This extended essay deals with the Tiananmen Square Massacre of June 4, 1989, where the ruling Communist Party regime used military forces to brutally crackdown on a student pro-democracy demonstration. More specifically, the essay deals with the repercussions of the government's brutal crackdown, examining the question, Assess the repercussions of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in China, June 4, 1989 to the present.
The scope of this extended essay is predominantly focused on the short term repercussions and aftermath of the massacre, yet also branches outside of these and assesses some of the long term repercussions up to the present date. The essay involves assessing repercussions on economic, foreign relations, educational and cultural aspects of Chinese society.
In order to examine the research question, primary and secondary sources are used to examine an array of perspectives of how the Tiananmen Square Massacre was received by not only Chinese citizens but also by the world. Information has been gathered from scholarly journals, online sources and book sources with information on the repercussions of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. This topic was chosen because it has always interested me to know what could have caused a government to act in such a brutal fashion as the Chinese Government did towards its people.
The government destroyed all remaining social confidence in the regime and the world strongly condemned the government's use of force to crush its unarmed people in order to remain in power. Even though China today is a global economic powerhouse and economic reforms have allowed a better quality of living, what the Communist Government did to its own people will never be forgotten or forgiven, and the pro-democracy protest that took place on the evening of June 3 has remained the single largest in China since the 1949 Cultural Revolution.
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Essay: Assess the Repercussions of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, June 4 1989 to the present.
The Tiananmen Square Massacre
Who: The Chinese government and military
What : Brutal Tiananmen Square Massacre
Where:
When:
Why:The Tiananmen Square Massacre
Tiananmen's aftermath and repercussions have shown many impacts on many fronts. Scenes of the brutal crackdown were broadcast throughout the world. These images embittered the international public toward the Chinese government and had a profound impact on all aspects of Chinese life. [1] Tiananmen Square will forever be remembered as a political rally that turned into a bloody massacre viewed on live television. China suffered not only politically, yet economically, culturally and educationally as a result of the Government's brutal actions that were taken that day on June 4, 1989. It was not only the people that lost faith in their government, it was the whole world too.
The 1989 prodemocracy movement in the People's Republic of China and the subsequent crackdown were marked by many dramatic reversals. Supported at first by several thousand Beijing University students, the movement caught the hearts of millions of Chinese and spread to most of Urban China, quickly developing into a nationwide mass movement. [2] While the movement was eventually suppressed by military forces, considering its duration, scale, and on-going impact on Chinese politics, it was unquestionably one of the most important events in contemporary China. [3] The jubilant mood during the short-lived freedom in Tiananmen Square turned into despair over unnecessary bloodshed. [4] The Tiananmen pro-democracy demonstration started as a peaceful and orderly protest when several thousand students, mourning the death of a Communist leader who favoured reform, marched through Beijing chanting democratic slogans. [5] The protest, however, burgeoned into a people's movement that at one point drew more than a million residents to the streets of the capital and that involved hundreds of thousands more throughout the nation. The display of the power of the masses threatened the legitimacy of the regime, triggered a bitter intra-Party power struggle, brought down the Party's general secretary, and ended in horrible bloodshed. The event revealed not only the public's discontent with the government, but also the Party gerontocracy's desperation to retain power. [6] Accordingly, the repercussions of the Party's brutal actions taken in Tiananmen Square were that their prestige and credibility were severely damaged.
The People's Republic of China's PRC internal development had reinforced the public yearning for political changes. The economic crisis and galloping inflation in the prior two years had caused a continuous decline in income and living standards for one-third of the urban dwellers. The rapid rise in unemployment had created a 50-million-strong 'fluid population," individuals without a job or a home. The prevalence of guan dao (official profiteering) had widened the income disparities between various segments of the population and caused mounting social discontent. The root of these social and economic maladies lies in the one party totalitarian system. [7] To many in the general public, this ever increasing gap between social classes and living standards in which seemed as if 'the powerful were only getting more powerful; and the rich were only getting richer' triggered a yearning for change within individuals, resulting in student-led protests all around the nation.
When 100,000 people converged on Tiananmen Square in mid-late May, Premier Li Pend announced on May 20 that martial law had been imposed on some parts of the capital and that the government had called on the army to clear Tiananmen Square CCP leader Deng Xiaoping declared martial law. [8] 9The protestors continued their demonstrations, until over a million Chinese, from all walks of life, had gathered in the public square to demand the resignation of China's leadership. They blocked troops from reaching the centre of the capital, effectively preventing the crackdown planned by the government. On May 21 Chinese officials abruptly halted the transmission of televised news reports from Beijing. They had also barred foreign broadcasters from recording and transmitting new from the state run network. Li Peng declared on television on May 26 'the troops will overcome the difficulties confronting them and will successfully enforce the martial law. [10]
Right after June 4 massacre, the government began to arrest scores of people in the capital and major cities. These arrests intended to destroy the democracy movement and to prevent organised resistance, were primarily of student leaders, activists in labour groups and prominent intellectuals. [11] Soldiers started huge bonfires to burn the encampments, leading to rumors that they were cremating people killed in the attack. For three more days, chaos reigned, with tanks crushing anything in their path-mechanical or human. "Please tell the world," ordinary Chinese begged Western reporters. "Our government is mad," one student told The Times. "We need help from abroad, especially America. There must be something that America can do." [12] This showed the total and utter desperation of the Chinese. They had no-where to turn, as their own country began to violently turn against them. Hence, the outcries of ordinary Chinese were directed towards the world and in particular America. The call to the Western World therefore showed in the Chinese a turn away from Asian values and toward more democratic Western ones.
In mid-June, Chinese leaders appeared to be trying to fool China and the rest of the world. It was portraying a return to business as usual in Beijing despite the continuing widespread arrests of students and political activists suspected as instigators of the Tiananmen demonstrations and the beginnings of executing the people. [13] Besides intimidation, the arrests and executions served to counter the image displayed during the six weeks of student demonstrations of a weak and impotent government. But the large scale executions attracted international attention. As international criticism mounted, Beijing altered its policy by quashing the publicity about such executions while continuing with them. [14] The rest of the world however, was not so easily fooled and some nations had taken immediate action. The brutal crackdown on the pro-democracy movement and the ensuing political oppression aroused worldwide repercussions. The tragedy that unfolded around Tiananmen Square in June 1989 had an immediate impact on China's foreign relations. [15] In response to the events in the PRC, the governments of the United States, Canada, and Western European countries immediately imposed economic sanctions against the Beijing regime. On the morning after the June 4 bloodshed, President George Bush announced several sanctions against the Chinese government. Intended to strike a balance between preserving diplomatic relations and expressing the outrage of the American people, the White House's sanctions were rather limited in range: suspension of both government and commercial exports of weapons and suspension of military exchange visits between the United States and the PRC. Although many of these measures were symbolic and transitory, they manifested the world's disapproval of a governments using force to crush its unarmed people in order to remain in power. [16] The Bush administration's actions were designed to preserve the relationship between the United States and the PRC, but there was strong sentiment in the U.S. congress for harsher measures. On June 23, 1989, members of Congress introduced the amendments that would severely curtail the export to the PRC of computers, weapons, and satellites and would cut financing. In Western Europe, The French Government acted promptly. The French government on June announced that the government would freeze relations with the PRC at all levels and in addition French diplomatic presence in the PRC would be reduced to a minimum. [17] Hence, China's foreign relations were damaged as a ramification of their brutality in dealing with the student led demonstrations.
The level of official dialogue between China and the West fell sharply. Western nations suspended military relations for the most part, although some low-level contacts involving the sharing of intelligence, discussion of strategic issues, and design of weapons systems appeared to continue. There were dramatic declines in revenues from tourism (down 20 percent in 1989), direct foreign investment (down 22 percent in the first half of 1990), and foreign lending (down 40 percent in 1989), although Beijing was able to protect its foreign exchange balances by imposing strict controls over imports. The drastic decline in the number of tourists affected hotels, restaurants, taxis, guided tours, and many other related businesses. Thus, it is clear, then, that China's relations with much of the world were deeply affected by the Tiananmen Incident. [18]
Not all major countries followed the U.S. and French leads. As the United States and other Western countries imposed sanctions and condemned the PRC for its crackdown, Japanese officials sounded a note of caution, warning that such sanctions could backfire and deepen Beijing's isolation from the rest of the world. Japanese aid could be resumed if the PRC's economic liberalization program were restored, even if political freedom were not granted. The most crucial sanction came from the World Bank. Under the pressure of the United States and Western Europe, the World Bank on June8 announced the suspension of $780 million in loans to the PRC. One-third of the loans were used for the development of energy, transportation, communications, and industry; one-third for agriculture; and the remainder for education, culture and social welfare. The suspensions of these loans dealt a severe blow to the capital-starved Chinese economy. The suspension of the World Bank and Japanese loans and the postponement of foreign investment significantly curtailed the PRC's capital sources. The net impact of all these economic sanctions on China's foreign relations was substantial.
The reaction of Westerners and their governments to the brutal crackdown stems mostly form humanitarian and economic concerns. The responses of the overseas Chinese involve a much more complex array of emotions - a mixture of tragedy, betrayal, and frustration. That the massacre was unnecessary and unjustified has generated anger and sadness; moreover, a rare solidarity emerged from the crackdown.
Since 1949, overseas Chinese communities, depending on their political affiliation, were generally split in two camps. The driving force in uniting the overseas Chinese communities was the pro-democracy movement in Beijing. During the two months of student demonstrations, most overseas Chinese had been touched in some way by the events of unfolding in the PRC. The reactions of Chinese communities around the world to the massacre and its aftermath were even more fervent. Many of the 56 million Chinese living abroad (including 19 million in Taiwan) expressed their despair and range. Putting aside differences in political beliefs, the overseas Chinese united in the common goal of supporting the pro-democracy movement. [19] When the PLA (People's Liberation Army) initiated the bloodshed on June 4, the overseas Chinese communities were shocked. Large-scale demonstrations and mourning activities were staged throughout the world. In Hong Kong, thousands of students flocked to the local Red Cross to donate blood for the victims in Beijing. Scraps of black silk or cotton, symbols of mourning, fluttered on many of the colony's cars, taxis, trucks, and buses. Even Hong Kong's weathered fishing junks flew black flags from their masts to honour those who had died at Tiananmen Square. [20]
The impact of the massacre in Beijing in June, 1989, on Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas Chinese communities was so great that it was probably beyond the comprehension of the Communist Party of China's leadership. The reaction of Chinese residing outside the Chinese mainland to the massacre was unusually strong. A deep fear of China and a sense of distrust, uncertainty, and desperation soon emerged in Hong Kong. China's confidence crisis had become more serious than ever in Hong Kong and at one point a smooth transition from the British Rule to Chinese sovereignty seemed unlikely.
As for the impact of Tiananmen on Taiwan, it is equally profound but less dramatic. The bloodshed dealt a blow to Beijing's effort to reunify the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, which Deng had put forward as one of the major goals he hoped to achieve in his lifetime. Taiwan-PRC relations entered a new stage on October 14, 1987, when the Nationalist government announced a partial lifting of the thirty-eight-year ban on personal contact with relatives in the PRC, by allowing residents to visit them after November 2, 1987. In response to Taiwan's gesture, Beijing announced a set of reciprocal policies for the reception of Taiwanese travellers. In a two-year period, more than 800,000 Taiwan residents visited their relatives in the PRC. The Taiwanese tourists spent a total of $1.4 billion on the mainland. The spending spree of the visiting Taiwanese and their generosity toward their relatives in the PRC aroused immense admiration for Taiwan's prosperity. [21]
Taiwan's reaction to the Tiananmen massacre was less dramatic than people expected. Nevertheless the ruthless suppression of the peaceful demonstrations had destroyed the mood of amity the two sides had painstakingly built during the prior three years. The immediate effect was the halt of tourism, a plunge in bilateral trade, and disruption of the investment plans of many corporations. Taiwan became more determined than ever to resist Chinese pressure to move toward re-unification. The independence movement in Taiwan was strengthened by China's violent actions. [22]
During the twenty years that have passed since the Tiananmen Square Massacre, China has changed in economically important ways. After the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Deng Xiaoping began to loosen government control of the economy. The government continued to loosen its control of the economy, and China managed to become a global economic powerhouse. [23] For much of the 1990s, China rode the crest of a wave of economic growth - 14 percent in some years - that caused both domestic living standards and national pride to soar. Through successful economic management China's leaders somehow succeeded in quickly distracting national attention from political might-have-beens to financial yes-we-cans. [24]
No major retrenchment of economic reform followed the crackdown. Deng emphasised the necessity of continued reform in the aftermath of Tiananmen Square: '"Is our basic concept of reform and openness wrong?" he asked rhetorically. "No," came his emphatic reply. "Without reform, how could we have what we do today?... Our basic proposals, ranging from our development strategy to principles and policies, including reform and opening to the outside world, are correct"'. In addition, 'Chinese leaders launched an effort to... convince the Chinese people, as well as foreigners, of their intentions to pursue domestic economic reform programmes and the policy of opening the Chinese economy to foreign trade and investment'. [25]
The recession which followed Tiananmen Square is not necessarily evidence of a reversal of economic reform, since other factors also affect the economy. The 1988austerity program aimed at combating inflation adversely affected the economy. Investor uncertainty concerning reform could slow growth even in the absence of any actual policy change. And many nations imposed sanctions in the wake of the massacre, negatively impacting China's economic performance. [26]
Twenty years later, a great deal has changed in China as a result of Tiananmen Square, but much has stayed the same. Deng Xiaoping, the Communist leader so instrumental in the crackdown, began to see the benefits of economic development - if only as a way to forestall pressure for political freedom. Deng initiated major economic reforms in 1979, and later China announced it would create a "socialist market economy": private enterprise with continued one-party Communist rule. With the state's control loosened, China's economy boomed. [27]
The Tiananmen protests did not mark the end of economic reform. Granted, in the immediate aftermath of the protests, conservatives within the Communist Party attempted to curtail some of the free market reforms that had been undertaken as part of Chinese economic reform, and reinstitute administrative controls over the economy. From 1990 on, investment flowed into China at exponential levels. In 1994 more investment entered the country than in the entire decade from 1979-1989.With the working class subdued and a generation of young leaders killed, imprisoned or in exile, the regime has been able to accelerate the restoration of the capitalist market, relatively free of mass political opposition. The 1990s saw the virtual completion of the processes initiated in 1979. [28] Economic reforms allowed millions of Chinese people to lift their families out of poverty, and many in China find their lives changed for the better. But the central causes the Tiananmen generation, students and citizens alike, took up remain unresolved: corruption, workers' rights, free speech and the need for government reform to address the needs of China's 1.3 billion people. But today, there is still little political freedom. [29]
Another major casualty of the turmoil was higher education and cultural activities. Until the crushing of the student movement, there had been a resurgence of academic and artistic freedom in the PRC. In the years between 1986 and 1988, a far wider variety of philosophy and literary works than before was published and several independent newspapers and magazines appeared. The appointment of Wang Meng, a noted novelist, as culture minister in 1986 had kindled hopes for a period of cultural renaissance. [30]
To the intellectual community, the crackdown ushered in a period of new terror. In the two months following the massacre, the names of more than 2,000 intellectuals were placed on the government's wanted list. Most were dismissed from the positions and many were arrested. Their identifications were transmitted to border-guard forces and customs services to prevent their feeling the country. The dismissal of Wang Men as culture minister in early September signalled the end of artistic freedom and the beginning of censorship and freedom. Liberal publications have been closed down, experimental art performances cancelled and the press warned against writing on sensitive topics like worker unrest. [31]
The crackdown exerted a profound impact on the life and future of the 70,000 students and visiting scholars studying in the United States, Japan, and Europe. Disillusioned with a government that had broken its own laws by shooting student protestors and then had used propaganda to conceal what happened, many student began to doubt whether they had a role to play in the modernization of their homeland. [32]
The crackdown on the pro-democracy demonstration and the resulting tension in Chinese-American relations deterred many U.S. scholars from venturing to the PRC. The alienation and loss of several tens of thousands of the best trained scientists, engineers, and scholars, in the social sciences and humanities has been regarded as a catastrophe for the PRC's modernization drive. The arrest or flight of the country's best minds drained the country of the brain power it desperately needed. For as long as the hard-liners remained in power, cultural exchange with the western world was unable to flourish. If the Cultural Revolution resulted in the deprivation of educational opportunity for a generation, the June 4 Massacre may have caused the PRC to lose the thinkers the country had cultivated for the prior one and a half decades. [33]
The bloodshed on June 4 has caused colossal damage to every aspect of Chinese life. For the Chinese people, a bitter memory has turned into disillusionment and indifference. The social confidence in the regime was damaged significantly and there was a sense of emptiness and purposefulness that became particularly acute within the people after 1989 crackdown. The massacre alienated a generation of the intellectual elite, shattered Deng's dream of building a modernized country through reform and open-door policies, and demolished his grand design to draw Taiwan and Hong Kong (until 8 years later) into the great Chinese Orbit. It also significantly damaged China's foreign relations, and the educational and social aspects in society. In some ways, the Tiananmen Incident proved in a long term perspective beneficial for China's economy. The future of the PRC for a while, however, became a clouded with immense uncertainties; the immediate consequences of the massacre left a pessimistic vision of the future.
