The Tiananmen Knot
The recent comments by veteran Hong Kong politician Ma Lik have reignited media interest in the events of June 4, 1989, sometimes – though less frequently in these heady days of the China economicmiracle – referred to as the Tiananmen Massacre. Mr Ma’s comments may have been inopportune and ill-considered, but the media interest in and subsequent public debate on the issue have brought to light issues that laid buried in recent years.
On May 15, Mr Ma, who is chairman of the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, stated at an informal press conference that the June 4 crackdown was not a massacre because troops in Beijing did not fire “indiscriminately” at the protesting students. It has to be said – there is not point pretending otherwise – that these were foolish words. Mr Ma has seized on the word “massacre” and, in denying that it can be strictly apply to events that transpired on June 4, attempted to whitewash a very problematic moment in recent Chinese history. It is small surprise then that Mr Ma has suffered a fierce backlash from many quarters, including exiled dissidents such as myself.
I do believe, however, that clumsy comments such as those by Mr Ma need to be considered, not only at face value, but also in terms of the implications for all of us who have any kind of relationship with China.
The truth is that China is no longer the same country that galvanized the world with scenes of tens of thousands of students and workers taking to the streets to demand change. For a huge number of Chinese today, particularly the elite who have access to the university system, that change has already taken place. Despite the manifold problems – a precipitous wealth-divide, rural unrest and intolerance of political dissent, to name just a few – China today is far wealthier and more cosmopolitan than the country I was forced to leave in 1989. It is governed by a new generation of leaders – technocrats who speak in terms of words like “governance” – and the old-generation Iron-Curtain generals are gone.
In short, with the rise of China as a global economic force, and the 2008 Beijing Olympics just around corner, it comes as no surprise that businesspeople and politicians of all stripes should be considering how to put the political bottlenecks of the past behind them. Sooner or later, after all, the past has to take its place in history so that we can all collaborate in making a better a future. It goes without saying that this is something that occupies the minds of dissidents such as myself who cannot return to their homeland.
I am sure that Mr Ma too is one of those people. Like us, he would like to be able to move on. Unfortunately, his remarks were so outrageous that mostly all they served to do was to open old wounds rather than stimulate debate about what the preconditions for reconciliation might be. Even, I am sure, most dissidents would welcome reconciliation – indeed it is a necessary development. But until this day, 18 years on, reconciliation has not taken place, and for the most part the world deals with June 4 by pretending it did not happen. Mr Ma’s comments were a reminder that, whatever we call it, it did happen, and that ghosts of June 4 can still arouse powerful emotions. Amid widespread public calls of “shameless” in Hong Kong, the Apple Daily ran a front-page headline calling Mr Ma “a scoundrel”, while the Tiananmen Mother’s Group accused Mr Ma of “helping evil people do evil”.
For me, these reactions underscore the fact that, no matter how vital China has become to world economy and how much it has changed with the times, the Tiananmen knot cannot be unraveled either by ignoring it or by denying it happened. The truth has to be confronted before reconciliation can take place. The question of whether it is time to forgive and move on is on many people’s minds, including my own. But forgiveness, like reconciliation, has as its precondition the truth.
To this day, the Chinese government calls the Tiananmen student movement, a “counterrevolutionary riot”, all the while denying the scale of bloodshed. This is a convenient line that I’m sure many would like to go along with, but as a falsehood it leaves no room for dialog. It is a position that asks us to forgive by forgetting.
Forgiveness will come with reconciliation, but for that to happen the Chinese government, and its defenders such as Mr Ma, will have to extend the same goodwill to the victims of June 4, and to those bereaved, imprisoned and exiled, that they are willing to extend to China. That means confronting the truth. Reconciliation under any other terms is nothing more than appeasement.
As I have said before, I think often about reconciliation. Like many of us in exile, I would like to be part of the new China. Unfortunately, the day for that to happen has not arrived. The conditions are not right. And until Beijing and its champions are willing to engage in open dialog about the events of 1989 that day will not arrive.
——Published 2007.06.04, Asia Wall Street Journal
I agree with you that reconciliation is needed.
But, reconciliation is not easy, too hard in fact.
The chinese government will never admit that they were wrong, so they will have no ground to let people like you go back.
Despite that, my hope persists that someday reconciliation will be reached.