Today is the 31st anniversary of the crackdown on pro-democracy protestors in Tiananmen Square in 1989. At the time, there was division within China's leadership ranks over whether to use the military to suppress the protests. Eventually, Deng Xiaoping and the conservatives in the Politburo Standing Committee prevailed over the objections of the nominal leader, General Secretary Zhao Ziyang who sought a political solution to the protests; martial law was imposed and military units were called to Beijing. The decision to seek a military solution to the protests did not go uncontested. The general of of a garrison near Beijing refused to follow the orders and military units further from Beijing had to be called in. They eventually marched through Beijing and on June 4 cleared Tiananmen Square shooting and running over civilians. The number of people who died is only known to the Chinese government, but estimates range from the hundreds to the thousands.
It's hard not to think about China's use of military force against its own citizens in the June 4 protests without thinking of President Trump's recent threat to use military force to "dominate" protests against police violence against black Americans that have rocked U.S. cities. The parallel is a striking one, yet Donald Trump is the leader of a democracy while Deng Xiaoping was leader of an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party holds a monopoly on power.
Many of us would read this parallel as yet one more sign of Trump's dangerous brush with authoritarianism and the threat it poses to America's increasingly fragile democracy. It also shows the moral bankruptcy of Trump's push back against China in supporting the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Given his record, Trump's posturing against China should be taken as just that - a position taken solely for political expediency, without any moral weight behind it.
June 4, 2020
Fair Haven, New York
It's hard not to think about China's use of military force against its own citizens in the June 4 protests without thinking of President Trump's recent threat to use military force to "dominate" protests against police violence against black Americans that have rocked U.S. cities. The parallel is a striking one, yet Donald Trump is the leader of a democracy while Deng Xiaoping was leader of an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party holds a monopoly on power.
Many of us would read this parallel as yet one more sign of Trump's dangerous brush with authoritarianism and the threat it poses to America's increasingly fragile democracy. It also shows the moral bankruptcy of Trump's push back against China in supporting the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Given his record, Trump's posturing against China should be taken as just that - a position taken solely for political expediency, without any moral weight behind it.
June 4, 2020
Fair Haven, New York
