squares and circles
It's still a very politically sensitive topic twenty years on from the event itself. June 4 is the date of the Tiananmen Square incident. Note how I am trying to neturalise my words so next time I go to China I don't end up getting arrested and detained.I stand for freedom of speech so I disprove of China's efforts of censoring the internet and media for fear of a similar uprising. I disprove of erasing textbooks of facts. Here, I'm not just isolating China. Did I just undo my neutrality?
Well did you know what the protests were all about? It all started 2 months earlier when pro-democracy, pro-capitalism and anti-corruption government official Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦) died. 2 years prior, he resigned from his position as General Secretary of the Communist party. Many believe he was forced by socialists hardliners who resented his public anti-Maoist stance. He had brought market liberation and political reform during his 5 years as the highest ranking officer of the party. It seemed to happen too fast for Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), who many believe was instrumental in making Hu the scapegoat he became. He was blamed for the protests of 1986-1987. The irony was clear. To this day, many believe Deng was responsible for the vast reaching reforms. It was his protege Hu who was really at the forefront of these. Undoubtedly, this legacy remains somewhat hidden. This was precisely the point of the protests.
After Hu's death, people mainly students gathered in Beijing and Shanghai to mourn. On the eve of his funeral, 100,000 people had gathered in Tiananmen Square with a common dislike of the authoritarian government and call for economic change. The protests became more vocal. The Party were keen to negotiate, but with so many people with such diverging agendas it became almost impossible. The General Secretary at the time Zhao Zhiyang (趙紫陽) advocated for a more soft-lined approach towards the protestors. He was ousted and subsequently placed under house arrest until his death.
The party elders supported a more hard-lined approach because to disband the one-party rule will send China back into Cultural Revolution chaos. They supported Li Peng's (李鵬) use of force to quash the protests. Deng took charge of the military and called martial law to restore stability on May 20. The army had to retreat from Beijing due to strong resistance. This escalated to the final seige on June 4 and was captured in the legendary video of the unknown rebel blocking the path of incoming tanks (in above picture) in one of the most enduring images of the 21st century. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the 21st century.
The rest as they say is history.
benny | Wednesday, June 03, 2009 
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