Beijing, (Asian independent) US President Joe Biden has compared the Russian military campaign in Ukraine to the Chinese response to student protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. During a recent visit to Warsaw, President Biden praised Ukrainians for showing “backbone” in their resistance against Russia, giving the example of “a 30-year-old woman standing there in front of a tank with a rifle”. Elaborating on this remark, Biden said, “I mean, talk about what happened to Tiananmen Square. This is Tiananmen Square squared.”
Coming as it did in the run up to another anniversary of the month-long protests in the heart of Beijing in 1989, which culminated in their brutal dispersal by use of massive military and police force, Biden’s remarks are a stark reminder of the need to commemorate the 1989 incidents with much greater focus.
This analysis attempts to revisit the protests and capture some of the issues which underpinned and gave impetus to the students. The world’s imagination was captured by the lone man who confronted a fleet of Chinese tanks at Tiananmen Square, just holding two shopping bags! This was on 5 June. However, the protests began much earlier in April and have a story to be told. The narrative of China in early 1989 was one of progress and sentiment of expression among the people for reform, both political and economic. A decade had passed after liberalisation and economic development which the people felt in better standards of living. There was much greater activism amongst the students for more jobs and better living conditions.
By 1986-87, student-led protests and demonstrations demanding more individual rights and freedoms across China. This led to intra-party debate with the Communist Party of China (CPC) with Hu Yaobang taking a moderate line on how to deal with the student protests. Yaobang was forced to resign in January 1987 by the CPC angered by the idea that ‘bourgeois liberalism’ could take root in the Party. The party began the “anti-bourgeois liberalization campaign”, aimed at Hu, political liberalization, and to stop the infiltration of western-inspired ideas. The campaign stopped student protests and restricted political activity, but Hu Yaobang remained popular among intellectuals, students, and Communist Party progressives. Two things are of relevance in the present discourse.
When Hu died in mid-April 1989, the students came together to mourn him in Beijing. Notably, this phenomenon was replicated across several cities in China including Shanghai, Nanjing and Chengdu. For obvious reasons media attention remained on the gatherings in Beijing, the principal reason being that the Western media had gathered to cover the visit of Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev in mid-May 1989.
That the students arose spontaneously could be seen in the sudden appearance of posters on university campuses eulogizing Hu with calls to honour his legacy. Within days, most posters were about broader political issues, such as corruption, democracy, and freedom of the press. The most significant aspect of the protest movement was that the students were joined by other social groups and sectors.Starting with the students, the protests witnessed participation of intellectuals, media, workers, and finally CPC cadres. This social uprising made its presence felt in several cities across China as mentioned earlier. The events of 1989 shocked the CPC as it revealed the disenchantment with the rule of the Party.
The month-long protests culminated in a crackdown officially termed as the ‘June Fourth incident’. Political turmoil between the spring and summer of 1989 is a more neutral phrase currently used by the Chinese to describe the events of the time and is a recognition that protests spanned both time and space. That hard power was used to crush the movement which was a natural outcome of the CPC’s quest for internal Party stability and to ensure that popular discontent did not raise its head again. Any understanding of the character of the protests must refer to the student’s response to the editorial in the People’s Daily (26 April 1989). The editorial made public the Party’s line on the protests that it should be dealt with strongly. This was the Deng Xiaoping line that now resonated throughout the CPC.
Students were angry that they were being targeted by the State and felt that their demands were being brushed under the carpet. This set the ball rolling for many thousands of students from Beijing University to gather (27 April) at Tiananmen Square. It is noteworthy that for a short while, the Party showed its willingness to negotiate with the students, even though intra-party sentiment was increasingly moving in the direction of a hard-line position. Ultimately, over a month of hunger strikes and collective action took its toll on the CPC. With Mikhail Gorbachev landing in Beijing in mid-May 1989 for the Sino-Soviet Summit, the press also got the opportunity to cover more of the student protests.
The crackdown by the Chinese state which began on the night of 3 June was decisive and swift. Martial law had been declared on 20 May and several PLA Divisions were moved by air and road into Beijing, showing the preparations already in hand to disperse the protestors. That process set off a chain reaction as more and more people joined the protestors. Several worked to prevent PLA troops from entering the city. More importantly, it was not all hunky dory for the PLA. Many commanders refused to join the operations and later reports surfaced of troops refusing to fire on the protesters. Maj. Gen. Xu Qinxian, leader of the 38th Group Army, informed his superiors that the protests were a political problem and should be settled through negotiations, not force.He was sacked, but the worry remained within the CPC of loyalty of the Army to the Party!
Thus, revisiting the Tiananmen incident and protests of 1989 sends a clear signal that the events of that year were epochal for China. The impact of this was long-lasting and steps taken by Deng Xiaoping then to curb dissent and ensure complete Party control over the State and people. This is the crucial lesson that Xi Jinping has learnt from those events and has faithfully implemented these. History thus is not just a chronology of events but also a chronology of change. That is the crucial lesson for China watchers to learn from analysis of the Tiananmen Square incident and its aftermath.
