Tiananmen's Tremendous Achievements

Tiananmen's Tremendous Achievements

iUniverse, Inc.

Chapter One

Once Bitten by a Snake, One Is Scared All One's Life at the Mere Sight of a Rope

The above is a popular Chinese saying often used as a metaphor to describe the persistent fear after a traumatic event.

It is understandable that the Party felt threatened by mass protest of Falun Gong, an organization that popularizes a kind of qigong, a breathing technique to improve health and treat some diseases, and had to ban it. There were so many people practicing Falun Gong then. They could be regarded as a political organization able to confront the Party.

It is still understandable that Liu Xiaobo, this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was jailed eleven years for his role in advocating Charter 08 that calls for greater freedom of expression, human rights and multi-party democracy though his campaign got nowhere in China. Within six months, only 8,600 of China's over one billion people had put their signatures on the document. Since Liu had participated in the Tiananmen Protests and been jailed for that, it was only natural for the Party to punish him again when he continued such activities no matter whether he had violated the law or not.

However, it puzzled everyone that Zhao Lianhai, founder of Home for Kidney Stone Babies, a concern group for victims of melamine-poisoned milk, was brought to court in handcuffs and shackles for fighting for victimized babies' rights. The handcuffs were not removed until his lawyers protested, but his feet remained in shackles for hours throughout the hearing. What felony did he commit so as to be humiliated like that?

According to his prosecutor, Zhao Lianhai "maliciously made the tainted milk incident an issue on the Internet, instigated and gathered people to shout slogans and hold illegal assemblies and thus seriously disrupted public order." In fact, Zhao's website helped families with babies poisoned by tainted milk share their experiences, maintained a database of medical records and provided practical help such as medical information about children sick due to tainted milk. Since the government itself made public the evils done by the enterprises that sold the tainted milk and the trials and verdicts of the cases of the managers of those enterprises, what was Zhao's website wrong in doing so?

As reported by Hong Kong and Western media, the prosecutor knew well himself that the protests lead by Zhao Lianhai were entirely peaceful and gave rise to no serious disturbance. The protesters merely shouted some slogans and held some assemblies without permission. Article 290 of China's Criminal Law provides, "Where people are gathered to disturb public order to such a serious extent that work in general, production, business operation, teaching or scientific research cannot go on and heavy losses are caused, the ringleaders shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years; ..." Since no work in general, production, business operation, teaching or scientific research was affected nor any losses caused, the disturbance was by no means serious. There is, therefore, no ground to prosecute Zhao!

As for holding some harmless assemblies without permission, Zhao Lianhai contacted government officials times and again but was pressured instead supported by them. Since government officials tried hard to cover up the evils done, how could Zhao get permission for the assemblies? Zhao and others were justified in holding peaceful assemblies without permission. They had such rights according to China's constitution.

Having seen all the good things the Party has done for the people in providing medical insurance, pension, housing, etc. for workers and peasants and giving relief to earthquake-, mudslide- and draught-stricken areas, people cannot help but wonder why the government has no sympathy for parents of melamine-poisoned babies. The only baby a couple is allowed to have has been poisoned and no one knows how the poison will affect the baby's health in the future. Thanks to Zhao Lianhai's leadership, those parents restrained their anger and protested peacefully. Shall the government not make allowance for that?

Moreover, Zhao Lianhai's own only baby had kidney stones due to the tainted milk. How can he be accused of maliciously exploiting the incident to make trouble? As a victim's father, Zhao himself has the right to express his anger peacefully on the Internet and in the streets. Are Party top leader Hu Jintao's "putting the people first" in his Scientific Outlook on Development empty talks? No, judging by what Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have done, they do have put the people first in lots of things they have done. Why Zhao Lianhai is treated so callously then?

The Party's Tiananmen Syndrome

The attack that the Party suffered from Tiananmen Protests was like the bite of a snake, which threatened Party's very survival then. The protests led by Zhao Lianhai though quite harmless like a rope compared with the "snake" — the Tiananmen Protests, the Party was scared just as described by the Chinese saying that served as the first subheading: "Once bitten by a snake, one is scared all one's life at the mere sight of a rope." That was why the Party made such a show to humiliate and punish Zhao Lianhai. I would like to call this the Party's Tiananmen Syndrome. It makes the Party suppress any mass protest whatever in order to prevent such protest from growing into one like the Tiananmen Protests that may threaten the Party's monopoly on political power.

Is this syndrome good for China?

As the Party is now so wary of any action of dissent that may threaten its monopoly on political power, this syndrome makes any mass campaign for democracy impossible. The Party has set up a huge armed police and will suppress such a campaign as soon as it occurs.

Some people even believe that judging by what has taken place in the two decades since Tiananmen, the students should have ended their protests long before the massacre so as to avoid the bloodshed. A small number of them even hold that the students' radical approach was harmful to the reform because instead of bringing down Li Peng, the arch conservative, they brought down Zhao Ziyang, the major reformer. The removal of Zhao and his fellow reformers from the Party's Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) and Secretariat was a major setback for the reform according to them. As a result, they think that the reform would have gone on better without Tiananmen.

Attempt to Justify the Massacre

Those whose hands were stained with the blood even think that it is time now to justify the massacre. Li Peng ((1928 - ), former Chinese premier and NPC (China's parliament) Chairman, one of the arch conservatives responsible for the massacre, wrote his "Li Peng's Diary" to justify the massacre as soon as he retired in 2003, but the Party did not allow him to publish the book. The Party just wants people to forget Tiananmen. However, recently, there was quite a hue and cry in Hong Kong that some people attempted to publish the book in Hong Kong but failed due to the ban. However, the book can be downloaded from the Internet now. That was an obvious attempt to justify Tiananmen massacre.

In the postscript of his book, Li Peng quotes Hu Jintao's speech at a central work conference of the Party in 2001: "If the political turmoil had not been handled resolutely and correctly, it would have been impossible for the situation of prosperity and stability to have emerged today."

What does the term "turmoil" means?

According to Li Peng's diary, it means Tiananmen protests would have caused the Party to collapse. As a result, there would not have been the prosperity under the Party's leadership years after the "turmoil".

However could China be prosperous under the Party's rule without the "turmoil"?

No Tiananmen, No Prosperity Years after Tiananmen

The track record of the 40 years of the Party's rule before Tiananmen was quite poor. There was only 8 years of good administration from 1949 to 1957. Even in those 8 years, in spite of all other leaders' opposition, Mao fought a war against the UN in Korea that China should not fight, causing heavy casualty and China's isolation in the world and dependence on the Soviet Union. Then there were the "three years of natural disasters" resulting in the death of millions of people.

The death toll was 20 millions according to what I learnt from internal sources when I was in China but 45 millions according to Frank Diketter's recent book Mao's Great Famine that is based on four years of research into declassified Chinese government documents. The natural disasters, according to Liu Shaoqi, the no. 2 Party leader then, were 70% caused by people instead of nature.

When the country had barely recovered from the "natural disasters", commencing from 1966, there was the unprecedented chaos of the Cultural Revolution. There were illegal beating, killing and imprisonment of innocent people everywhere. Chinese economy was brought to the verge of collapse. Everywhere there was shortage of nearly everything including the most common vegetable. For 20 years from 1958 to 1978, the Party brought no prosperity but disasters to China.

True by the time of Tiananmen in 1989, the Party had carried out reform and opening-up for a decade and achieved significant economic growth. However, as the Party was then dominated by workers and peasants who pursued communism, the huge number of conservatives in the Party including cadres at all levels and rank and file fiercely opposed the reform.

Reform in Great Trouble Already before Tiananmen

Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang's reform and opening up were aimed at making China rich and prosperous and improving people's livelihood; therefore they had to carry out the policies to encourage private economy by allowing economic freedom and draw in foreign investment. Those policies were certainly capitalist in nature. They ran against the dominant communist values. Powerful Party elders and most Party members and officials of worker and peasant background were upset and wanted to adhere to communist public ownership and planned economy. They first brought down Hu Yaobang ((1915–89), China's top reformist before 1987, whose death on April 15, 1989 triggered the Tiananmen Protests) for being too liberal. In fact, Hu merely sympathized with the students who fought for democracy and freedom of expression in 1987.

Hu Yaobang was succeeded by Zhao Ziyang as Party general secretary. China's reform though seemed able to go on after Hu Yaobang's forced resignation, was in fact in serious trouble then. Before Hu's forced resignation, China had reformers for both the top posts: Hu Yaobang as the Party general secretary (head of the Party) and Zhao Ziyang as the premier.

When Hu was replaced by Zhao, Li Peng, the arch conservative, replaced Zhao as the premier. Then, as Li was in charge of the economy, Zhao had difficulties in carrying out his economic reform through Li Peng; therefore, as Zhao was interested only in economic reform then, Zhao told Deng Xiaoping that he preferred to the job as the premier and would resign as the general secretary and resume the post of premier when Deng had found someone else for the job. However, Deng was unable to find anyone to replace Zhao.

The Campaign to Overthrow Zhao Ziyang

Soon after the 13th Party Congress in 1987, there was a campaign to overthrow Zhao Ziyang so as to put an end to the reform. To silence leftists' attack at the reform, Zhao got Deng Xiaoping's approval to close the Research Office of the Party Secretariat, the headquarters of leftist writers, and the Red Flag magazine, leftists' mouthpiece, and thus infuriated conservative elders. They regarded Zhao as worse than Hu Yaobang because even Hu dared not deprive the leftists of their bases to attack the reform in theory. They intensified their campaign to overthrow Zhao.

Zhao Ziyang pointed out on page 241 of the English version of his secretly recorded memoirs Prisoner of State: The Secret Journal of Zhao Ziyang that by early 1989, first Li Peng and another Politburo Standing Committee member Yao Yilin attacked the reform at a Politburo Party life meeting and then conservative elders went to Deng Xiaoping to attack Zhao for his reform so fiercely that Deng Xiaoping planned to retire from his post as Chairman of the Central Military Commissions (CMC) and have Zhao to succeed him so as to urge other powerful elders to relinquish their positions too or refrain from intervention.

On pages 265–6 of the Chinese version of Zhao Ziyang's secretly recorded memoirs The Secret Journal of Zhao Ziyang, Zhao Ziyang gave a vivid description of his meeting with Deng Xiaoping on that matter in early 1989 before the Chinese Lunar New year. Deng told him that Deng wanted to resign as the CMC chairman, the only post he retained after he retired from the PSC, and wanted Zhao to take over. Deng said that he wanted to take that move to make other elders retire or refrain from interfering with Zhao's work so that Zhao could do his work of reform smoothly.

Zhao was firmly against Deng's suggested move. He told Deng that the reformers were encountering difficulties, which would have been difficult for the reformers to handle if Deng had retired completely. He said:

"Politics in the East differ from the West; here in the East, your retirement will not stop their interference, nor will they refrain from further interference when none of them hold any official posts. As long as those founders of the state are still alive, it will be impossible to make them refrain from intervention."

Zhao told Deng that if Deng stopped intervention but other elders continued to interfere with Zhao's work, he would be in greater difficulties, but if Deng retained his post, it would be easier for Zhao to do his work. Zhao asked Deng to give up his retirement plan for a year and Deng agreed.

Readers can find the story on page 242 of the English version of the memoirs entitled Prisoner of the State : the Secret Journal of Zhao Ziyang.

Zhao and All Other PSC Members Had No Real Power

In fact, Zhao's problems were not merely the interference from the elders. The most serious problem was that he was the top leader only in name, but in fact had no real power at all. On page 233 of Zhao's memoirs (a not so accurate translation can be found in p 203 of its English translation), Zhao says that before Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun (1905–1995) and Li Xiannian (1909-1992), the then three most powerful elders in the Party, retired from the PSC in 1987, Deng got Chen's and Li's consent that "in the future there could only be one mother-in-law instead of several mothers-in-law for the members of the new PSC. That was to say that when all the three elders had retired from the PSC, only Deng could play the role as the mother-in-law for PSC members in the future."

As in old China, the mother-in-law in a Chinese family governed the family within the household while all the daughters-in-law had to obey her and do all the cooking, washing and other housekeeping chores she told them to do, the term "mother-in-law" is indeed a wonderful revealing metaphor for the relationship between the elders who had the real power behind the scene and the PSC members who had no real power and had to do what the elders told them to do.

However, according to Zhao Ziyang's memoirs, in making a major decision, Deng Xiaoping consulted with other elders when Zhao was the general secretary though Deng Xiaoping said that he was the only "mother-in-law". Zhao was very clear that though he was the general secretary, he could not carry out any of his own or even the PSC's major decisions without the elders' approval. Therefore, Zong Fengming points out on page 34 of his book Zhao Ziyang: Captive conversations that when Zhao learnt in 1992 when he was under house arrest, that Deng Xiaoping wanted Jiang Zemin to be the core of the third generation of leadership, Zhao said:

"There is nothing certain in what has been said now about the core of the third generation of leadership. It is a transition period. As long as there are the elders, the rule by the elders will remain, for example, though I was the general secretary, I was but the secretary general then."

Succession Problem for Deng Xiaoping's Reform

According to Zhao Ziyang's secret memoirs (page 265), before Tiananmen, Deng Xiaoping wanted to hold a meeting of all the powerful elders to make them agree that Zhao would serve two terms as the general secretary of the Party though Zhao preferred to be the premier. Obviously Deng Xiaoping wanted Zhao to succeed him and carry on the reform, but that was impossible. He could only ensure that Zhao served two terms.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Tiananmen's Tremendous Achievements by Chan Kai Yee Copyright © 2011 by Chan Kai Yee. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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