Tragedy in China

It seemed too easy.

The world's most populous nation had given new meaning to the term "people power." For seven weeks, thousands of Chinese people, and on at least two occasions more than a million, marched and demonstrated nonviolently -- while hundreds of others fasted in Beijing's Tiananmen Square -- for political reforms. The world admired the dignity of the protesters and marveled at the restraint of China's political leadership. Could it be that China would follow the path of its communist counterparts in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, forsaking Mao's "barrel of the gun" philosophy?

The "Beijing massacre" on June 3 proved that possibility to be wishful thinking. Thousands of Chinese citizens, young and old, women and men, many of them students, gave their lives in the pursuit of democracy. They were either shot, beaten, bayoneted, or trampled to death by tanks of the People's Liberation Army. Afterward, scores of bodies were burned to prevent the full extent of the madness from being revealed.

Now they are martyrs.

Since the crackdown began, hundreds of "counterrevolutionaries, " "hooligans, " "thugs, " and "rumor-mongers" have been arrested, forced to undergo "ideological rectification." At this writing, several students and protest leaders have already been executed. China has not even acknowledged the international calls for clemency, and more executions will likely follow. Televised broadcasts showed people -- some who had obviously been beaten -- being arrested, recanting statements, and signing confessions, instilling enough fear into the Chinese people that not even a hint of underground protest has emerged since the crackdown.

The government's use of television will make it very difficult for student leaders who went into hiding after the massacre to remain underground. Network news programs in the United States have documented cases where the government-run news station has aired pirated news footage of demonstrators and then frozen the footage to focus on a demonstrator's face, asking for any information that will lead to an arrest. Hotline numbers have been set up by the government and rewards have been promised to those who cooperate.

Unlike Gorbachev's glasnost, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms have not been accompanied by political reforms. Deng, Premier Li Peng, and President Yang Shungkun are all in their 80s and are veterans and survivors of the Long March and the Cultural Revolution. Those leading the drive for reform are much younger, more educated, and have taken advantage of the opportunities opened to them by Deng's economic policies and overtures to the West.

These are the people who are most able to deliver on Deng's desire to make China more economically competitive, but they will not do it without the basic freedoms of press, speech, assembly, and a more democratic style of government. By neutralizing them, Deng threatens China's future. How many more times will he have to call out the army? How many units will obey? Each time the army is called out, Deng loses a measure of control, and the balance of power shifts.

CHINA'S ALREADY DAMAGED credibility in world opinion will worsen if the repression continues. This is especially true in Hong Kong. Now a British colony, Hong Kong is scheduled to revert back to Chinese rule in 1997. Ninety-eight percent of the population there is Chinese. Even though the Chinese there are accustomed to a much freer life under British rule, they are denied British passports and citizenship.

Most would like to remain in Hong Kong, but not under Chinese rule, because it seems likely that China will force its will on Hong Kong in 1997 as it has done in Tibet -- where more than one million people have died since China invaded 40 years ago.

Glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union, and a strong economic and technological relationship with the United States, put China between a rock and a hard place in two key diplomatic relationships. With the Soviets undertaking unprecedented experiments in democracy, China's hard-headedness in resisting change leaves it the last great bastion of communism as we used to know it. The recent Sino-Soviet summit between Deng and Gorbachev notwithstanding, China may well find itself an ideologically isolated nation.

For the United States, the "China card" policy of playing China off the Soviet Union is obsolete. Gorbachev's diplomatic and military initiatives are forcing the United States to de-emphasize the militarily strategic necessity of maintaining good relations with China, and to focus instead on developing economic ties. The tragedy unfolding in Beijing, however, makes this effort irrelevant; human rights must now become the single most important issue on which we hold China accountable. South Africa has already demonstrated the gullibility of the U.S. government. The United States must not be fooled by the government-controlled image of China that is now being shown.

At this writing, President Bush's response has been more symbolic than substantive. Immediately after the crackdown, Bush suspended $500 million worth of military sales to China and authorized the extension of visas for the 40,000 Chinese students studying in the United States. But following the executions of the protest leaders, Bush's only response was to cancel all high-level visits between the United States and China. U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III told Congress after the executions that no further action against China was being contemplated.

The punishment has yet to fit the crime. Congress has called for an end to all transfers of highly advanced technological equipment, a suspension of trade and investments, a recall of the U.S. ambassador, and pressure on the World Bank to cut off loans to China. All responses out of Washington so far have been political in the face of a moral issue, and seem to intimate that the government of China will eventually own up to the atrocities it is committing and change its ways.

The Chinese people were determined to go forward, and now they are afraid. Overcoming fear is always the hardest part of any struggle. This is an important difference from the freedom movements in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, the West Bank, and other areas of the world; in these places the people have clearly overcome their fear. Communist China is at a crossroads unlike any other it has faced in its 40-year history. The government has clearly won this battle, and if the international community does not immediately find its voice in condemning the Chinese government and treating it as an outcast, that government will also win the war between totalitarianism and freedom.

Anthony A. Parker was assistant editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.