Today marked the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. The foreign community here in Beijing waited in anticipation for some sign of protest. Those holding their breath gathered near the Square and waited. Nothing happened.
To China watchers who hope for indicators of democracy sprouting many Chinese will say that China has been offered democracy from an indecipherable Western menu. Among them is Xinran, author and journalist who spent twenty years interviewing China’s silent generation, old Chinese who survived the barren years under Mao. She likens China thirty years ago, after Deng Xiaoping’s economic opening up, to a hungry child who, given the option of a menu or bread, picks bread: For her, “the menu is just a piece of paper – she won’t believe that piece of paper will provide food.”
Today, it’s still not a valued item on the menu. This is a result of holes in China’s modern history and rapid economic development.
This is an excerpt from a recent post on her blog, Xiang Yi Xiang — Think! Tiananmen Movement in 1989:
” Today’s comforts have made us too lazy to think and to dig the truth…or, at least to question the truth of our past. We must not ‘water [down]’ our beliefs and the glory lost by the blood of others - both of Chinese students and Chinese soldiers in 1989! Wo Men Bu-Neng Jian-Hua Li-Shi. We must not simplify history.”
Xinran believes that China’s history has not been taught properly; young people do not understand the depths to which the country sank a mere three decades ago. For this group of mainly single children, financial independence is paramount.
It remains to be seen how amidst global recession, China, with its national pride often spurred by hawkish foreign response to its rise, and its undefined modern identity, will define democracy in the future. There is no question that China will closely examine how Western democracies resolve the current economic crisis: If they succeed, democracy will likely become a choice on China’s menu. And then the foreign community here won’t need to stand, waiting with bated breath, for some notion of democracy to show signs of life.
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