{"id":2065,"date":"2014-07-09T15:24:41","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T15:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=2065"},"modified":"2014-07-09T15:24:41","modified_gmt":"2014-07-09T15:24:41","slug":"chang-pingtiananmen-massacre-not-a-passing-lapse-of-the-chinese-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/chang-pingtiananmen-massacre-not-a-passing-lapse-of-the-chinese-government","title":{"rendered":"Chang Ping:Tiananmen Massacre not a \u201cPassing Lapse\u201d of the Chinese Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

published: July 8, 2014<\/span><\/p>\n

On June 4, Deutsche Welle published a piece by its China correspondent, Frank Sieren, titled: \u201cFrom Tiananmen to Leipzig\u201d (German, Chinese translation). In this article, Mr. Sieren takes an inventive angle on the bloody act which took place twenty five years ago in Beijing. In angry protest, a number of Chinese advocates, including student leaders Wang Dan and Wuer Kaixi, human rights lawyer Teng Biao, and the group Tiananmen Mothers, have issued signed statements. What follows is my attempt to explain what prompted this outcry, and to explore the issues at hand with Mr. Sieren.<\/p>\n

Mr. Sieren writes that \u201cWe would perhaps never know what happened twenty-five years ago in Beijing,\u201d and that \u201cfor those in the West to unilaterally exaggerate the facts in their description of the incident helps no one. To do so would be as shameful as the ongoing silence of the Chinese government about the 1989 incident.\u201d He calls for \u201ca pragmatic and fair assessment of Tiananmen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chinese Communist Party itself has never denied the fact that the army, doing its bidding, drove tanks onto the Square and streets of the Chinese capital, to butcher peaceful student and citizen demonstrators. Media around the world, including Deutsche Welle and the Party paper People\u2019s Daily, as well as the memoirs of Chinese leaders such as Zhao Ziyang, Li Peng and Chen Xitong, have left us with a vast body of documentary evidence. What is more, Tiananmen Mothers, student leaders and participants are for the most part still alive; over the last quarter-century, they never stopped seeking accountability for these crimes.<\/p>\n

Let us be clear on one point: when Chinese advocates call for making the facts of Tiananmen public, it\u2019s not because they \u201cdo not know what actually happened.\u201d Rather, they are fighting against the government\u2019s cover-up, distortion and dilution of truth. One of the goals of those responsible for the massacre is keeping the theory that \u201cthe truth can never be known\u201d in circulation. This is precisely why each of the last twenty-five summers in China kicked off with a crackdown: a large number of dissidents are rounded up and kept at home or in prison, and censorship keeps such a stranglehold over the Internet that euphemisms,cleverly wrought and thickly veiled allusions, and even the vaguest associations to the massacre are choked off before reaching the digital ether. The expanding economic might of the Chinese government has also persuaded some international media to self-censor in their reporting.<\/p>\n

Under those circumstances, it is little wonder that Tiananmen Mothers, banned from mourning their loved ones, or those driven into exile for pursuing the ideals of democracy, or ordinary Chinese who, contending for justice, must live with constant lies and fear, are outraged when they see Tiananmen inaccurately reported by the Western media, and the Chinese government portrayed as wronged, misunderstood, and in need of a champion.<\/p>\n

What is especially important to note is how countless Western journalists strove with all the means at their disposal to shed light on what happened. For their pains, they were interfered with, blocked, harassed, threatened, beaten and even jailed. If there be inaccuracy in Western reporting of Tiananmen, by and large it can only be attributed to the news blackout imposed by the Chinese government itself.<\/p>\n

What protesters find hardest to swallow is that, on the one hand, Mr. Sieren declares \u201cwe may never know what happened,\u201d demanding that in accordance with Western \u201cconcepts of law and justice,\u201d observers strive to distinguish between \u201cmomentary negligence and deliberate act, individual culpability versus group collusion and, above all, avoid guilt by association;\u201d on the other hand, assuming both omniscience and omnipotence, he sees fit to pronounce the last word on the incident: \u201cIndeed, 1989 is a passing lapse in the history of New China.\u201d (In the German version, this statement was deleted after the article was first published, but remains in the Chinese version.)<\/p>\n

Such statements exhibit sheer ignorance of contemporary Chinese history. From the Anti-rightist Campaign, the Cultural Revolution, to the Tiananmen massacre and today\u2019s \u201cstability maintenance,\u201d or rule by secret police, Chinese Communist rule been both consistent and continuous. Even Xi Jinping, the new President, emphasizes that in no way can the first and last thirty years of the Party\u2019s performance \u201cbe cut off from each other or set up as opposites\u201d; no disavowal of what the Party ever did will be allowed. During this reign, man-made catastrophes never stopped, where even official records show that tens of millions died by violence. Not a single one of these disasters can be termed \u201ca passing lapse.\u201d Rather, they are the inevitable outcome of unfettered autocratic power and the consistent practice of quashing all opposition. The Tiananmen massacre is but one instance of this take-no-prisoners approach. Taking a page from the CCP\u2019s verdict of the Cultural Revolution as \u201cMao\u2019s error in his twilight years\u201d and pegging Tiananmen as \u201ca passing lapse in the history of New China\u201d may be ingenious, but frankly is rather dated as far as tropes go.<\/p>\n

Mr. Sieren, in quoting from East German official Zubovsky\u2019s memoir, paints both Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin as distraught and decisively penitent over their \u201cpassing lapse.\u201d Zubovsky recalls that \u201cI was shocked by (Jiang\u2019s) admission of the weakness in the leadership\u2026Jiang never called the demonstrators counterrevolutionaries, but rather misguided students.\u201d He also quotes former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, self-declared close friend of Deng\u2019s who defended the Party\u2019s Tiananmen decisions several times, as saying that \u201cDeng never gave Schdmit the impression he would make the same mistake again. His overriding concern was how to return China to the path of opening up to the world.\u201d This assertion does not sit well with the fact that the Chinese government never let up its brutal treatment of dissidents.<\/p>\n

Not only did he distort China\u2019s history, Mr. Sieren also aired some exceptional views on German reunification. To me, it is undeniable that Tiananmen shocked the world and helped to dispel illusions the people of East Germany may have entertained toward their Communist dictators. The students and ordinary citizens in China made a significant contribution to the changes which transformed the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, ending the Cold War\u2019s global threat. However, according to Mr. Sieren, peaceful reunification was mostly dependent on the attitude of East German and Chinese leaders, highlighting that \u201cthe effect of Jiang\u2019s tone on German reunification cannot be underestimated.\u201d In my opinion, this is grossly unfair to the East Germans who fought to the end and at great risk to their lives.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nCHANG PING. PHOTO FROM DW SITE.<\/p>\n

Chang Ping (\u957f\u5e73), former chief commentator and news director of Southern Weekend. In April, 2008, Chang Ping was removed from his positions for the article Tibet: Truth and Nationalist Sentiments, published in the Financial Times Chinese edition. In August, 2010, ordered by the CCP Propaganda Department, the Southern Media Group banned his writings from the Southern Metropolis Daily and Southern Weekend, and the ban soon became nation-wide. Websites were ordered to take down everything written by Chang Ping. In January, 2011, he was asked to leave the Southern Media Group. He then worked in Hong Kong as the editor in chief of iSun Affairs (\u300a\u9633\u5149\u65f6\u52a1\u5468\u520a\u300b) until the authorities denied him a work visa out of pressure from the Chinese government. He lives in Germany now and is a current affairs commentator for South China Morning Post.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Translated by a friend)<\/p>\n

Chinese original<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For detail please visit here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

published: July 8, 2014 On June 4, Deuts … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,95],"tags":[576,94,101],"views":998,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2065"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2065"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2067,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2065\/revisions\/2067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}