Tiananmen Square

By the late 1980's, freedom was emerging after years of oppression by authoritarian despots around the world.

Despite its bluster, the Soviet Union was crumbling, and satellite countries that had been dominated since World War II by the heavy hand of Moscow were rebelling in unique ways.

In Tallinn, Estonia, the Singing Revolution of 1988 turned Soviet tanks away, and within a few years, Estonia became an independent nation with a thriving capitalist democracy.

In 1989, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia eventually birthed two new free countries, Czech Republic and Slovakia, which is the country from which my son-in-law Laszlo immigrated with his parents in the 1980's, indirectly leading to our star granddaughter Emma.

Even Russia itself embraced greater liberty, although the deep roots of authoritarianism have proven harder to reform, with former KGB and Politburo elites using their influence and raw power to dominate an almost mobster-like crony capitalism that has emerged.  It's nonetheless still probably freer than it was before.

The successors to Mao were taking China in a new direction, with a shift from agriculture to manufacturing as they opened their economy to trade with the free world. Absolute power, however, remained as always in the grip of the Chinese Communist Party.

It has been theorized that the seeds of freedom were spread of rebellious rock n roll music and its American T-shirts and Levis lifestyle that had already changed the Western World.

Looking at how most people dress in Chinese big cities seems to confirm that theory.

As someone who believes words and music have power to change lives, I can appreciate that theory has merit, but others claim just as convincingly that it was strong political leadership by the United States that pried open the doors to freedom.

In my favorite novel of last year, The 14th Colony by Steve Berry, I read for the first time about a very real secret collaboration between President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, which was one of the factual premises upon which the fast-paced novel rests.  That makes more sense to me, as someone who lived through that era.

While China had been liberalizing their economy, government and education system since US President Nixon metaphorically opened the way for a new Silk Road, it was not enough for large numbers of Chinese students, who like young people everywhere included lots of idealists.

Tens of thousands of idealists began to gather in Tiananmen Square on April 22, following the funeral of popular political leader Hu Yaobang.

After rising to become General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 1980, Hu championed greater freedom and democratization.

By January of 1987, hardliners felt the pendulum had swung too far or at least too fast, and they pushed back against Hu's policies to force him from office.  When Hu died of a heart attack on April 15, he became a martyr of sorts for the people who yearned for greater freedom.

The death of Hu prompted fears that the freedom movement would die far short of its goals.

Hours stretched to days, and this spontaneous gathering of mourners in an age before social media became a movement.  Students refused to return to class, and more joined their numbers.

The government published propaganda branding the students as "Counter-Revolutionary," which in Communist China meant essentially everything evil.  This thinned their ranks, as I'm sure worried parents begged their children to come to their senses and not destroy their futures.

Then, a hunger strike was called, something unheard of in a country where only one generation earlier many of the parents or even the siblings of these very same students knew the feeling of empty stomachs due to deprivation caused by Mao's famines.

The hunger strike re-galvanized the movement.  Seeing bright young students voluntarily starving themselves to save their country had a much greater effect in China than it would have in well-fed America.

By May 4, demonstrations had spread to 51 cities, and the multitude of demonstrators at Tiananmen Square had swollen to a quarter of a million people.

On May 15, a previously scheduled state visit by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev brought journalists of the world to Beijing.

The naturally curious westerners found an even more interesting story in Tiananmen Square, shining the bright light of the world on what the Chinese Communist Party would have preferred kept hidden forever.

Humiliated to lose face in front of the whole world, the CCP knew they must do something.

Martial law was declared on May 19, with military troops sent into Tiananmen Square to "maintain order," but the marchers refused to disband, bringing to mind the 1971 Don McLean lyrics, "The players tried to take the field.  The marching band refused to yield.  Do you recall, what was the deal?  The day the music died."

 By June 3, the number of demonstrators approached a million, and when the military with tanks were sent by the CCP government to disburse the crowd, citizens from the surrounding area joined in the defense of the student demonstrators.

Our guide Yuan was there, not as a demonstrator but observing, concerned for the safety of students he knew.  He said his line of sight was on almost exactly the same line as the western journalist who shot the iconic "tank man" footage.

By the way, I should note that never in our travels did our guide Yuan say anything disparaging about the CCP.  Any negative connotations about anything within this blog are based on my own independent research.




Demonstrators seemed to essentially dare the ironically named People's Liberation Army to shoot, and eventually they did.

The soldiers had their orders, and the "massacre" unfolded over a few days, and not just in the Square.  It was more of a Beijing Massacre, with many killed in streets around Tiananmen Square as they tried to hinder the encroachment by the troops.

Initial government estimates of deaths were "23 counter-revolutionary hooligans" killed by the military, which was revised up gradually to 197 and then over the years to an acknowledged 300.

In a country where all media is controlled by the government, the only "facts" are those established by the government, but estimates by foreign journalists and eye witnesses reach into the thousands.

It was a far cry from what the Ming Dynasty probably imagined would unfold at the place they named "The Gateway to Heavenly Peace."

Constructed in 1415, Tiananmen did indeed serve primarily as the gateway to the Imperial City.

It remains a national symbol of China.

The Square at Tiananmen was designed under the Qing Dynasty in 1651.  It has been enlarged several times, including by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1958-9 who wanted it to be the largest and most spectacular square in the world.

Like Royal Caribbean Cruise ship generations, this square has been surpassed by six larger squares, including China's Xinghai Square that is about four times as large, but Tiananmen Square is still often called "the largest civic gathering place in the world."

While the Chinese Communist Party may wish to erase the Tiananmen Square Event from history, it turned out to be a seminal event in helping create the miracle still unfolding of an impoverished country that has already become the second largest economy in the world.

To avoid continued unrest, the Chinese Communist Party has adopted reforms and economic development patterned to some extent on the United States capitalist model, or at least to embrace a symbiotic relationship with the west, where they feed on our market system to undercut capitalists, even if they must do so at a loss in the near term, in order to create industrial and construction jobs for upwardly mobile Chinese masses who had formerly barely subsisted as share croppers.