The Red Roadblock

Project for the New American Century ^ | June 4, 2004 | Ellen Bork

[RWR8189]

Ellen Bork
New York Sun
June 4, 2004

Today is the 15th anniversary of the Communist Chinese government's massacre of democracy protesters. Every year, the anniversary causes anxiety for the regime. Security is tightened around the square at Tiananmen, the focal point of the 1989 demonstrations.

Dissidents are rounded up or sequestered. Among these, apparently, is Jiang Yanyong, the retired doctor who exposed government deceit about SARS and urged Chinese leaders to reverse official policy that the murdered protesters were counterrevolutionaries. Authorities have also issued a warning to Ding Zilin - the mother of a 17-year-old who was shot in the heart - who devotes herself to securing accountability for the massacre.

The regime's fear of senior citizens like Dr. Jiang and Mrs. Ding says a lot. Fifteen years after the massacre, the Communist Party cannot tolerate any challenge to the party's self-serving version of events. To do so would legitimize dissent and political expression outside the regime's control, and that is something China's leaders are not prepared to do. Instead, they are preoccupied with retaining their power.

This year, the Tiananmen Square anniversary coincides with a struggle between the former general secretary of the Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, and his successor, Hu Jintao. The effect of the political jockeying, according to a report in the Washington Post, is to make impossible any concessions by Mr. Hu and his premier Wen Jiabao on the sensitive issues of Taiwan and Hong Kong.

While the outcome of a power struggle between Mr. Hu and Mr. Jiang is anyone's guess, it would be a mistake to imagine that there are significant differences in the leadership's views about Taiwan or Hong Kong. There is no "moderate" position on Taiwan, as an account by China scholars Andrew J. Nathan and Bruce Gilley of internal party documents leaked in 2001 shows. They view pro-democracy and pro-independence sentiment in Taiwan as transitory, the result of "plots" and "interference." (China's New Rulers: The Secret Files, A New York Review Book, 2002). The interference, of course, comes from America, which Hu Jintao calls "the root of the delay" in solving the Taiwan "problem."

Toward Hong Kong, Chinese leaders are also in agreement. Mr. Hu rejects as interference American support for Hong Kong's autonomy and the expansion of democracy there.

The struggle between Mr. Jiang and Mr. Hu is for power - not policy. And regarding who should wield power, the Communist Party or the people, there is no great debate either. Disagreements do not deal with whether to loosen the party's grip on power, but with how to make it more effective. There Mr. Hu has a touch of the politician, traveling widely and mixing easily with ordinary people. But his talent for "dealing with the masses" should not be confused with seeking a mandate from the people, or tolerating power outside the party. Instead, he is concerned with improving the way the party governs. Elections that Mr. Hu favors to make sure the most popular cadres advance, write Messrs. Nathan and Gilley, would take place "only within the Party, and would not be extended to government posts for which non-Party candidates might compete and in which ordinary citizens would vote."

Tempting as it might be to see in China's political struggles the seeds of ideological pluralism, we must avoid projecting onto China's leaders attitudes they do not hold, or thinking wishfully that tactical maneuvering masks liberal leanings that will emerge if we are patient. Those from China with hard-won insights and an intense desire to see China change have no illusions that the party will pursue a reform agenda. Wang Dan, a student leader at Tiananmen who served a jail term before being exiled, says initiative for political reform will only come from outside the Communist Party. "One of the real tragedies of 1989 was not that we jeopardized the efforts of so-called reformist leaders," he wrote in the Asian Wall Street Journal. "Rather it is that they never had the vision or political will to lead China toward democracy."

Wang Youcai, who went to jail first for coordinating student protesters at Tiananmen Square, and again after founding the China Democracy Party in 1998, agrees that change must come from "the bottom up." He was inspired to launch the CDP by phony "village elections" managed by local party officials who controlled the nominations. Mr. Wang asks for U.S. pressure on China. "Just as American pressure helped to bring democracy to Eastern Europe, South Korea, and Taiwan, it can also help to bring democracy to China," he wrote in the Boston Globe.

Even a veteran of the Communist Party, Bao Tong, the highest-ranking cadre to go to jail for opposing the crackdown at Tiananmen, invites external pressure on the regime, arguing that "without international pressure, China's human-rights situation simply will not improve," he wrote in the Asian Wall Street Journal.

As we remember the doomed protesters of 1989, we should not dishonor them by pretending that their aspirations will be met by China's Communist Party. Power struggle aside, democracy in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan depends entirely on ending the Communist Party's monopoly on political power.