeley, brings up another
factor: nationalism. "Historically China has a deep sensitivity toward
appearing in any sense inadequate, less than modern, less than a great power,
less than civilized. And so the yearning to want to believe in one's country
and its greatness mitigates powerfully against the admission of weakness and
failure. It plays directly into popular sentiment."
This is not a uniquely Chinese problem, Schell notes. "The United States is
running into this phenomenon a little bit itself," he says. "Pride, patriotism
and nationalism make it very difficult for many Americans to acknowledge the
folly of the situation in Iraq."
John Feffer (www.johnfeffer.com) is the author most recently of North
Korea, South Korea: US Policy at a Time of Crisis.
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