By Claude Arpi
The External Affairs Minister of the largest democracy in the world will arrive in Beijing on June 4 for a four-day visit to China on the occasion of the 19th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre in which several thousand Chinese students were smashed by the tanks of the People’s Liberation Army. Of course, Mr Pranab Mukherjee’s visit has nothing to do with the ‘celebrations’. However, the mandarins of South Block could have pointed out to their Chinese counterparts that India is attached to democratic principles and a more auspicious date could have been found. They may have thought, “Why bother about Tiananmen when there is so much on Mr Mukherjee’s plate?”
The Minister will open a new Indian Consulate in Guangzhou, take up the issue of recurring Chinese incursions in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh and Sikkim, and the five-decade-old boundary dispute. Mr Yang Jiechi, his Chinese counterpart, is bound to air Beijing’s usual ‘anger’ at Tibetan refugees holding rallies before the coming Olympics Games and the “splittist attitude of the Dalai Lama’s clique”.
As usual, India will respond in a low-key manner not only to incursions across the Line of Actual Control, but also the forays of Chinese hackers into the servers of the Ministry of External Affairs. Many in India believe that the hackers’ intrusions, which threaten the country’s diplomatic and military security, are comparable to a terrorist attack, though the Chinese Embassy in Delhi has reacted angrily: “It is an irresponsible fabrication.”
However, as an analyst has rightly pointed out, “The incident fits an emerging pattern of planned Chinese penetration of Government Websites and subsequent denial of responsibility.” But Indian officials will probably explain that there is no use in raising a hue and cry about these small irritants; that our ‘quiet diplomacy of saying things gently’ is more effective.
It is regrettable that South Block did not ‘gently’ inform Beijing about the significance of June 4, a day which will forever remain a wound in the history of democracy. A few days after the 1989 event, Mr Yuan Mu, the then spokesman of the State Council, declared that only 23 students had died, along with some ‘ruffians’. A year later, Beijing tried to make its version more plausible. Time quoted from the official report of the upheaval: “Chen Xitong, Beijing’s hard-line Mayor, claimed that 200 civilians were killed and more than 3,000 were wounded.” The Mayor insisted the casualties were mainly soldiers and policemen. The Time report countered this claim: “(Chen’s) figures for civilians are almost universally dismissed as outrageous underestimates. On the day of the crackdown, Chinese Red Cross sources told reporters that 2,600 people died and 10,000 were injured.”
The point is that Beijing has never revised its stand on the events of May-June 1989. Ten years after the massacre, Mr Zhu Muzhi, the president of China Society for Human Rights Studies, an official think tank, noted, “If the way we handled the Tiananmen crisis was incorrect, we would not have today’s prosperity. China would be in chaos. The people would have risen and resisted the Government.” This is the closest to acknowledging the just demands of the students.
The only senior Chinese leader to have accepted that the students had democratic aspirations was Premier Zhu Rongji. In 1999 he said, “The episode in 1989 (happened) because they wanted democracy but they didn’t want the rule of law. That’s why it happened.”
The Tiananmen Square episode was triggered in April 1989 by the death of former Chinese Communist Party secretary-general Hu Yaobang. Two years earlier he had resigned from his position after a students’ protest. The People’s Daily had expressed some sympathy with the students while affirming that “the limits of official toleration were being approached”. According to a section of the CPC, the limits were crossed in 1989.
Soon after Hu’s death, students started demonstrating against the lack of democracy and corruption. At the beginning, the CPC was not directly targeted, but an editorial in the People’s Daily on April 26 termed the students’ movement as “turmoil” (a word used during the Cultural Revolution) and this angered the students; their numbers began swelling. This editorial quoted Deng Xiaoping as accusing some “extremely small segments of opportunists of plotting turmoil”.
The Tiananmen Papers, the most remarkable collection of documents on the events of 1989 and the inner functioning of the CPC, show the crucial role of eight Elders led by Deng Xiaoping. Though none of them had a Government position, it is they who decided the course of the events.
During the following weeks, one of the main demands of the students was the withdrawal of the April 26 editorial. The Chinese leadership was deeply divided over the movement. The Politburo members began to rally behind either Mr Zhao Ziyang, the then general secretary of the CPC or Mr Li Peng. In his introduction to the Tiananmen Papers, Andrew Nathan has said, “Zhao Ziyang’s instincts were to loosen up politically in order to invigorate the economy, accepting a consequent loss of control but maintaining authority through a more consultative style of leadership. Li Peng’s instinct was to focus on stability and keep political control.”
Till today, the ‘stability’ line prevails over the more open one. President Hu Jintao declared a few days before the beginning of the March events on the Roof of the World, “Tibet’s stability has to do with the entire country’s stability; Tibet’s safety has to do with the entire country’s safety”.
In June 1989, the ‘stability’ line prevailed: Tough decisions alone could save China from going the Soviet Union’s way. The hardliners feared that any loosening of the dictatorship of the party will immediately bring instability which should be avoided at any cost. Similar thinking continues to prevail in Beijing.
Matrial law was imposed as the students’ movement gathered steam; Mr Zhao Ziyang was sacked; Mr Li Peng was given the task to implement the decision of the Elders; Mr Jiang Zemin was selected to replace Mr Zhao Ziyang. The build-up of events culminated during the night of June 3-4 when the tanks of the 27th Army rolled onto Tiananmen Square. The rest is history.
As Mr Mukherjee will be arriving in Beijing on this special day, it would be good if he could explain to his interlocutors that after 60 years of independence, India’s experience is that ‘stability’ can rhyme with ‘democracy’. Will he do it?
