tiananmen square 5.1: worry
This Tiananmen Square post is going to be in two halves, the second to be posted early next week. There's a lot to fit in, I want to check some other resources, and I have a couple of other things to do today.
One of the reasons I want to check more sources is so that I can post some links for a change, and also so that I'm not dependent on only a couple of texts and running the risk of plagiarism. So in the interests of honesty, the two sources I'm currently using are a comic-strip recis of events published around a year later in Crisis comic. The story was called China in Crisis 1989 and was written by Tony Allen and drawn by Dave Hine. It was published across issues 42 & 45 (14-27 April 1990 and 26 May-8 June 1990 respectively) by Fleetway Publications, in London. You may be able to track down copies through second-hand and online comic stores. Crisis was a short-lived comic aimed at adults. It ran to 63 issues from 1987 or 88 to 1992-ish.
The second and major source for these posts is a book published worldwide, including I believe a Chinese edition, though I don't know anything more about that. The book is The Tiananmen Papers and comprises Chinese government documents, as well as extracts from the press and students at the time, plus explanatory commentary. The papers were compiled by Zhang Liang, and edited by Andrew J Nathan and Perry Link. The book was first published in 2001. My edition is the 2002 paperback from Abacus of London. This should be available in one edition or another in various high-street and online bookstores, and I'd highly recommend it. The documents make for a fascinating and scary read, if you want to know more about these events then go buy it. Or shoplift from an anonymous corporate chain, whatever works for you. This book is the main reason why I need to find other sources, because I'm borrowing heavily from it.
So, April 23-26 (26-30th to follow). Before he left for North Korea Zhao Ziyang asked that in public statements the positive side of the student demonstrations calling for openness and democracy should be emphasised. At the same time students continued to make demands along those lines, reiterating points they'd made several times over the last week.
At least privately Premier Li Peng was very hostile to any such suggestions, but the press were reporting that the protestors in Tiananmen Square were determined that unlike similar protests through the 80s, this one should not run out of energy. What may have rattled the leadership was that there had been similar uprisings in both Czechoslovakia and Hungary. In fact over the next couple of years the entire Soviet Union, the East European Communist Bloc would collapse.
Outside of China and Eastern Europe it was a period of great optimism, even for those of us who have no love of the market economy alternative. It seemed like people could achieve anything if they set their mind to it. My father wasn't quite as enthusiatic, he could remember the Prague Spring of the late 60's, when protestors in Prague had their uprising crushed by the military power of the Soviet Union. I'll return to this later on. For the time being it was, as I've said a time of enormous optimism.
Part of that may have been ignorance. The next year I took a publishing course in London (the Crisis issues came out during the end of the one year diploma), which was the first time I'd ever encountered that kind of ethnic, cultural, religious and sexual diversity. That year was the first time I realised how severe my social problems were, I spent much of the time sat in my room, didn't communicate with anyone except a homeless guy, and lost weight through an eating disorder. But that's another story. The only person on the course younger than me was a Chinese woman of about 17 (unless my memory made that up) but I don't really remember talking to her, or ever finding out her opinion on the events of the previous year's spring. Like so many times in my life she was one of the many people I'd have liked to get to know better, but who I was barely able to talk with. Again, another story. As a measure of how times change, The Face, and I think other publications at around that time featured a page of protests and demands in Chinese for readers to fax through to a list of official numbers in China, as a means of disrupting communication. Needless to say, and embarassingly, the only time I wrote a letter to The Face wasn't to commend them on this, it was to object to their taking the piss out of Guns 'n' Roses, in what I thought was an ironic manner, but came across as sexist and racist - doh! Now of course I'd be first to take the piss out of the band.
Anyhoo. From the 25th it became apparent that students were leaving Beijing to start networking with other students across the country, to coordinate protests. An effort was made in Beijing to arrange a meeting between a small group of student representatives and high-ranking government officials, but after some negotiation about terms the students didn't show up.
On the 26th the leadership formed the Small Group to Halt the Turmoil, with the aim of recommending countermeasures, and mobilising opinion against the students. It was to report to Deng Xiaoping.
There were reports that the news media wanted independence, and that there was support for the students amonst leading intellectuals. Students across the country were protesting, and making statements attacking the leadership. For being old, out of touch, corrupt, and secretive.
Also published on the 26th, though broadcast on the 25th, was an editorial in the People's Daily called The Necessity for a Clear Stand Against Turmoil. It had an incendiary effect. If the movement had been starting to peter out, this reenergised it and gave the students a fresh determination to carry on till at least May 4th.
Which is where we'll leave things for a couple of days. See you soon.
One of the reasons I want to check more sources is so that I can post some links for a change, and also so that I'm not dependent on only a couple of texts and running the risk of plagiarism. So in the interests of honesty, the two sources I'm currently using are a comic-strip recis of events published around a year later in Crisis comic. The story was called China in Crisis 1989 and was written by Tony Allen and drawn by Dave Hine. It was published across issues 42 & 45 (14-27 April 1990 and 26 May-8 June 1990 respectively) by Fleetway Publications, in London. You may be able to track down copies through second-hand and online comic stores. Crisis was a short-lived comic aimed at adults. It ran to 63 issues from 1987 or 88 to 1992-ish.
The second and major source for these posts is a book published worldwide, including I believe a Chinese edition, though I don't know anything more about that. The book is The Tiananmen Papers and comprises Chinese government documents, as well as extracts from the press and students at the time, plus explanatory commentary. The papers were compiled by Zhang Liang, and edited by Andrew J Nathan and Perry Link. The book was first published in 2001. My edition is the 2002 paperback from Abacus of London. This should be available in one edition or another in various high-street and online bookstores, and I'd highly recommend it. The documents make for a fascinating and scary read, if you want to know more about these events then go buy it. Or shoplift from an anonymous corporate chain, whatever works for you. This book is the main reason why I need to find other sources, because I'm borrowing heavily from it.
So, April 23-26 (26-30th to follow). Before he left for North Korea Zhao Ziyang asked that in public statements the positive side of the student demonstrations calling for openness and democracy should be emphasised. At the same time students continued to make demands along those lines, reiterating points they'd made several times over the last week.
At least privately Premier Li Peng was very hostile to any such suggestions, but the press were reporting that the protestors in Tiananmen Square were determined that unlike similar protests through the 80s, this one should not run out of energy. What may have rattled the leadership was that there had been similar uprisings in both Czechoslovakia and Hungary. In fact over the next couple of years the entire Soviet Union, the East European Communist Bloc would collapse.
Outside of China and Eastern Europe it was a period of great optimism, even for those of us who have no love of the market economy alternative. It seemed like people could achieve anything if they set their mind to it. My father wasn't quite as enthusiatic, he could remember the Prague Spring of the late 60's, when protestors in Prague had their uprising crushed by the military power of the Soviet Union. I'll return to this later on. For the time being it was, as I've said a time of enormous optimism.
Part of that may have been ignorance. The next year I took a publishing course in London (the Crisis issues came out during the end of the one year diploma), which was the first time I'd ever encountered that kind of ethnic, cultural, religious and sexual diversity. That year was the first time I realised how severe my social problems were, I spent much of the time sat in my room, didn't communicate with anyone except a homeless guy, and lost weight through an eating disorder. But that's another story. The only person on the course younger than me was a Chinese woman of about 17 (unless my memory made that up) but I don't really remember talking to her, or ever finding out her opinion on the events of the previous year's spring. Like so many times in my life she was one of the many people I'd have liked to get to know better, but who I was barely able to talk with. Again, another story. As a measure of how times change, The Face, and I think other publications at around that time featured a page of protests and demands in Chinese for readers to fax through to a list of official numbers in China, as a means of disrupting communication. Needless to say, and embarassingly, the only time I wrote a letter to The Face wasn't to commend them on this, it was to object to their taking the piss out of Guns 'n' Roses, in what I thought was an ironic manner, but came across as sexist and racist - doh! Now of course I'd be first to take the piss out of the band.
Anyhoo. From the 25th it became apparent that students were leaving Beijing to start networking with other students across the country, to coordinate protests. An effort was made in Beijing to arrange a meeting between a small group of student representatives and high-ranking government officials, but after some negotiation about terms the students didn't show up.
On the 26th the leadership formed the Small Group to Halt the Turmoil, with the aim of recommending countermeasures, and mobilising opinion against the students. It was to report to Deng Xiaoping.
There were reports that the news media wanted independence, and that there was support for the students amonst leading intellectuals. Students across the country were protesting, and making statements attacking the leadership. For being old, out of touch, corrupt, and secretive.
Also published on the 26th, though broadcast on the 25th, was an editorial in the People's Daily called The Necessity for a Clear Stand Against Turmoil. It had an incendiary effect. If the movement had been starting to peter out, this reenergised it and gave the students a fresh determination to carry on till at least May 4th.
Which is where we'll leave things for a couple of days. See you soon.
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