Bodeen, Christopher. “China Refuse To Face Its Demons; 20 Years On, A New Tiananmen Crackdown: All Mention Of Massacre Banned On Anniversary.” Daily Record – News, June 5, 2009., Pg. 25, LexisNexis Academic (accessed May 20, 2010).
This article talk about the international press is trying to memory victims who had lost their life in June 4, 1989; however, the central government in Beijing is trying to erase every trace of the incident. Everyday there are thousands of plainclothes and secret policemen on duties at the Tiananmen Square to prevent foreign journalists from filming and reporting the anniversary. These plainclothes policemen usually wear identical shirts, white cloths, which can be easily identify at the square. In fact, there are so many police were patrolling in the square that the tourists were nearly outnumbered. And, in order to maintain the square “quality,” there are checkpoints locate in Tiananmen Square for safety search and journalists were usually the blacklist. Furthermore, the article indicated that, “Journalist and TV crews who tried to film were harassed by cops who used large umbrellas to block their shots.” (Bodeen, 2009) Indeed, the repression has exceeded beyond Tiananmen Square perimeter. In China, media is strictly under government control and foreign TV channels that cover news about the massacre is either blacked out or went blank. Moreover, internet discussion and social networking were closely watch by the net police, any site that found threaten to the country image will be shut down. In addition, China has been trying to improve it’s global status; however, the author argue that the barrier holding back China to develop is because the government refused to admit incident existence and continue using forces to prevent anything has connection to the incident. For instance, “One of the leaders of the 1989 protests, Wu'er Kaixi, tried to return from exile to mark the anniversary but was turned away at the border. He called the decision a tragedy.” (Bodeen, 2009) Even though, China society has been rapidly evolve in the last two decades, the limits in freedom still exist in today China society.
Carrel, Todd. "Beijing." National Geographic 197.3 (2000): 116. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 21 May 2010.
Todd Carrel recounts the stories of ordinary Chinese people living in Beijing, their triumphs and tribulations, and ongoing struggle to adapt as capitalist values threaten to overwhelm their traditional Communist structure. He tells of his experience documenting a protester in Tiananmen Square, and how because of his actions he was brutalized by Chinese police and forced to leave the country. Years later he returned to the country and was frequently apologized to by many of his former opponents. Carrel also discusses the modern reactions to Tiananmen Square and recounts that while some people are still deeply troubled by the events that transpired back in June 1989, othesr have moved on and now see the Square as a symbol of China, one to be looked upon with pride. Lastly Carrel explains China’s growing sense of autonomy from the government, especially in regards to the increasing number of people who have internet access and have begun to enjoy a greater amount of independence.
Ding, Y. (2002). In Chinese democracy after Tiananmen. New York: Columbia University Press. (accessed June 6, 2010).
In this book, the author, Yijiang Ding, looks at the change in China state-society relationship in three different areas: the intellectual, the social, and the cultural. Based on Chinese scholarship, the author shows that the emergent theory of the dualism of state and society is contemporaneous with a new cognitive and cultural appreciation of the people's independence from state authority.” (Ding, 2002) As a result, the author had rised the questioned whether China is moving toward democracy? Or does Western engagement with China contribute economically and politically to this shift? These questions that lie at the heart of this book are especially timely in light of the recent reconstruction of political regimes worldwide. (Ding, 2002)
Fewsmith, J. (2001). In China since Tiananmen: The politics of transition. Cambridge modern China series. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press. (accessed June 6, 2010).
This book talks about the political trends, and how China has changed since the Tiananmen Square events in 1989. The author, Joseph Fewsmith, “describes a coherent and credible narrative of deep political conflict in China in the years after Tiananmen.” “He puts the rise of neoconservatism and nationalism in China today into historical context, and he contrasts it with the growing pluralization of Chinese society and governance.” (Fewsmith, 2001) Moreover, the book include new information that the Western media have not uncover which include the relationship between China and America and China's most recent evolution, and its future.
Foster, Peter and Moore, Malcolm. “China's Students Resign Themselves to Change Through Evolution, not Revolution; Twenty Years After the Tiananmen Massacre, a New Generation Prefers Not to Fight for Political Freedom.” The Daily Telegraph – International edition, June 4, 2009., Pg. 20, LexisNexis Academic (accessed May 20, 2010).
The article is about the authors, Peter Foster and Malcolm, conducting interview with eight Peking University students who agree to talk about Tiananmen incident and future of their country. The students request not to uncover their names and it shows that the issues are still very sensitive in China. In the group there are a nuclear scientist, a marketing graduate, a microelectronics specialist, a physicist, a constitutional lawyer and finance undergraduate. These people are considered the elite in China society who has very bright future and contribution to their country. During the interview, majority of the students admit that they have seen the Tiananmen video on the internet and realize how political can hurt people. But these students believe that there are less restriction and more freedom in today society since the Tiananmen incident. However, to people who have longer memories believe that “there's still a cage in China. But for many, the cage has grown so big that they can't feel the limit.” (Foster and Moore, 2009) Furthermore, when asked about the recent internet sensors block on social networking such as YouTube and Twitter, many students believe that there’s nothing they could do, saying “the system is the system and we live and work within it.” (Foster and Moore, 2009) Although the older generation and new generation Chinese has different aspect in democracy, they have one thing in common is that China is moving on the right direction and they are satisfied with the level of democracy. Indeed, the author is surprise to see that people doesn’t want to talk about the issues is because they want to get rid of past and move forward. They want to demonstrate the people themselves can change the politic. Nevertheless, the students added, “we should get on with our studies and work to make China stronger.''
Frontline. “The Tank Man.” 11 April 2006. Online video clip. PBS. Accessed on 20 May 2010. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/view/
In this Frontline documentary, filmmaker Antony Thomas travels to China in search of the legendary “Take Man.” A day after the horrific massacre in China’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, a young man stood his ground in front of a column of incoming tanks. Captured on film by Western journalists, that single act of defiance against an oppressive government became a symbol of hope and inspiration in the struggle for freedom all across the world. During the documentary, Thomas reviews the events leading up to the June Forth Massacre by conducting interviews with Chinese and Western eyewitnesses, as well as by gathering vast amounts of footage and pictures taken during the crisis. During the middle portion of the film Thomas looks at the actual incident itself and gives commentary as viewers are presented with shocking images of the events on that terrible night. The later part of the film takes a look at a modern China in the 21st Century, and the concept of two vastly different emerging Chinas: one that is poor, rural and increasingly cut off from socioeconomic advancement; the other that is comprised of wealthy and modern city-dwellers. While the identity of the Tank Man is never uncovered, the worldwide impact of his symbolic act will never be forgotten, and will no doubt continue to inspire and encourage those who struggle for freedom against oppressive governments.
Frontline. “The Memory of Tiananmen 1989.” 11 April 2006. Accessed on 26 May 2010. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/cron/
During the spring of 1989 the communist nation of China underwent a huge social upheaval at the hands of student protestors and government soldiers. Beginning on April 17th and ending on June 5th, this timeline does an excellent job of showing how events unraveled and eventually led up to the infamous massacre of Beijing residents on June 4th of 1989. Highlights of this timeline include the divided party opinions over how to deal with the protestors, the hunger strike, vivid portrayal of the June 4th massacre, and ongoing mystery of “The Tank Man”. This timeline also does an excellent job of bringing in eyewitness accounts, further adding to the mystery and intensity of the story being told.
Frontline. “Analysis.” 11 April 2006. PBS. Accessed on 20 May 2010. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/themes/
This site acts as a portal to which several different interviews by prominent China specialists and eyewitnesses to the Tiananmen Square incident can be accessed. Some of the topics discussed include “The Legacy of June Forth”, “Attempting to Erase History”, “Can China Stay on the Road It’s On?”, and “Eyewitness to Tiananmen Spring”. Each of these topics is then broken down into dozens of different interviews from researchers and those in academia, all specializing in knowledge of China’s history and often violent dealings with various protester movements. For instance, Timothy Brook talks in depth about many of the military decisions made by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as well as the mistakes that Chinese political and military leadership were responsible for. Robin Munro does an excellent job of capturing not just the events of June 3-4, 1989, but their impact on the rest of China and ultimately the world as a whole. An interview with Orville Schell captures the feelings of those who witnessed the events in Tiananmen Square first hand, as well as China’s increasing censorship of the media and their attempt to blot out any memory of what took place in 1989 from the minds of the people. And Jan Wong recounts in astounding detail the efforts of Beijing residents to keep the PLA out of the city, their many triumphs for two weeks, and their eventual collapse on the night of June 4th. In all, this collection gives readers several eye-opening accounts of what it was like to witness the Tiananmen Square massacre first hand, as well as the impact of this event on the world.
Jian, Ma. "China's Secret Grief." New Statesman, August 04, 2008., 24-25, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed May 20, 2010).
Tiananmen Square incident has become a global history symbol. However, 20 years after the incident, it is still taboo topic in China society where people do not discuss in publicly and privately at home. Even though the Chinese government tried to conceal the incident, the unforgettable paint still imprint clearly in the people who had participated and lost their family members during the Tiananmen massacre. To prevent criticism from foreign countries and maintain China “social orders”, Chinese government prohibit people from spreading information and conduct activities relates to Tiananmen incident. Moreover, no anniversary is held to memory the incident but everyday there are thousands of uniformed policemen patrolled at the Tiananmen Square to prevent activities that attempts to draw public attention and reminds people about the incidents. Furthermore, people who tried to publicize the Tiananmen massacre is either house arrested or remove from the city. For instance, the author indicated that, “in 2004, the poet Shi Tao sent to a western democracy website a government document banning the news media from mentioning the 4 June anniversary. He was arrested and is now serving a ten-year prison sentence.” (Jian, 2008) In addition, the author argues that if China wants to become international country and recognize as superpower, the government should reveal the truth about the Tiananmen Square incident and apologies to the victims and their families members. Thus, people who had been arrested in prison for protest during the Cultural Revolution movement should be release and the Chinese government should introduce democratic reform.
Lam, W. W.-L. (1995). In China after Deng Xiaoping: The power struggle in Beijing since Tiananmen. Singapore: J. Wiley & Sons. (accessed June 6, 2010).
In this book, the author questioned “What will happen to China after Deng Xiaoping's death?” Since June 4, 1989, the author had been analyzing the political and economic trends in China. Moreover, base on unpublished documents and interviews, the author had investigated Deng’s role during the Tiananmen Square Protest and his place in China history. In addition, “the lively story-telling and incisive judgments are buttressed by generous quotations from the speeches and writings of the politicians who will shape China's future.” (Lam, 1995)
Miles, J. A. R. (1996). In The legacy of Tiananmen: China in disarray. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. (accessed June 6, 2010).
China's economic growth had created opportunities to millions of Chinese. “But as Deng's enemies within the Communist party have often warned, it has aggravated social tensions and weakened the party's grip.” (Miles, 1996) The gap between rich and poor and between rural and urban areas is growing apart. “Corruption is flourishing among officials who, seeing collapse of communism elsewhere, have lost faith in their party's future.” (Miles, 1996) Indeed, the author had concludes that China in the late 1990s is a country that unsure which direction it is going. Politicians and press were concerned whether China is emerging into a new economic which will influence the global economy or it is heading toward the chaos. Thus, consider as one of the largest population country, China economic growth will certainly have a huge impact to it’s neighborhood countries such as Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Nathan, A. J. (January 01, 2001). The Tiananmen Papers. Foreign Affairs, 80, 1, 2-48. (accessed June 6, 2010).
The secret reports and documents had revealed information about China's Communist Party leadership during the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989. “This information, smuggled out of Beijing by a reform-minded individual, challenged the official picture of the crisis as the legitimate suppression of violent antigovernment protests.” (Nathan, 2001) The document record about the China's leaders knew at each stage of the events, and who made the decision to send in the troops to kill the protestors. For 11 years, the truth about the number of protestors killed at Tiananmen Square still remained shrouded in mystery.
PATRICK E., TYLER. "Chinese Take Journalists on Guided Tour of Prison." New York Times 06 Mar. 1994: 12. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 21 May 2010.
In the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre the Chinese government was subjected to a host of worldwide criticism concerning their human rights violations. To counter such criticisms, the CCP hosted five American journalists on a guided tour of a prison to prove that no violations were being committed. This article documents their visit, as well as provides detail on one very notable prisoner: Liu Gang. At the time this article was written Liu was a 33 year old prisoner who had helped organize the infamous Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and campaigned for greater civil freedoms. Now however he had accused the prison where he was interned at of grievous human rights abuses including torture, and planned to sue the officials responsible for his condition as soon as he was released. The American journalists expected to see a prison in full operation, as well as have a chance to speak with Liu about his accusations. Unfortunately for the journalists neither of their goals were realized, as the prison was nearly empty upon their arrival and any action they did see was so phony and choreographed that it was almost a joke. And since Liu Gang was reported to “distort the truth” whenever he spoke, the prison officials prevented the journalists from seeing him, further hurting their credibility. This article does an excellent job of showing how the CCP will go to great lengths to protect their reputation, even if the humanitarian image they portray is completely false and they truly are guilty of abusing their own population.
Rubin, Trudy. “Worldview: An Image of Defiance, An Image of Possibility” EDITORIAL; Inq Col Trudy Rubin June 4, 2008., Pg. A15, LexisNexis Academic (accessed May 20, 2010).
In the article “Worldview: An image of defiance, an image of possibility” by Trudy Rubin, the author expressed his/her opinion about what the image of the Tankman in the Tiananmen Square could represent today besides an image of a brave man. The Chinese government has made the Tiananmen massacres a taboo subject by forbidding people to talk about it and the media to publish anything about this event. Even though the Chinese government has been claiming to make efforts in improving its human rights and being accountable for its people, the recent Sichuan earthquakes showed that the reality is not what the Chinese government has claimed. Chinese people are allowed to “benefit from the booming economy and enjoy large amounts of personal freedom” (Rubin, 2008) as long as they do not involve in political or social organizing. The author argues that the lack of political checks and balances has flourished the corruption in China and made the government officials immune to grassroots pressures. As revealed in the Sichuan earthquakes, the “party bosses built shoddy schools for the poor, while constructing earthquake-proof buildings for the elite” (Rubin, 2008) and the poor mothers could only watch their children die. Rubin suggests that the Beijing Olympics would be the best moment to release the 180 people who were still in jail because of the Tiananmen Square event since Tiananmen Square was the central venue for the Beijing Olympics and the torch ceremonies were held there. If the pardon were to happen, the Tankman image would not only evokes China’s haunted past, but also represents China’s future hopes. However, the author knew that such pardon was highly unlikely.
Richelson, Jeffery,. Evans, Michael. “Tiananmen Square, 1989 The Declassified History.” 1 June 1999. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 16. Accessed on 20 May 2010. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB16/index.html
This collection of articles by Richelson and Evans gives readers a firsthand report of detailed and previously classified accounts of the military assaults upon the protestors in Tiananmen Square during the June Forth Massacre. The documents contained in this site are actual official military correspondence relating to the events surrounding the Tiananmen Square incident, and feature reports from the US Secretary of State, cables from the US embassy in Beijing, eyewitness accounts, presidential decisions and study directives, transcripts between ex-President Nixon and former CCP leader Mao Zedong, intelligence reports by the CIA, and dozens more different primary source documents. This collection on Tiananmen Square is part of a larger collection called “China and the United States: From Hostility to Engagement, 1960-1998”. Altogether this collection features 2,050 U.S. government documents which equals more than 15,000 pages of material, all of which concern the evolving relationship between the United States and China.
Waller, Wynne Pomeroy, and Marianne E. Ide. “The Polls - Poll Trends: China And Human Rights.” Public Opinion Quarterly 59, no. 1 (Spring95 1995): 133-143. Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed May 20, 2010).
The article, “The Polls - Poll Trends: China And Human Rights” by authors Wynne Waller and Marianne E. Ide talks about American impression towards China during 1990s. In 1994, China had become the most favorable trading nation with United Stated and many American believe both countries should strengthen its collaboration in political and economic issues. Historically, American does not view China as a very close ally nor felt threaten by the Chinese government. However, after 1989 Tiananmen issues many people certainly had negative opinion towards China and had affect public opinion towards China human rights issues. Moreover, the article had display that, “public attitudes toward China 5 years after the 1989 massacre continue to reflect such general displeasure, albeit with apparently less severity.” (Waller and Marianne, 1994) In 1990s, majority of American felt that the priority in American foreign policy should include opposing human rights violators. In fact, China’s side effects after Tiananmen occurrence had affect the Olympics voting results. During the international Olympics committee (IOC) voting, Beijing was the favor candidate city for hosting the year 2000 summer Olympics; instead, IOC chooses Sydney, Australia. The reason was because public opinion concerned China lack of political freedom and civil rights that these factors had affect the decision making. In addition, between years 1990 – 1991 there was a debate between whether United States should accuse China for violating the human rights or prevent criticism China in order to maintain good relations while the survey results show that percentage of supporting maintain good relations was increasing. By year 1992, the survey result shows that majority were favor in supporting China to improve its human right. In year 1993 – 1994 a similar questions survey were distribute to the public again and the percentage of building good relations increase which shows that the public were very hesitate between the human rights violations or reinforce trading collaboration.
Wartman , J. (2007). Freedom of the press and democracy in china. Lethbridge Undergraduate Research Journal, 1(2), Retrieved from http://www.lurj.org/article.php/vol1n2/china.xml
In this journal, the author delves into the certain political stances that were distinguished during the events of Tiananmen Square in 1989 and talks about how in a way, the event was a catalyst to pushing forward the notion of democracy and more freedom of press in a time where the country was under a strong socialist regime. The issue here is mainly the critical necessity of freedom of press to be accurately and effectively enacted as a part of the Chinese constitution and while the written documentation encourages the people to enjoy their rights of speech, press, and demonstration, the fact is that the Chinese government on their stance, still suppresses information from traveling if they feel that it should be deemed as non-socialist principles. Ultimately, the author argues that this form of suppressed information is held from reaching the people and by this, democratic ideals are further removed. For the advancement of China’s economy, social scientists and experts need to be able to acquire information needed however, if certain information are screened or just censored entirely, not just awareness but informative awareness cannot be obtained and for democracy to prevail, it is important that each and every individual/citizen are openly free to access information.
