What is the Tiananmen Square Incident?

What is the Tiananmen Square Incident?

The most crucial event for understanding modern China and the turning point in the history of modern Communist China is the “June 4th Incident.” Since there have been other incidents at Tiananmen Square, such as during the Cultural Revolution, I will refer to the 1989 event as the “June 4th Incident” based on its date. Let us consider where modern (Communist) China went wrong, adopting a Chinese perspective.

The Beginning of Anomie and Straying in Modern China

Where did Communist China make its mistake? The Great Leap Forward was undoubtedly a mistake. However, there may not have been malice involved. The Cultural Revolution may have been a power struggle, but in the name of Communism (Marxism), perhaps there was no malicious intent there either. In the same way that the Soviet Union lost its legitimacy not because of Stalin, but because it used tanks to crush people seeking pure socialism during the Hungarian Revolution and the Prague Spring, the greatest sin of modern Communist China—and the moment it lost its legitimacy—was the June 4th Incident.

What Happened in China in 1989?

The demands of the students in the 1989 Tiananmen Incident were not for the “overthrow of the Communist Party dictatorship” or a “transition to capitalism/liberalism” (de-socialization) as the West expected at the time. Rather, there was a strong aspect of them appealing for a “return to socialist ideals.” The following three points clarify their stance at the time:

1. They Sang “The Internationale” What the student demonstrators sang most frequently in the square, often while shedding tears, was the communist revolutionary anthem, “The Internationale.” If they were aiming for “de-communism,” they would not have sung this song. Based on a kind of “love for the Party” and “patriotism”—imploring the Party to “return to its true form for the workers and the people”—they were criticizing the corrupt status quo (Guandao: official profiteering).

2. Specific Demands (The Seven Points) Looking at the “Seven Demands” they raised, none aimed at overthrowing the regime:

• Rehabilitation of Hu Yaobang (a reformist).
• Disclosure of assets of leaders and their families (prevention of corruption).
• Freedom of the press.
• Guarantee of the right to demonstrate.

All of these were achievable within the framework of the “Constitution of the People’s Republic of China” and did not deny the rule of the Communist Party itself. Slogans such as “Down with the Communist Party” only appeared in a very limited, radicalized phase after martial law was declared and the movement became desperate.

3. Differences from the Revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe The revolutions in Eastern Europe that occurred around the same time (late 1989, such as in Poland and the fall of the Berlin Wall) were clearly a “departure from Soviet-style socialism.” However, the students at Tiananmen were strictly seeking “reform within the system” (correction by insiders). It is said that there was even a Confucian structure to their actions: they had the pride of elites who would carry the country’s future, acting as the “son (students)” remonstrating with the “father (the Party).”

4. Similarities with the Prague Spring The Tiananmen Incident of 1989 and Czechoslovakia’s “Prague Spring” of 1968 are very similar in nature in that both “aimed for reform within the socialist system (not de-socialization).” I will summarize the commonalities and slight differences between these two events, which are often compared historically.

a. Commonality: “Socialism with a Human Face” The slogan of the “Prague Spring” was “Socialism with a human face,” raised by First Secretary Dubček. Their goal was not to discard communism and become capitalist, but to abolish censorship, recognize freedom of speech, and attempt to “remake oppressive socialism into a more human and democratic socialism.” This perfectly overlaps with the posture of the Tiananmen students who sang The Internationale while seeking to correct Party corruption and demanding freedom of speech. Both were movements of reform within the system (revisionism), driven by the sentiment that “because we believe in the ideals of socialism, we cannot forgive the current corruption and oppression.”

b. Similarity in Outcome: Crushed by Tanks The tragic outcomes were also the same.

• Prague Spring: The Warsaw Pact forces, led by the Soviet Union, invaded with tanks and crushed the reforms as a “counter-revolution.”
• Tiananmen Incident: The People’s Liberation Army suppressed the square with tanks and crushed the students’ demands by labeling them as “turmoil.”

In both cases, the power holders of the time (Brezhnev and Deng Xiaoping) extremely feared the domino theory—that “if we allow even a little venting (liberalization), the Communist Party’s rule itself will collapse”—and resulted in putting a lid on the situation with excessive violence.

c. Slight Difference: Who Led It If there is one major difference, it is the leader of the reform.

• Prague Spring: The top of the Communist Party (Dubček) himself stood at the forefront and advanced the reforms.
• Tiananmen: Students and intellectuals pushed up from the bottom, and while reformists within the Party (such as Zhao Ziyang) showed understanding, they were ultimately crushed by the Party’s mainstream faction.

If Zhao Ziyang had won at Tiananmen, a Chinese version of the “Prague Spring” might have been achieved, but there are no “ifs” in history.

Conclusion

They were not seeking de-socialization. The tragedy was that the Party leadership at the time (especially the conservatives) intentionally—or out of fear—misread (or defined) that “remonstrance” as a “conspiracy to overthrow the regime (turmoil)” and eliminated it with military force. As a result, China completely lost the chance for “political reform (a software update),” leading to the current distorted structure where “the economy is powerful, but politics is rigid.”