Be the Spark!

contribute now

Tiananmen Remembered

AIR DATE: Wednesday, June 3rd 2009
POSTED BY: BREE HOCKING
Download the mp3 for this show.

For Victoria Yu, June 4, 1989 changed everything.

That's the day the Chinese military cracked down on student-led, pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. The clash left hundreds of Chinese civilians dead with many more injured.

Yu, then a reporter for a Chinese newspaper in Sichuan Province, refers to Tiananmen as:

a direct cause for me to come to this country. After the event, there was a general sense of disillusionment. ...The reporters, we went through study sessions and [had] to come clean as to what we did during that time. ... I thought I would find a better environment elsewhere.

Today, Yu is the executive director of the Asian Education Foundation in Portland. She views Tiananmen's legacy as "complicated" but noted that at "that point in time this kind of movement was inevitable."

Other Chinese-Americans living in Oregon say their views have changed over the years.

Business consultant Ning Zhang was an MBA student at Oregon State University in 1989. He remembers being "high on emotion" while watching the stand-off and resulting bloodshed unfold on TV. He attended rallies, helped raise money and even wrote letters to U.S. Senators in support of the Chinese student protesters. But now, Zhang says, he sees the event as "totally preventable." Communist party hardliners, he asserts, were forced into taking "a harder position" by the demonstrators. "One radical thing leads to another," he says.  

Many recent headlines focus on the apparent apathy of today's Chinese youth toward what happened that day. So, 20 years later, what is Tiananmen's true legacy? We'll talk to individuals whose lives and work have been affected by the events of what is frequently described in the Western media as a "massacre." Were you in Tiananmen Square that day? Did the event change your life in some way? How does it matter to contemporary China and its relationship to the West?

GUESTS:

Photo credit: Richard.Fisher / Flickr / Creative Commons

Tiananmen reminds me the price of freedom is not free. Too many Chinese demonstrators were maimed, jailed, killed or exiled.

Tiananmen reminds me of Orwell's 1984 and the saying, "The nail that sticks up must be hammered down."

Resistance is futile and we will be assimilated. We are nothing but Copper Tops. To hope for happiness or fulfillment is the sign of a weak mind and the weak must be expunged. To be a happy and willing factor of production for the state is a human's highest calling, dearest comrade.

I have no idea how Tiananmen affects contemporary China. Seems like China viewed the incident as an unfortunate glitch and they got busy making money and ruining their country's environment while failing to address the needs of the many. Tiananment was effectively swept under the rug by those who think they're in control. Typical human mistake that is repeated unendingly all over the world.

Many American slaves and indigenous people were destroyed during their quest for freedom, so Tiananmen reminds me that Freedom is not a permanent state; freedom is a responisibility which requires constant pursuit and nurturing.

If humans become truly enlightened, freedom will flow freely and perpetual suffering will be overcome.

trurl9 —

My view on this subject and was not reflected  in the interview at  beginning of this  blog page is this:

In 1989 the economic reform had been going on for about 10 years.  Along with the realignment of policy with ideology, was the redistribution of economic opportunities and wealth, restructuring of institutions and rearrangement of social order.  On top of that, there was  power transition from old revolutionaries to a new generation of technocrats. Understandably, there was a great deal of anxiety, fear, uncertainty and discontent.  People felt lost amidst all the dizzying changes.   That explains the  lack of a clear agenda on the side of the protestors and the  indecision on the side of the government.  There were mixed messages and misjudgment on both sides, and a great deal of confusion in the media as well.  The conflict was inevitable.  It was a result of the increasingly  diverse and complex social demands besieging an inadequate system.  The disastrous outcome of the government action also exposed the lack of governing experience and skills of the leadership at the time and the Chinese people paid a terrible price for that.  Since then, the Chinese leadership has made deliberated effort to accelerate its learning curve by changing its reclusive attitude to participate in interntionational organizations, adopt certain international standards and subject itself to certain international regimes.   It would not help the American public understand and appreciate the complexity of the context in which the conflict took place by  framing it in a simplistic good vs. evil  narrative.

Victoria —

Victoria,

Thanks for the clarification.

Best,

Dave

David Miller —

Good interview on Tiananmen from a survivor in exile:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0034v6r/The_Interview_30_05_2009_Shen_Tong/

Shen Tong says it is too soon to determine how history will judge Tianamen. I've recently thought that so much as happened to the world in the 20th and 21st centuries that it might be difficult for us to collate and analyze the data effectively. We're too close to the data so it is challenging to be ... objective.

Victoria is right, looking at Tianamen as "good versus evil" is naive. China is undergoing massive social and economic change, and on a scale that is hard to fathom.

trurl9 —

I studied in China the year before the Tiananmen massacre. The event convinced me that the 1949 revolution had only really changed things on the surface-the attitude of the Chinese government to its people remained and remains aloof. There are small riots every month somewhere in China mostly about corruption. I hear that there is one informer for every 100 citizens-easy to keep a country in intellectual lockdown with that many snitches. They've had good results with supplying the populace with bread and circuses as well. It's worked well in the US too.

homitsu —

My wife and I were teaching English at a medical college in Shandong Proivince during the 88-89 school year.  I remember how excited many of our students were during April and May when the signals from the government seemed to be leaning more towards openness.  At one point our college even put TV's in classrooms so the whole college community could sit and watch reporting of these events.  After June 4 things changed dramatically.  Our students all went home.  All but a handful of our Chinese friends were willing to talk openly with us.  Everyone knew how to temper bahavior during a crackdown.  The daughter of a good friend of ours who was due to attend a prestigious University in the fall, was drafted into the military and had to delay her college education.

vonrohr —

Thank, Dave.

Victoria 

http://www.asianeducationfoundation.org/

Victoria —

I lived and traveled in Mainland China in 1989 and experienced the spring demonstrations in several provincial capitals. It was an exhilirating time. Besides the marches and demonstrations, which were calm, polite and unsure, it was a broader time of public expression and discovery. At the time, the horror of the Cultural Revolution was a very live memory. In dozens of conversations--in Chinese, English, and both--people spoke of their sufferings at that time and viewed the Spring Democracy movement as a hope they dare not have, yet could not turn away from.

At the time I wrote in my journal that I could not fully believe the wonder of the time, and that I could not imagine just how terrible the state crackdown would be.

I left China in May, about 2 weeks before the crackdown, and listened to the events on the radio while in Pakistan. I returned to China in July and experienced a different world. Very few people were comfortable speaking with me in public. In the spring, I couldn't avoid deep, political conversations.

One year later, I read the entry in my journal and had forgotten that I feared--at the time--the crackdown that came. I only remembered the hope of the time, not the fear.

I fear that we --people in China and the West --have this same memory loss now. China's economic success of the past 15-20 years is remarkable, but the Tianmen of June 4, 1989 is still at its core. Centralized authority is the essential principle of the Chinese government--before Communisim, since Mao, and through the "economic miracle." The current destruction of Kashgar in western China, the colonization of Tibet, the government sanctioned factory towns of today, are expressions of this central principle. And if challenged too publicly, if social harmony seems threatened, brutal state violence will ensue. That, for me, is the lasting meaning of Tianmen in 1989.

Mark in Albany —

I was an exchange student at Fudan University in Shanghai from 1988-90, so I was able to experience the before - during - and after - of the student movement. Although Shanghai did not have the daily massive turnouts that Beijing had leading up to June 4, there were a few days that stick out clearly in my mind.

One was the day that Gorbachev visited Shanghai (May 16th?). There were roughly 2 million protestors on the street that day, and Gorbachev was driven around the outskirts of town to avoid the protests.

Another was June 4-5. I was away from Shanghai with classmates on an Island (Putuoshan), when we heard the news on BBC radio. We caught the next night boat back, and arrived in Shanghai on the morning of the 5th. Public buses were placed in the middle of all major roads throughout the city, so the only way to get around was bicycle, motorcyle, or walking. We walked into the Peace hotel, which was amazingly still selling overseas newspapers. We bought several copies of a Hong Kong Newspaper, and proceeded to walk the 10+ kilometers back to the university. On the way, dozens of locals tried to rip the newspapers away from me, obviously hungry for information. By the time we got back to the university, the students had knocked down light poles to create a makeshift blockade around the school. They were fearful that troops would try to enter the school.

kojo —

I remember the excitment of the moment - we hoped that the soldiers would support the students - we hoped that China could follow the eastern block countries and simply walk away from Communism, or in the very least give in a little. But unfortunately the people (soldiers and goverment) felt so threatened they could not give an inch.

It was an incredibly sad day because not only did many people/students die but their cause and hope  was squashed. Now slowly the 'revolution' is becoming real due to economic growth.

Mhinoveanu —

It took 75 years for this country to be able to look closely at the Tulsa race riot of 1921. If it takes China less than 75 years to look at Tienanmen, they'll be doing better than we did.

Elizabeth Allen —

Comments are now closed.

Thanks to our Sponsor:
become a sponsor
Web Analytics