"From Those Nights in Tiananmen Square" 20 Years Later

The past twenty-four hours have marked the twentieth anniversary of the massacre of pro-democracy students by the People's Liberation Army in Tiananmen Square. It really doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but the cause of democracy in China is further away than ever before.

To be fair, the students weren't seeking "democracy" in any way that Westerners would understand it. They never challenged the legitimacy of the Communist Party's monopoly on power. If they had done that, there would have been no survivors whatsoever. What they were demanding was an end to the pervasive corruption that is not uncommon in one-party states. That's frequently misunderstood.

Yes, they died brutally. The PLA actually used anti-aircraft fire on the protesters, thus enabling them to kill as many as ten people with one round. Tiananmen was barbaric in its economy. But the students largely accomplished what they set out to. China has reformed a great deal and corruption is now punished as harshly as the Chinese punish everything else.

In 1989 the People's Republic was at a crossroads. The country's unacknowledged leader Deng Xiaoping knew that a continuation of Mao's policies would forever condemn China to being an isolated backwater, but where to go from Mao was a far from certain thing. When Deng said that "socialism does not mean shared poverty" and "to get rich is glorious" - a full 20 years before the advent of 50 Cent - it marked a tidal change in Chinese politics and world history.

Deng bet against the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev assumed that he could strengthen the Communist Party by liberalizing politically without reforming the Marxist economic system. As you might have heard, Gorbachev was wrong. All Glasnost and Perestroika accomplished was to allow the Soviet citizenry to express their pocketbook frustration without consequence.

Deng knew this to be nonsense. For a tyrant, he understood popular politics far better than did his Russian comrade. As a matter of fact, Deng is the only person I'm aware of who predicted the total collapse of the Soviet Union as a nation. Reagan thought that communism would disappear, but the USSR would somehow survive.

Deng knew that market economics held two promises for the continued dominance of his party. It would make the PRC rich beyond its imagination and it would quell demands for political reform. In places that aren't Hollywood, people tend to want to keep what they have and will do virtually anything to do so. There's a reason that you don't see revolutions in rich countries, regardless of how authoritarian they might be. It should be remembered that Hitler and Mussolini only faced serious challenges to their grips on power when they started getting bombed and their respective economies were destroyed.

After Tiananmen there were serious calls in the United States Congress for the diplomatic and economic isolation of China. This is because the United States Congress is uniformly retarded. The worst excesses of Mao were committed when China was isolated. While isolation would have made liberals feel better, it would have done less than nothing to further the cause of human rights in the Middle Kingdom.

But my, how things have changed in the last two decades.

Due to uniquely American excess, the communists in Beijing are now the bankers of choice for the United States. The Communist Party of China is now in a position whereby they can destroy American capitalism for no other reason than their mastery of it. Nowadays congressional delegations to the PRC may as well be called "going to the bank." You don't hear very much about Chinese democracy from anyone who isn't Axl Rose anymore, now do you?

The People's Liberation Army contributed to Bill Clinton's reelection campaign and George W. Bush borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars at market rates from China to finance his through legislative action that resembled Tammany Hall more than anything else. The Marxists are financing the American economy and the Americans wouldn't have it any other way. It really might be time to reassess who actually "won" the twilight struggle against communism. We're really not far from the day when Chinese parents tell their children not to waste food because "there are people starving in Detroit."

Think about this. China was determined to stop the Bush administration's push for war in Iraq, but still loaned it the money it needed to fight that war. Why would they do that? I suspect that it might have something to do with weakening the U.S militarily and geopolitically and increasing their leverage. In my opinion the wrong guy was standing beneath the "Mission Accomplished" banner.

To understand what is happening in the world today , you need to understand the Chinese way of thinking as exemplified by Zhou Enlai.

In the mid-1970s, a group of foreign visitors asked long-serving Chinese premier
Zhou Enlai, who had studied in France in his youth, about the historical
significance of the 1789 French Revolution, which was approaching its 200th
anniversary. Zhou reportedly paused for a moment and responded, "It is still too
early to tell."

200 years is "too early to tell." That's all you really need to know. China is the longest continuous civilization on earth for a reason. We tend to forget that.

The Chinese look at the long term and we don't. Christ, we're lucky if we can look beyond the next Britney Spears album, let alone the next election cycle. It's that simple. They're serious and we're not. They know that the future is nothing but an extension of the past and we're busy being swept away by Lady Gaga.

If any of you were wondering why you haven't seen more coverage on what happened to those poor kids twenty years ago today, no you know. Tiananmen Square represents the triumph of our very worst ideals and the surrender of our very best ones.

The ideal of universal human freedom died twenty years ago today and I can't imagine that anyone is in the mood for celebrating that.

But here's Lady Gaga to make you forget it all. Don't you feel better already?