The PRC continues to blackout history. Also http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...sors-rubber-duckies-on-tiananmen-anniversary/ WorldViews ‘Fool’s errand’: Why China censors rubber duckies on Tiananmen anniversary On May 1, 1989, one month before Chinese troops killed hundreds of protesters in and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Zhao Zhiyang, made his case for compromise in a private session of the Politburo. "Democracy is a worldwide trend," he said, according to former Washington Post reporter Philip Pan's excellent book "Out of Mao's Shadow." Zhao went on: "If the party does not hold up the banner of democracy in our country, someone else will, and we will lose out. I think we should grab the lead on this and not be pushed along grudgingly." Zhao lost out, as did the protesters. But Chinese leaders were not content to simply shut down the protesters and fire Zhao. They, and the movement for political liberalization they represented, were considered so dangerous that they had to be forgotten completely. Zhao was banished to house arrest, where he lived out his years in forced isolation. As for the protests and massacre in Beijing, they never happened. Discussion of the events on June 4 remain so taboo and so heavily censored that, when people do dare to discuss them, they often refer to "May 35th." This year, the censorship around Tiananmen's anniversary is reaching new heights. The Wall Street Journal's Josh Chin reports that Chinese social media sites are not just blocking Tiananmen-related search terms but even oblique, tertiary references. Chinese Web users can't search for the phrase "black shirt," for example, presumably because a Chinese activist named Hu Jia had called on people to wear black T-shirts in a subtle nod to the anniversary. Even mentions of yellow rubber duckies are blocked on the Chinese Web. Not because they're a potent or politically charged symbol of the anniversary but because some anonymous person in China, referencing the giant rubber duck currently floating in Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor, posted an image on social media of the famous "tank man" photo with giant rubber ducks replacing the tanks. It probably took about 20 minutes in Photoshop, but it was enough to get not just the image deleted from Weibo but searches for all things yellow rubber duck-related blocked. You could be forgiven for seeing the extent of the censorship as a bit absurd; are rubber duckies really so dangerous to one of the most entrenched single-party states on Earth? But the censorship isn't just about preventing even the slightest hint of possible 1989-style unrest – although that's certainly part of it. It's also about delaying the conversation that Zhao (and, in their own way, the protesters) tried to start. "Can a one-party system ensure the development of democracy?" Zhao asked Mikhail Gorbachev when the Soviet leader visited Beijing shortly before the crackdown. "Can it implement effective control over negative phenomena and fight the corruption in party and government institutions?" Can China's Communist Party, in other words, continue resisting change and still survive? Today's Communist Party leaders are no dummies; they give every indication of wondering about these very same questions today. And they have, in fact, slowly reformed the political system, which is more open today than it was in 1989, though not as open as Zhao wanted. Still, Chinese leaders such as Hu Jintao, who led the country and the party from 2002 to 2012, did much more to kick that can down the road, to delay the party's dilemma over its maintaining single-party power without risking more of 1989's instability, than he did to address or resolve it. And that's still the status quo. This is a problem that China's leaders have addressed repeatedly since 1989 and, as with the almost laughably broad censorship of rubber ducks for the marginal association with Tiananmen, they have consistently avoided the issue. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a 2011 interview with the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, channeled the view of many so-called "China bears," or skeptics of the Communist Party's long-term viability. Goldberg noted that Chinese authorities had appeared frightened of the "Arab Spring" uprisings half a world away. "Well, they are," Clinton said. "They're worried, and they are trying to stop history, which is a fool's errand. They cannot do it. But they're going to hold it off as long as possible." Maybe Clinton is right that the Communist Party can't "stop history" and maybe she's wrong. Maybe Chinese leaders will one day try to answer Zhao's questions from May 1989. But, for the time being, they would repress the memory of Tiananmen than try to reconcile with that dark day in Chinese history.
Judging how little discussion I've seen and heard about this it looks like the PRC has to a good extent succeeding in shoving June 4, 1989 down the memory hole. I'm glad at least in Hong Kong they had a big turnout for the remembrance event.
Can't remember where now, but I saw a stat that Americans remember this event much better than the Chinese do. It seems to have meant more to us than it did to them. Anyway, 25 years? Damn, I'm old.
Tell that to Dr. Wang, who teaches Chinese history at A&M, who was there, who had friends die, and who breaks down and cries when he covers that topic.
I actually still remember this clearly as if it's just yesterday (can't believe it's 25 years ago!). But my take is... it's not the US, so, sorry, it doesn't weight on me that much. 2nd, they are doing quite well since that event - economically. They also have more freedom (relatively) - this is more of a result of the internet and the economic system their government have put in place. So, there has been improvement and their future is still very much pointing up (except for the nasty pollution) so less of a need for "revolt". But this, remain, in the back of their citizen head, of the government, and I'm sure, the potential is there to explode again if things turn south.... it's something I'm also sure the PRC is watching carefully constantly. In short, life isn't bad and is improving, so why complain. The death of those folks, might look meaningless today, but I think it actually did do something for not just the folks over there, but the rest of the world to see what they desire, how fast and explosive people can gather and protest against government.... and even for their government to realize, revolt is just around a corner - so keep you people happy or else, especially now that many of them have wealth, power and influence...
If he's a professor of Chinese history, he probably is more familiar with the statistics than I am. I also know someone who was there, a roommate of my wife's when we were in college. She showed us the photographs she took of the event and smuggled out of the country. It was all pretty cool. It didn't make her cry, but she was proud to have been there. But, what can I tell you? The US sees it as the day the Chinese people rose up against tyranny. It seems like the Chinese see it more as a Kent State -- despicable, lamentable, but ultimately not a sea change. (Great, now I'll have Deckard and the other hippies all over me about Kent State.)
Yep. Any time this topic has come up in the past it's been the Chinese posters that have downplayed it and attacked people for discussing it.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/chinese-citizens-observe-25year-moment-of-silence,36197/ Chinese Citizens Observe 25-Year Moment Of Silence For Tiananmen Square Massacre
I wasn't there, but I was kind there. Anyways, not much was talked about on that day in China. I tried posting a few lines hinting at the significance of the day on Chinese web sites, like "what day is today", but did not pass the mods. The younger ones, so-called "post 90s", do not seem to know much about the event at all. To me the most memorable thing of that event are the monks, doctors, journalists protesting on the streets. What an odd picture, kinda stuck in my head. As to China in general, I am of the view that the economic development is changing the country. The Iron fist of CCCP will have to let it go at some point eventually. Free election, one man one vote sounds too simplistic to solve it all for China. History, culture, and the makeup of the the people carry their weights. Form of the governance is important, but unfortunately, China does not have a clean slate. Years of craps from Soviet Union cannot be undone simply by democracy. Let people have some money, and then everything else will probably follow. China, well, is China, it is complicated.
People that stand up to an oppressor should always be commemorated. Let's face it, China gets off easy because they can make a $2,000 suit with 90 dollars. =/
For me it is very simple. China's government will eventually fall because of the pollution problem they have. I was just in Beijing last month. I truly feel sorry for people that have to live like that every day of their lives. It really is awful.
You're clearly not a real American if you care about this. The civil rights movement and the tragedy of the holocaust are much more important.
Maybe my sarcasm meter is off but I don't get your point. People can care about both of those and also about June 4th 1989.
Well, the civil rights movement (and the 450 years of slavery and persecution it ultimately counterbalanced) actually happened here, and the conductors of Holocaust not only declared war on us, but are actually our largest genealogical root. Now if your bizarre derision of Americans' sympathy for culturally proximate human suffering were in response to a thread about the Khmer Rouge, the Great Leap Forward, East Timor or maybe even just early US immigration quotas, your one again displayed covetousness of the attention garnered to black-American social issues would be less apparent than your otherwise notable insights into global Asian ones.
Was not going to happen, but ... I would imagine recycling stuff we have seen from the communist student leaders 60 - 70 years before. China had been down this road before. It's not difficult to say the country needs democracy , but the question is how. I did not see qualities of the student leaders in the 89 movement, which is not to slight what they did. What they did is admirable, but many of them kinda fell into the same mold as the CCCP, ironically, because that's all they knew. Things might have been different if the movement would happen today.
What China needs is not only the left wing rights defenders, but folks will stand up calling for rule of law and protection of private businesses, the right wing folks.
