The Chinese Red Cross puts the dead at 2,600, but the government says 241 died, writes CLIFFORD COONAN
RISING FOOD prices, a growing wealth gap, corruption running riot and the failure to introduce reform – this was the situation in China in the late 1980s. It was a perfect storm that formed the backdrop to the student- led pro-democracy protests in 1989 that culminated in the bloody military crackdown on June 3rd.
The catalyst was the death in April of the sacked party general secretary Hu Yaobang, a reformer who had been purged by then supreme leader Deng Xiaoping, architect of China’s opening-up process.
Similar factors are at play today: keeping a lid on inflation is tough, while Beijing is anxious since the fall from grace of the populist Chongqing Party boss Bo Xilai.
There is growing dissatisfaction at the behaviour of the children of the ruling elite and a perception that while China’s economy has grown dramatically, there has been no political reform.
All this is happening as China faces into a major leadership transition, always a difficult time in the country’s political life.
Back in 1989, the Hu Yaobang memorials soon turned into a movement and students all over the country began to gather in cities nationwide, although the movement was biggest in Beijing.
They stayed for weeks and were joined by farmers who may or may not have had an interest in democracy, but certainly did want to make their feelings known about inflation and high food prices.
Students on the square staged a hunger strike on May 13th; shortly afterwards Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Beijing, at a time of great unrest.
On May 19th, general secretary Zhao Ziyang went to reason with the students, accompanied by his secretary, Wen Jiabao, now premier.
Zhao’s reasoning didn’t work, but his move angered the leadership and he spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
Martial law was declared on May 20th.
Then, on the night of June 3rd, the tanks rolled in on Tiananmen Square. Troops attacked protesters at other points around the city over that night and into June 4th.
While Tiananmen Square was the symbolic heart of the protest movement, there also was violence in other cities around China.
The crackdown produced some of the truly iconic images of dissent: “tank man”, who placed his shopping bags down to face down the tanks. He survived, although he was jailed.
Hundreds, possibly thousands of people were killed. Early casualty figures from the Chinese Red Cross put the dead at 2,600, but the Chinese government says 241 died.
Working out the real figure has not been made easier by the fact the government has always forbidden any kind of investigation into what happened.
Last week saw the publication of a book by a retired scholar, in which the disgraced former mayor of Beijing, Chen Xitong, described the military crackdown on Tiananmen Square as an “avoidable tragedy”.
The remarks represent one of the most public revisions yet of what happened in 1989 by someone long seen as one of the chief backers of the military assault.
The long-term impact of the Tiananmen Square crackdown is still there to see, even if public debate is forbidden.
China’s progress in the last 23 years has been nothing short of remarkable, but there is also an entire generation that feels cheated of its shot at having a say in its own destiny.
At a recent screening of a concert film by Cui Jian, China’s answer to Bruce Springsteen, the audience sang along to every word of Cui’s most famous song, Nothing to My Name, the anthem of the 1989 movement.
Among those watching were some of the country’s top venture capitalists, bankers, film directors and property developers.
The counterculture that protested for democracy in 1989, and who later disappeared overseas or back into the universities, are often in senior positions in China today.