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<\/p>\nby Tienchi Martin-Liao \/ June 11, 2014<\/p>\n
How the Chinese government\u2019s hidden past is torturing its present.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In Memory of Tiananmen Square Protest
\nThe Hong Kong Federation of Social Work students carry a tombstone with the names of June 4th victims in memory of the Tiananmen Square protests. Photo: Bandari Lei via Flickr.<\/p>\n
Karl Marx\u2019s 1848 Communist Manifesto begins with the line \u201cA spectre is haunting Europe\u2014the spectre of communism.\u201d When he wrote this the bearded German thinker probably didn\u2019t dream that, 166 years later, a spectre would be haunting China. However, instead of communism, the ghost\u2019s name is June 4. These days the ghost has scared Marx\u2019s Chinese comrades so terribly, they\u2019ve turned mad.<\/p>\n
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989. Every year, all over the world, people commemorate the tragedy of June 4, 1989, when the Chinese Communist Party ordered its army to suppress students and citizens who were peacefully demonstrating for democracy. Though the true number of deaths is unknown, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people died under the government\u2019s tanks and guns. Deng Xiaoping, the party leader and statesman who released the fatal order that summer, died in 1992. Today his successors dare not confess to the slaughter and this historical event is still taboo. The CCP knows it would lose legitimacy if it acknowledges the massacre that took place in Beijing 25 years ago.
\nConsequently, the new party leader Xi Jinping insists upon the \u201ccorrect\u201d fait accompli of 1989; in official language the CCP remains the \u201cglorious, great, correct\u201d party of the people. Only, with a single flaw, the wrongfully killed souls linger in the perpetrators\u2019 heads year after year, making them feel guilty and panicked, driving them to schizophrenic illusions. Accordingly, Beijing turns into a real forbidden city every June as the lamenting ghosts haunt the capital.<\/p>\n
Butchers know the art of slaughter, dictators the craft of suppression. Weeks before this June 4, the Chinese government started to silence dissent, arresting critics and activists. According to Teng Biao, the law scholar from Beijing who\u2019s now stranded in Hong Kong, over 60 people were taken into custody between April and May. Human rights lawyers, Pu Zhiqiang, Liu Shihui, and Tang Jingling; democratic activists Hu Shigen, Yuan Xinting, and Wang Qingying; monks Shenguan, Xie Wenfei, and Yang Chong; journalists Gao Yu, Wu Wei, Xiang Nanfu, and Xin Jian; scholars Xu Youyu and Wang Yi; artist Xu Guang; filmmaker Shen Yongping, and several dozen others have all disappeared behind bars. They\u2019ve either been arrested without any reason, or simply vanished. Sometimes even their families don\u2019t know their whereabouts. It seems that the security police have a list of \u201csuspects\u201d and whoever gives the authority \u201ca feeling of uneasiness\u201d could be on the list. If so, they\u2019ll be warned or taken to the police station for investigation. Those who sense that they\u2019re on the \u201cwanted list\u201d and are not yet arrested prepared themselves by keeping tooth brushes and necessary medicines in their pockets. The police could break into their homes at any time and take them away: A scene of horror and fury.<\/p>\n
President Xi Jinping has inherited Deng Xiaoping\u2019s legacy of reform and Mao Zedong\u2019s one-party dictatorship. Reform must continue, but only in the economy, and the Chinese Communist Party must have absolute power. The nation\u2019s living founders, aged communists who fought alongside Mao, Deng, and others in the 1930s and 40s until they took the Chinese mainland in 1949, know that holding power is everything. Therefore their power must be handed to their children, the princelings. Xi Jinping believes in Deng Xiaoping\u2019s maxim on the crackdown in 1989: \u201cKill 200,000 to get 20 years stability.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Xi it\u2019s clear: Maintaining stability is the priority, no matter the cost. That\u2019s why China\u2019s yearly budget for stability is even higher then the budget for military defense. In 2013 it reached an astounding sum of RMB 769 billion ($123 billion). Xi and his advisers know that the critical intellectual elite are the spiritual leaders of China\u2019s prospective civil society. They\u2019re the uncomfortable and irrepressible element in this changing time. Silencing, controlling, or even eliminating this stratum could give Xi unlimited possibilities to carry out his policy undisturbed and transfer power to the next generation of princelings.<\/p>\n
Thus the suppression before June 4 was only a logical follow-up to the \u201cstrike hard\u201d campaign from last year. In March 2013 four people were arrested because they held banners asking that records of the high cadres\u2019 property be available to the public. Later, with the arrests of civil rights defender Guo Feixiong, lawyer Li Huaping, Uighur scholar Ilham Toti, businessman and Big V Wang Gongquan, and more, we can see that the assault isn\u2019t against certain individuals. Rather, the sword of Damocles is hanging over activists in general. The government wants to wipe out these influential figures completely.<\/p>\n
Yet, international pressure is strong, so the government applies a double-strategy and loosens its grip on famous personalities, such as Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo, and his wife Liu Xia. In January Liu Xia was given a phone at home and can now receive calls from outside. Her brother Liu Hui, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for economic fraud, recently received medical parole. In prison Liu Xiaobo has even received special treatment: He can read, do sports, and even has a patch of garden to plant vegetables in prison. These gestures are a sign of leniency from the ruler.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a rumor that the artist Ai Weiwei will soon be allowed to leave the country. The question is whether he can return to China again, once he crosses the border. No matter the outcome, it\u2019s another humane stance from the authoritarian regime, intended to distract international attention from the spate of arrests that preceded this June 4.<\/p>\n
There is no doubt that Xi Jinping is a hard-liner, only he\u2019s more sophisticated and cynical. Human rights and human dignity have no weight on his political scales. For him, politics is like playing chess; there\u2019s only one goal\u2014to win overwhelmingly, and leave the opponent with as bitter a loss as possible.<\/p>\n
From:http:\/\/www.sampsoniaway.org\/fearless-ink\/tienchi-martinliao\/2014\/05\/28\/%E2%80%9Ccreating-a-disturbance-in-a-public-place-causing-serious-disorder%E2%80%9D-2\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Tienchi Martin-Liao \/ June 11, 2014 H … Continue reading