From: joe@athena.mit.edu (Joseph C Wang)
Subject: Re: China's economic struct... an analysis
Followup-To:  soc.culture.china,soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.hongkong
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 20:16:11 GMT

In article <RON.92Nov12002529@wc18.yorku.ca> ron@wc18.yorku.ca (Ron Sheese) writes:
>And I don't think the workers thought the
>reform had gone too far.  They just hardly endure the really bad
>side-effect of reform (which came from mysterioty ;-) and any greatman
>can solve it?)

As a side note, I get worried whenever I hear people dismissing the
problems that result from economic reform.  While economic reform is a
good thing, it's important to sympathize with people that are hurt by
the side effects of reform (such as inflation and corruption.)
Otherwise, those that are hurt will throw their support behind
anti-reformers.

>	From the example of ex-Soviet,  I have to think if TAM
>movement had been successful, would China be like current 15
>republices?

I seriously doubt it.  First, the division of the Soviet Union was
caused mainly by ethnic tensions which are generally lacking in China
(at least in Han regions).  Second, China had successfully undertaken
about ten years of economic reform and despite problems, the Chinese
economy in 1989 was basically sound.  This is unlike the situation in
Russia, where economic reform didn't gotten off the ground.  Finally,
no one before or during TAM was interested in overthrowing the Central
Government, everyone just wanted a more open and fair system.

I suspect that if the TAM movement had succeeded, the PRC would be in
a lot better shape.  The Party would probably be led by Zhao Zi Yang,
who would have enough popularity to pull the nation through economic
retrenchment.  The political system in the PRC would be a lot more
open, and one could seriously be proposing "one country, two systems"
as a solution to Mainland/Taiwan affairs.

As it happened, TAM failed, and that only thing that we can do is to
limit the damage caused by its failure, and learn from the mistakes in
TAM, so that we can be prepared the next time something like this
happens (and it probably will within the next ten years.)

>The chinese government at that time was dominated by
>stupidity.  They might be scared and running to their final resorts.

After looking at TAM, I don't think that the PRC government was
stupid.  The government was divided into two factions which caused it
to be paralyzed for two months.  One faction believed in a soft
approach and accomodating the students demands.  The other felt that
this would lead to chaos, and demanded a hard approach, which meant
sending in the tanks.

One of the major causalities of TAM, was the succession plans of Deng
Xiao Ping.  Deng Xiao Ping has tried since the early 1980's to arrange
an orderly succession to prevent the turmoil that occurred when Mao
died from ever happening again.  By turning on his succesor, and
causing major decisions to be made by Long March veterans outside
normal Party and State channels, DXP destroyed these plans and
contributed to the instability that will occur after he dies.

>Sigh...Chinese reform is such a great and difficult balance.

One of the things that I personally learned from TAM is how
complicated things really are.  Youth always believes in two things
(1) things are simple to fix and (2) they personally are invincible.
Before TAM, I was a total radical, because I genuinely believed that
it was impossible for the government to crack down.  I was wrong.  Now
that I'm older (and hopefully wiser), I'm considerably more cautious
and careful at trying to think through all of the consequences of the
political policies which I advocate.

Given the intervening two years, I now believe that it would have been
better had the students withdrawn from the square in late May.  This
would have made it much harder for the government to crack down, and
it would have allowed the "soft" faction of the government to more
easily argue against sending in the tanks.  From my reading of TAM
history, it seems that the student leadership in Beijing seriously
tried to withdraw in late-May, but were overruled by the newly arrived
students from the provinces.

I think that if something like TAM happened again, I would argue
against indefinitely trying to hold on to the square.  After about a
short and fixed period of time, one should declare victory and
withdraw.


Xref: sparky soc.culture.china:29767 talk.politics.china:2534