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51–191 PDF 2009

THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TIANANMEN 

SQUARE PROTESTS: EXAMINING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE 1989 DEMONSTRATIONS IN 

CHINA AND IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. POLICY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE 

COMMISSION ON CHINA 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JUNE 4, 2009 

Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov 

(III) 

CO N T E N T S 

Page 

Opening statement of Hon. Byron Dorgan, Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China ................................................................................... 1 

Walz, Hon. Tim, a U.S. Representative from Minnesota, Member, Congressional-Executive Commission on China ............................................................. 3 

Barrasso, Hon. John, a U.S. Senator from Wyoming, Member, CongressionalExecutive Commission on China ........................................................................ 4 

Smith, Hon. Christopher H., a U.S. Representative from New Jersey, Ranking 

Member, Congressional-Executive Commission on China ................................ 4 

Pitts, Hon. Joseph R., a U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania, Member, 

Congressional-Executive Commission on China ................................................ 6 

Wu, Hon. David, a U.S. Representative from Oregon, Member, CongressionalExecutive Commission on China ........................................................................ 7 

Lord, Hon. Winston, U.S. Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, 

1985–1989 ............................................................................................................. 8 

Levin, Hon. Sander, a U.S. Representative from Michigan, Cochairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China ...................................................... 10 

Link, Perry, Chancellorial Chair for Teaching Across Disciplines, University 

of California-Riverside, and Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies, 

Princeton University ............................................................................................ 11 

Shirk, Susan, Director, University of California Institute on Global Conflict 

and Cooperation, Ho Miu Lam Professor of China and Pacific Affairs, 

School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California-San Diego, and Arthur Ross Fellow, Asia Society Center on U.S.- 

China Relations .................................................................................................... 13 

Yang, Jianli, Tiananmen protest participant; President, Initiatives for China; 

Fellow, Harvard University Committee on Human Rights .............................. 15 

Kaptur, Hon. Marcy, a U.S. Representative from Ohio, Member, Congressional-Executive Commission on China ............................................................. 23 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS

Lord, Winston ........................................................................................................... 32 

Link, Perry ............................................................................................................... 33 

Shirk, Susan ............................................................................................................. 35 

Yang, Jianli .............................................................................................................. 39 

Dorgan, Hon. Byron ................................................................................................. 44 

Levin, Hon. Sander .................................................................................................. 45 

Smith, Hon. Christopher ......................................................................................... 46 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Tiananmen Prisoners—Representative Cases of Persons Currently Imprisoned 

or Detained Who Are Connected to the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests, 

submitted by Senator Byron Dorgan .................................................................. 48 

China’s Charter 08, translated from Chinese by Perry Link, submitted by 

Perry Link ............................................................................................................. 50 

Prepared Statement of John Kamm, Executive Director, The Dui Hua Foundation .................................................................................................................... 54 

(1) 

THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TIANANMEN 

SQUARE PROTESTS: EXAMINING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE 1989 DEMONSTRATIONS 

IN CHINA AND IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. POLICY 

THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 2009 

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE

COMMISSION ON CHINA, Washington, DC. 

The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 10:33 a.m., in 

room 628, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Byron Dorgan, 

Chairman, presiding. 

Also present: Representative Sander Levin, Cochairman; Representatives Tim Walz, Christopher Smith, David Wu, Marcy Kaptur, and Joseph Pitts; and Senator John Barrasso. 

Also present: Charlotte Oldham-Moore, Staff Director, Congressional-Executive Commission on China and Douglas Grob, Cochairman’s Senior Staff Member. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BYRON DORGAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH DAKOTA, CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONALEXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Chairman DORGAN. We’re going to begin the hearing today. This 

is the Congressional-Executive Commission on China’s first hearing 

in the 111th Congress. 

We have a distinguished group of witnesses before us today and 

they will help us examine the significance of the tragic events that 

occurred in 1989 in China. They will also help us explore the implications of the 1989 Democracy Movement on U.S. policy toward 

China today. 

We are honored to have a number of Tiananmen student leaders 

and others who participated in those demonstrations with us in the 

hearing room today. I want to welcome one person in particular, 

Mr. Fang Zheng. I had an opportunity to meet Mr. Fang Zheng, I 

believe, the day before yesterday over in the Capitol. 

Mr. Fang was an athlete at the Beijing College of Sports. On 

June 4, 1989, he participated in the protests in Tiananmen Square. 

Tragically, his legs were crushed under a tank during that demonstration. He later was expelled from school because he refused 

to publicly deny the source of his injury. Mr. Fang later went on 

to become China’s wheelchair discus and javelin champion. Earlier 

this year he moved to the United States with his family. We welcome Mr. Fang for being with us today. 

2 

Twenty years ago, peaceful protesters like Mr. Fang gathered in 

Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, calling for the elimination of corruption and for political reforms. They asked for the right to speak 

freely and for other freedoms that we now take for granted in this 

country. Those protesters included not only students, but government employees, journalists, workers, in some cases the police, and 

even members of China’s armed forces. 

Chinese authorities repeatedly tried to persuade the protesters to 

leave Tiananmen Square, but they refused. Thousands of armed 

troops carrying automatic weapons in large truck convoys moved in 

to clear the square and the surrounding streets of demonstrators. 

Then soldiers and columns of tanks fired directly at citizens and 

into the crowds, inflicting a very high civilian casualty rate. 

Twenty years later, the exact number of dead and wounded remains unclear. The wounded are estimated to have numbered in 

the thousands. Detentions at the time were also in the thousands, 

and some political prisoners who were sentenced in connection with 

the events surrounding June 4 still sit in Chinese prisons today. 

I ask to be included in the hearing record a representative list 

of Tiananmen Square prisoners who remain in jail today. This list 

was developed from the Commission’s Political Prisoner Database, 

which is the largest publicly accessible database of China’s political 

prisoners. 

Relatives and friends have a right to mourn their sons, their 

daughters, their colleagues, and their friends publicly, and they 

have a right to call, even now, for a full and public accounting of 

the wounded and the dead. They have a right to call for the release 

of those who remain in prison. But for attempting to exercise these 

rights, relatives and friends of those killed in 1989 have instead 

faced harassment, they have faced arrest, suffered many abuses, 

and today we express our sympathy with their cause. Most of all, 

we honor the memory of those whom they loved whose lives were 

lost. 

Chinese authorities frequently tell us today that the Chinese people enjoy greater freedom to express themselves. At the same time, 

they repeatedly show the world how the government silences some 

who work for fundamental rights for all the Chinese citizens. Chinese authorities today continue to harass and detain human rights 

advocates. 

These include Mr. Liu Xiaobo and his wife. Mr. Liu was a 

Tiananmen Square protester. He is now an important writer and 

thinker who signed Charter 08. It is a petition that calls for peaceful political reform and the respect for the rule of law in China. It 

has been signed by many thousands of Chinese. Mr. Liu is now 

under house arrest because he endorsed Charter 08, and his wife 

faces constant harassment. 

Last month, I met in my office with the wife of a great human 

rights lawyer named Mr. Gao Zhisheng. Mr. Gao has not been seen 

or heard from since February. He represented persecuted Christians, exploited coal miners, those battling official corruptions, and 

Falun Gong practitioners. 

After Mr. Gao was placed under house arrest his family faced 

constant police surveillance and intimidation. His 16-year-old 

daughter was barred from attending school. The treatment was so 

3 

brutal that the family decided their very survival depended on escaping China. 

After his family fled, Mr. Gao is believed to have been abducted 

from his home by members of the security forces. He remains missing, and no word has reached us of his whereabouts or his condition. I have urged the Chinese Government, in a speech on the 

floor of the Senate and in letters, to inform Mr. Gao’s wife and children, and us, about where he is and to release him. 

I also appeal to them to enforce internationally recognized standards of fairness and due process and ask that they release those 

individuals in prison solely for peacefully exercising their rights, 

whether they exercised those rights in Tiananmen Square in 1989 

or in China today. 

This hearing will examine the significance of the 1989 

Tiananmen protests and their violent suppression by the government 20 years ago. How have citizens’ demands for accountability 

and democracy changed in 20 years? What impact did the 1989 

demonstrations have on the Chinese Government and the Chinese 

Communist Party over the last two decades? Of what significance 

is the violent suppression of the 1989 demonstrations to U.S. policy 

today? 

Let me conclude by saying that China is an extraordinary country. It has had immense success on many fronts and is justifiably 

proud of those successes. But China, in my judgment, must now 

lead in strengthening the human rights of its people and the integrity of its legal and political institutions with no less skill and commitment than it has used to lift millions of its people out of poverty. So let me thank my colleagues for being with us today, and 

I will call on them for brief statements, then we will hear from the 

witnesses and have them respond to questions. 

Representative Walz? 

[The list of Tiananmen Square prisoners appears in the appendix.] 

[The prepared statement of Senator Dorgan appears in the appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. TIM WALZ, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM MINNESOTA, MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE 

COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Representative WALZ. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank 

you to each of our witnesses who are here today. We truly appreciate it, and I very much look forward to hearing what you have 

to say. 

For those of you in the room who were in Tiananmen that day, 

I want to say thank you to you for some very personal reasons. 

Twenty years ago today I was in Hong Kong preparing to go to Fo 

Shon to teach at Fo Shon Number One Middle School. And I can 

tell you that for people of my generation, here, too, what you were 

doing in the democracy, that you were asking for and what the goddess of democracy symbolized was as strong for us as it was for 

you. It reinforced all that we care about, all of those things that 

we hold most dear. 

To watch what happened at the end of the day on June 4 was 

something that many of us will never forget, we pledge to never 

forget, and bearing witness and accurate telling of history is absoVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:52 Nov 03, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51191.TXT DEIDRE
4 

lutely crucial for any nation to move forward. I thank the Chairman for this very insightful and timely hearing, and the nature of 

it in terms of where we go from here, how our relationships are 

shaped and what happens. 

Every nation has its dark periods that it must come to grips 

with. This Nation is no exception, and we still struggle with that. 

I took the first teaching job that I had at a place called Wounded 

Knee in South Dakota that many of us in this room know well, and 

I hail from the city of Mankato, Minnesota that has the distinction 

of being the site of the largest mass execution of Native Americans 

in American history, 38 men, women, and children hung the day 

after Christmas in 1863. Those are issues that all must be addressed, and every nation, as it matures and it deals with its 

human rights issues, moves to become a better nation. 

So I thank each of you for being here today. I thank the Chairman for putting this together. I thank those of you who are sitting 

in this room that know that something important happened in 

world history, something that touches all of us on this day, and 

your willingness to bear witness to that is truly important. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman DORGAN. Senator Barrasso? 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

WYOMING, MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Senator Dorgan. It’s 

wonderful to be joined by Representatives Walz, Smith, and Pitts, 

representing Minnesota, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Both parties are well-represented here from both bodies. I am very pleased 

to join the work of this Commission and to welcome our witnesses 

and our many guests. 

The United States has a long record, Mr. Chairman, as being a 

champion for liberty and freedom around the world. The United 

States also has a significant relationship with China. This forum 

today is a very important tool in supporting China’s efforts to develop a government that respects the rights of individuals. I look 

forward to the hearing today. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman DORGAN. Senator Barrasso, thank you. 

Representative Smith? 

STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY, RANKING MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Representative SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I 

would ask that my full statement be made a part of the record. 

Chairman DORGAN. Without objection. 

Representative SMITH. I want to welcome our very distinguished 

panelists, those who were there, those who suffered, and those who 

have been fighting for human rights in China for the entirety of 

their careers. 

Let me just say, briefly, that the brave and tenacious heroes of 

Tiananmen Square will never be forgotten, nor their huge sacVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:52 Nov 03, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51191.TXT DEIDRE
5 

rifice—that means, for some, torture, others even death—that that 

sacrifice never be in vain. 

Future generations of Chinese and other advocates of democracy 

worldwide will forever honor their courage, vision, and dream of 

democracy. The Chinese people deserve no less than the matriculation from dictatorship to democracy. The Chinese people are a 

great people and deserve democratic institutions and respect for 

the rule of law that reflects that greatness. 

The Tiananmen Square massacre was a turning point in China, 

but not for the better. With some notable exceptions, including last 

year’s savage crackdown on Tibetans, the Chinese dictatorship has 

taken their ongoing Tiananmen behind closed doors, where torture 

has routinely brutalized inmates, to get them to sign confessions 

under duress, and often under that duress to provide additional 

names, because who can stand torture over the course of many 

days and weeks? 

The hard-liners have practiced the politics of violence against 

democratic activists, labor leaders, political prisoners, as well as religious believers, including and especially Falun Gong practitioners. 

Through forced abortion, mothers and children have suffered 

crimes against humanity. This is often the forgotten human rights 

abuse in China. Brothers and sisters are illegal in China, and this 

terrible crime against women, this gendercide, where young baby 

girls are targeted simply because they are girls, is widespread and 

pervasive. 

For our part, since Tiananmen the international community has 

failed, in my opinion. The United States has not done even near 

what we have been able to do, or should have done, to try to combat this gross violation of human rights that we have seen. 

The United Nations, for its part, pays more attention to Israel, 

tiny Israel—is obsessed with Israel—while it looks askance at the 

myriad of human rights abuses that are committed every single 

day by the Chinese dictatorship. 

Mr. Chairman, as you know, right before the Olympics, Congressman Frank Wolf and I traveled to China to try to raise, to 

bring some additional visibility, to these ongoing abuses, this 

Tiananmen Square massacre that continues behind closed doors 

each and every day. We had lists of prisoners, 730-plus prisoners, 

painstakingly put together by this Commission. We tendered that 

to the Chinese officials, and they as much just threw it out the 

back and said we’re not interested. That is the reality. Yet, the 

Chinese diplomacy corps strides the earth, including in South 

America and in Africa, and seeks to provide additional influence in 

those countries, while their human rights record is despicable. 

The Olympics did not provide the hope that the Olympic Committee and others said it might, an easement, if you will, of human 

rights abuse. It has only led to additional crackdowns. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I have been trying for three years—and 

I will continue to try—to get the Global Online Freedom Act up in 

front of my colleagues on the House side, and hopefully here on the 

Senate side as well, so that the enabling that groups like Google, 

Cisco, Microsoft, and Yahoo! have done—the enabling of dictatorships—will stop. 

6 

Dictatorships need two basic aspects to survive and to flourish, 

and they can flourish in perpetuity if they’re not combated: (1) secret police. Cisco has ensured that the secret police are very wellconnected in China; (2) they have their hands on the tools of propaganda. We know that Google and the others have enabled the message, the propaganda message of the Chinese Government, to go 

forward while it has systematically blocked everything else, all aspects of human rights advocacy. 

I saw it myself, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Wolf and I went to an Internet cafe. We Googled just about everything we could think of, from 

the Dalai Lama to several leading names in the Chinese Diaspora 

and the human rights community. Every single one of them, including my own Web site, was blocked by Google. That is the everyday reality. They are getting the propaganda message that the dictatorship wants them to have. 

This is a great hearing that you have put together, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you for it. It is time to stop the naivete and the 

enabling, wittingly or unwittingly, and say this brutal dictatorship 

has to be held to account and we need to help the forces, the dissidents, the human rights activists that will have paid with their 

blood for freedom. 

I yield back. 

Chairman DORGAN. Thank you very much. 

Representative Pitts? 

[The prepared statement of Representative Smith appears in the 

appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH R. PITTS, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM PENNSYLVANIA, MEMBER, CONGRESSIONALEXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Representative PITTS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you for holding this very important hearing on the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square. 

This week, in a number of events, we pause to remember the 

lives of those who were tragically lost and the many who were imprisoned in the Tiananmen Square massacre. We commemorate 

their courage. We say to them, your stand for freedom will not be 

forgotten. Those peaceful student protesters, in their thirst for freedom, represent millions of people in China today. 

I remember well 20 years ago being spellbound, watching on TV 

as the student protesters in Beijing held peaceful demonstrations, 

calling for freedom and openness and dialogue. The government responded by declaring martial law. On June 3, military troops and 

tanks were deployed in the square. No one can forget the terrible 

massacre that ensued. 

The extraordinary image of a man standing unarmed in front of 

a row of China Type 59 tanks, preventing their advance, has become one of the most famous photos of the 20th century and will 

be forever ingrained in our memories. 

Yesterday I met with Mr. Fang Zheng, a student at the time who 

participated in the 1989 protest. He is with us today in the audience. On this very morning 20 years ago, he stood in the square, 

petitioning his government for freedom, when a military tank approached him from behind. Noticing a female student also in the 

7 

tank’s path, he ran to rescue her, and in doing so he was run over 

by the tank. Both of his legs were crushed by the tank and had to 

be amputated. 

Mr. Zheng did not lose just his legs that day, he also lost his 

right to speak openly and to live his life free of interrogation. Since 

the massacre, police have closely monitored and harassed him. He 

is a two-time gold medal-winning athlete, but the government has 

even gone so far as to forbid him from participating in the 2008 

Special Olympics in Beijing in retaliation. The Chinese Government has not only failed to acknowledge the injustice endured by 

people like Fang Zheng, it has continued to cover up the truth and 

harass those who dare to speak out. 

Now, China has made significant progress toward economic reform, but sadly, political reform is still greatly needed to ensure 

the fundamental rights of the people. China has benefited greatly 

from opening its doors to trade, becoming one of the world’s most 

rapidly growing economies, and it stands to benefit even more from 

creating an open and free civil society that respects freedom of religion, speech, and assembly. 

So today we call on China to release those who remain in prison 

because of their involvement in the Tiananmen Square protest, and 

we urge the government to open an official investigation into the 

killings and detainings that occurred as a result of the massacre. 

We urge them to stop the coverup, to acknowledge the events, and 

to release all of the prisoners who are still in prison as a result of 

that. Lastly, we encourage a dialogue between the government and 

the families of the victims. 

I would like to extend a special welcome to all of our witnesses. 

Thanks to each of you for your leadership, and we look forward to 

hearing your testimony on this very important issue. 

I yield back. 

Chairman DORGAN. Congressman Pitts, thank you very much. 

Congressman Wu, did you have a statement? 

STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID WU, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM OREGON, MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE 

COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Representative WU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not going 

to make a lengthy statement at all; I want to hear from the witnesses. I just want to emphasize that for self-government and for 

democratic government to thrive, it is very important to always remember, and to remember the truth, and to see the truth clearly. 

I yield back. 

Chairman DORGAN. Congressman Wu, thank you very much. 

I want to mention that because of other committee hearings and 

votes that will occur, we will have several other people who will 

have to take the Chair from time to time. But we really appreciate 

the opportunity to hold this hearing and the opportunity of the witnesses to be available for us. 

I want to begin with the witnesses, but first I want to ask those 

who are in the room who were part of the Tiananmen Square demonstration 20 years ago, if you would stand up.[Applause.] 

The Honorable Winston Lord, U.S. Ambassador to the People’s 

Republic of China in 1985 to 1989, Special Assistant to then-NaVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:52 Nov 03, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51191.TXT DEIDRE
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tional Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, Mr. Lord played a significant role in the historic opening of China in the early 1970s. In 

fact, he accompanied Dr. Kissinger on his secret trip to China, as 

well as subsequent trips by Presidents Nixon and Ford, and Dr. 

Kissinger. 

Mr. Lord was the Ambassador to Beijing under Presidents 

Reagan and Bush from 1985 to 1989. Mr. Lord served under President Clinton as Assistant Secretary of State, in charge of all East 

Asian policy, including China, from 1993 to 1997. Ambassador Lord 

served in China until April 23, 1989, at which time the student 

demonstrations were growing. 

Ambassador Lord, thank you very much for being with us. The 

complete statement of all of the witnesses will be made a part of 

the permanent record, and we will ask you to summarize. 

Ambassador Lord, you may proceed. 

STATEMENT OF HON. WINSTON LORD, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO 

THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, 1985–1989 

Mr. LORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Before beginning, two brief tributes. First, to the members and 

staff of this Commission, who have maintained a meticulous record 

of what is really going on in China and have shone a searchlight 

on some of the dark shadows lurking there. I commend your work. 

Second, of course, above all, to those in this room and elsewhere 

who were at Tiananmen Square in the youth of their lives, including Mr. Fang, whom you mentioned. 

My wife and I knew many of these people. I left just as the demonstrations were taking full flight, for Hu Yaobang’s funeral, on the 

22nd of April. My wife covered the demonstrations for two months 

for CBS, and subsequently wrote a book about it. We still have 

great, vivid memories of those awful days, but also hope for the future. 

Mr. Chairman and members of this Commission, I am honored 

to participate in this commemoration of a most significant event in 

recent history. Someday, June 4, 1989, will be recognized as the 

seminal episode that evoked the political future of one-fifth of humanity. 

True, the Chinese authorities have shrouded, distorted, and defaced what happened in the seven weeks that led to the bloodshed 

in the square. True, the Chinese youth of today have scant knowledge, and even scanter interest, in how, two decades earlier, their 

age group stirred the hearts and minds of the people. True, 

Tiananmen anniversary demonstrations around the world have 

faded. Timid governments, visa-anxious academics, contract-hungry 

entrepreneurs tiptoe semantically. The Tiananmen massacre becomes ‘‘the June 4 incident,’’ if not ‘‘a valid response to chaos.’’ 

History will render a just verdict. Let us recall what happened. 

Common descriptions of that spring suggest only that students 

marched in Beijing. Not true. Demonstrations flourished in over 

250 cities and towns throughout China, and if students were the 

vanguard, people from all walks of life, as the Chairman mentioned 

in his opening statement—workers, peasants, teachers, merchants, 

journalists, lawyers, monks, police, soldiers, and Party members— 

championed them. 

9 

In the capital, up to a million petitioned for 50 days without an 

act of violence, and indeed, any vandalism, unless one counts the 

paint sprayed on Chairman Mao’s portrait. 

No wonder the amazing spectacle in the square inspired millions 

in Eastern Europe who went on to achieve more benign outcomes. 

For the Chinese people, the goddess of democracy symbolized not 

only the hope for greater freedoms, but curbs on corruption and inflation. Their requests were moderate: calls for dialogue with the 

government, not its overthrow. By the close of May, the petitioners 

camped in the square had dwindled to a few thousand. Surely the 

ending did not have to be tragic. But the red-faced patriarchs ruled 

to hammer home lessons and petrify the public. Twenty years later, 

no one yet knows how many were bloodied, maimed, or died in the 

massacre. 

Meanwhile, the Party drew firm conclusions. 

First, maintain a united politburo on sensitive issues, so far a 

success. 

Second, nip demonstrations in the bud. Despite a couple a hundred per day by even official account, the authorities have contained and isolated them. 

Third, gain legitimacy through prosperity and nationalism. Economic reforms accelerated after the massacre. To China’s credit, 

their standard of living has risen continually and dramatically. The 

yuan, not Marxism and Maoism, is the ideological glue. So, too, is 

nationalism, which innately goes hand-in-hand with China’s rise in 

the world. 

Finally, control the media. Here, too, the government has kept 

the lid on, screwing it tight on delicate topics. I share Congressman 

Pitts’ concern about the cooperation of many of our companies in 

this enterprise and I trust his legislation will succeed. 

Still, media outlets press the envelope. The Internet and the cell 

phone haunt the party most. For every new censor, there are dueling bloggers and hackers. Today, their weapons are humorous double entendres. Tomorrow, what? 

To date, therefore, Beijing defies history. The emerging middle 

class and elite eschew politics, content to follow the Party’s lead. 

The only checks and balances they hanker to expand are those held 

by their banks. Ironically, the most disaffected today are the peasants and workers. 

Evidently no Tiananmens lurk around the corner, but I have 

learned my lesson on predicting China’s future. In 1989, I was 

overly optimistic, if not naive, about political reform. The depressing record of repression and human rights violations since then is 

amply documented by this Commission, the State Department, and 

international monitors. The grieving parents of Tiananmen, still 

harassed, still seek answers. The grieving parents of Szechuan now 

suffer the identical fate. 

Nevertheless, I remain convinced that China will move toward 

greater transparency and liberty, not as a concession to the West, 

but as the proven route to a brighter future. The rule of law, a 

thriving civil society, the accountability officials, freedom of the 

media and expression, would serve Beijing’s own stated goals: economic growth, political stability, control of pollution and corruption, 

10 

the improvement of ties with Taiwan and the United States, the 

heightening of its stature in the world. 

How fast, how smooth, how democratic, who can predict? No 

doubt, only Chinese can determine China’s fate. 

Meanwhile, we should strive for positive relations with China despite this atrocious record. I have done so for 40 years. 

Supporting human rights and democracy is a salient dimension 

of our policy, but America’s vast and crucial agenda with China 

cannot be subsumed to one element. This is a painful, but prudent, 

calculation we apply to countries around the globe. With a Burma, 

or Sudan, our values can be our dominant preoccupation; with 

China or Saudi Arabia, we pursue a more nuanced course. 

In conclusion, therefore, let us encourage China toward a more 

liberal society by appealing to its self-interests. 

Let us cooperate with China on a host of bilateral, regional, and 

global challenges. 

Let us remain confident that one day the official verdict on June 

4 will be overturned, that hooligans will be heroes, that black 

hands will be harbingers of history. 

For fabrications litter the ash heap of time, while authenticity 

survives. Zhao Ziyang was Premier, and then Party Secretary. He 

was sympathetic to the petitioners and against the launching of 

tanks. He wept in the square. He was thrown out of office and into 

house arrest for 16 years. He died in ignominy. 

And yet? On this 20th anniversary, his recordings speak truths. 

The journey toward freedom may begin with soft whispers from a 

solitary grave. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman DORGAN. Ambassador Lord, thank you very much for 

the really terrific testimony, and for your service for many years. 

We are joined by the Cochairman of the Commission, Congressman Levin. Congressman Levin, would you like to make a comment before we turn to the next witness? 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lord appears in the appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. SANDER LEVIN, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM MICHIGAN, COCHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Representative LEVIN. Thank you very much. I am grateful for 

this opportunity to be here. The establishment of this Commission 

was an important step a few years ago and I think the efforts since 

then have reinforced the need for this Commission, and I do believe 

fervently that the hearing today is a further validation of its significance. 

I regret that because of two issues, health and energy, that I 

have had to be at another meeting and need to return, but I did 

have a chance to read your stirring testimony. Yesterday in the 

House, we passed a Resolution marking this anniversary, and it 

passed unanimously, except for one vote. 

I do think that it marks how vital it is that there continue to be 

a recollection and a confirmation of the meaning of those events 

and our determination, as constructively as we can, to bring some 

fruits out of that tragedy. 

11 

So, Senator Dorgan, I am glad that you and I and our colleagues 

here, with the support of the leadership of the Senate and the 

House, on a bipartisan basis, are determined that this Commission 

continue to be a very vital part of the effort on human rights and 

the rule of law. 

So, again, I think I will ask, if it hasn’t been done, that my opening statement be entered into the record. 

Chairman DORGAN. Without objection. 

Again, Congressman Levin, thank you for your leadership. 

Dr. Perry Link is a co-editor of the 2001 publication of the 

Tiananmen Papers. He is the Chancellorial Chair for Teaching 

Across Disciplines at the University of California-Riverside. He received both his B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University and specializes in 20th century Chinese literature. 

Dr. Link, thank you very much for being with us. You may proceed. 

[The prepared statement of Representative Levin appears in the 

appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF PERRY LINK, CHANCELLORIAL CHAIR FOR 

TEACHING ACROSS DISCIPLINES, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-RIVERSIDE, AND PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF EAST 

ASIAN STUDIES, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 

Mr. LINK. It’s my pleasure. I join Ambassador Lord in congratulating this Commission on the fine work that you do. I have a written statement that is too long to read in the time that I have been 

given, so I will not. 

I would also like to offer for the record a translation of the Charter 08 that Senator Dorgan referred to a moment ago that I did for 

the New York Review of Books. This is an excellent statement of 

the political ideas of a broad range of China’s leading free thinkers 

20 years after the events at Tiananmen. 

There’s one more item that I would like to put on the record, as 

it were, orally. That is that one of the harbingers of the 1989 

events was an open letter that dissident astrophysicist Feng Lijur 

wrote to Deng Xiaoping, the top leader, on January 6, 1989. In that 

letter, Feng suggested that Deng declare an amnesty for political 

prisoners as a way to celebrate the anniversary spirit of the French 

Revolution and of the May 4 movement, China’s May 4 movement 

of 1919, and to bring a healthier and happier atmosphere to China. 

At the end of the following month, February 1989, President 

George H.W. Bush visited Beijing and hosted a banquet to which 

Feng and his wife, Li Shuxien, were invited. As is well known, 

Feng and Li were blocked from the banquet and humiliated by Chinese plainclothes police for four hours. 

When this story hit the world’s headlines the next day, Chinese 

leaders were intensely embarrassed, as of course they should have 

been. What we have found odd, though, since then, is some Americans who have commented on this, among my colleagues in the 

academic community and also in government, have chosen to assign blame not to the Chinese Government, who was showing itself 

both narrow-minded and boorish that evening, but to whoever it 

was inside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing who had initiated Feng 

Lijur’s invitation to dinner. 

12 

What I would like to enter into the record here is my own view— 

although it is not just my view, I know—that whoever that person 

was who initiated the idea of inviting Feng Lijur to dinner, he or 

she showed vision, integrity, and courage of a kind that echoes the 

finest traditions of our country. 

Now, for the remaining time that I have I am just going to go 

through seven points very quickly that are in my testimony. 

One, is that the movement at Tiananmen was deeper and broader than the Western media perceived it at the time. Ambassador 

Lord suggested this just a moment ago as well. There were demonstrations in more than 30 cities, large demonstrations, all across 

China. The movement was animated really more by a revulsion at 

state socialism, I think, than it was by attraction to Western ideas. 

That does not mean that Western ideas weren’t attractive, they 

certainly were, but I think it is not appreciated how deeply this 

movement came out of the Maoist legacy and the state socialist legacy in China. 

My second point is that, was it a turning point? Yes, it was a 

turning point. Since then, as a broad generalization, the signal to 

the Chinese people has been: economics, yes, politics, no. By politics, there we need to understand broadly, ideals, political ideals, 

religious ideals, and so on. 

Point three is that this formula of economics, yes, politics no, led 

to what Chinese intellectuals have called a values vacuum, where 

the only publicly shared values that course through the whole society are money, moneymaking, and nationalism. These two kinds of 

values are too narrow to satisfy what the Chinese culture, for millennia, has sought in terms of shared ethical public values. 

That is my fourth point, that the thirst for ethical values in particular remains as a legacy of what happened that year. I study literature in my real life and in recent Chinese fiction, including television fiction, one finds a plethora of very heroic people who are not 

necessarily smart, but they are good people, they are honest, they 

tell the truth, they are willing to sacrifice their own interests for 

principle. These characters are very popular. The fact that they are 

popular tells us that there is this thirst, a widespread thirst, in 

Chinese society for pursuit of this kind of value. 

Point five, is that despite surface appearances, personal insecurity is a pervasive national malady in China—I don’t have time to 

go into detail here, but I could—extending in different ways, all the 

way from ordinary people to the top leaders themselves. 

Point six. A portion of youth have internalized this formula of economics, yes, moral values, no. They play the system for their personal advantage and lack the idealism that earlier generations of 

Chinese youth, the teens in the 1930s, in the 1960s, showed. That 

is not to criticize them entirely; one has to understand the situation that they’re in. 

So all of those points, points two through six, I believe are related to the turning point of the Tiananmen massacre. 

The final point I will make is that the main reason why we 

shouldn’t forget what happened that year is that the fundamental 

nature of the regime has not changed. Much else has changed, and 

we could go into that, but that fundamental nature is the same. 

Thank you. 

13 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Link and the Charter 08 translation appear in the appendix.] 

Chairman DORGAN. Dr. Link, thank you very much for your perspective. We appreciate that. 

Next, we will hear from Dr. Susan Shirk, the director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of CaliforniaSan Diego. 

From 1997 until 2000, Dr. Shirk served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs. She 

is currently senior advisor to the Albright Group. Dr. Shirk’s books 

include ‘‘China: Fragile Superpower,’’ published in 2007. 

Dr. Shirk, thank you for being with us. 

STATEMENT OF SUSAN SHIRK, DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF 

CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE ON GLOBAL CONFLICT AND COOPERATION; HO MIU LAM PROFESSOR OF CHINA AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS, SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

AND PACIFIC STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN 

DIEGO; AND ARTHUR ROSS FELLOW, ASIA SOCIETY CENTER 

ON U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS 

Ms. SHIRK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s a privilege to be here 

and to share this commemoration of the heroism of the demonstrators 20 years ago and to remember the sense of possibility of peaceful political reform in China that was lost that day, or at least deferred for two decades. 

It was a turning point. I have longer testimony than I have time 

to read, so I will just briefly summarize some of the main points. 

It was a turning point for China’s leaders, as well as its citizens. 

Perry Link has talked about this pervasive sense of insecurity on 

the part of China’s leaders. 

In 1989, during Tiananmen and the demonstrations that occurred in more than 130 cities throughout China, the leadership 

split over how to manage the demonstrations, and the regime actually remained standing only because the military did follow Deng 

Xiaoping’s orders to come in and use force to put down the demonstrations. After that day China’s leaders have never slept well at 

night because they’ve had a pervasive sense that this could happen 

again. 

It is important to remember, in that very same year Communist 

governments in eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union started to 

fall; the Berlin Wall toppled in November 1989. Chinese leaders, 

with Tiananmen very much in mind, were watching this occur and 

thinking that they could very well be next. 

So today, two decades later, Communist rule has survived and 

the system, as Perry Link said, is fundamentally the same, but its 

leaders remain very anxious about the possibility of another revolutionary moment occurring. 

Now, to us outside of China, China looks like an emerging superpower, very powerful economically and influential internationally. 

But its Communist leaders feel much weaker as they struggle to 

stay on top of this society that has been so dramatically transformed by the market reform and opening over the past 30-plus 

years. So they have a pervasive sense of insecurity, and everything 

they do is aimed at prolonging their time in power. 

14 

They drew three lessons from the Tiananmen experience. As we 

look at their domestic policy and their international policy, you can 

see that their choices are designed to follow these lessons of 

Tiananmen: first of all, to prevent large-scale protests; second, to 

avoid any public splits in the leadership; and third, to keep the 

military loyal. 

Now, these lessons are interconnected because if the leadership 

can maintain its cohesiveness, then they are likely to be able to use 

repression, police power, as well as control over media, and cooptation in order to manage the protests. But if the leaders split 

on how to manage the protests, people will feel they have ‘‘permission’’ to protest and protests will continue and grow. And let us remember that these people are politicians, they are competing for 

power, and how do you prevent that competition from spilling out, 

outside the inner circle, in an effort to mobilize support? That is 

one of the greatest challenges that the Chinese leaders face today. 

Then, third, keep the military loyal, because if you have widespread unrest and the leadership splits, then the last line of defense is the People’s Liberation Army, and the People’s Armed Police, and having them come in to support the Party leadership. 

So what my testimony does, is go through these three lessons 

and describe how the leaders have managed to prevent large-scale 

protests and maintain a public face of unity among the leadership, 

and third, keep the military loyal. 

I just want to point out that it is a mixed picture. It’s not simply 

the story of continued repression. In order to maintain themselves 

in power and prevent protests, they have become more responsive 

to the concerns of the Chinese public on such issues as tainted food 

and medicine, environmental quality, the demand for a social safety net such as healthcare, and they have improved the performance 

of the government in order to make sure that the public does not 

become so unhappy that they protest and challenge the leadership. 

They also have opened up the media in order to serve as a 

watchdog, especially on local officials. The central leadership may 

want to carry out policies to protect the environment, say. But local 

officials have different interests, and how do you check those local 

officials without elections and without civil society, independent, 

non-governmental organizations? From the standpoint of the leaders, it looks somewhat safer to use the media as a watchdog on 

those local officials. We do see a market-oriented media and an 

Internet which is playing an increasingly important role in China 

today. 

There is also institutionalization of elite politics in order to prevent public leadership splits, and of course increases in the defense 

budget in order to keep the military loyal. We often look at those 

increases in the budget as being driven by concern about Taiwan 

or other international objectives, but I think it is important to understand that there is a domestic political logic underlying it as 

well. 

So those are the three lessons that they drew from Tiananmen. 

The CCP’s actions in order to maintain themselves in power has 

been a mixture of repression, co-optation, and improved responsiveness. 

Thank you. 

15 

Chairman DORGAN. Dr. Shirk, thank you very much. 

I’m going to ask consent that the record contain a statement 

from John Kamm, the Executive Director of the Dui Hua Foundation. We had asked him to be present to testify, and John Kamm 

was not able to be here. So, we will include his statement in the 

record. 

Dr. Yang Jianli is president of the Initiatives for China and a 

Fellow at Harvard University’s Committee on Human Rights Studies. During the spring of 1989, Dr. Yang traveled from U.C.-Berkeley to Beijing to support the student demonstrators. Subsequently, 

the Chinese Government, in 1991, refused to renew his passport, 

which had expired at that point. 

In 2002, using a friend’s passport, Dr. Yang returned to China 

and was arrested and held incommunicado for over a year before 

he was eventually tried, convicted, and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for illegal entry into China and for espionage. Dr. Yang 

was released in 2007 and returned to the United States. He is a 

signatory of the Charter 08 and he has published many articles on 

democracy and human rights. 

Dr. Yang, we appreciate your courage and your willingness to 

continue to speak out, and welcome you to this commission. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Shirk appears in the appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF YANG JIANLI, TIANANMEN PROTEST PARTICIPANT; PRESIDENT, INITIATIVES FOR CHINA; FELLOW, HARVARD UNIVERSITY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS 

Mr. YANG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a great honor for me 

to testify here today, to provide the point of view of a Chinese 

human rights and democracy advocate. I’m not going to repeat 

what the other panelists have said. Twenty years ago, Tiananmen 

Square swelled with tens of thousands of Chinese students and citizens. They called for the Chinese leaders to address government 

corruption, protect individual rights, and allow transparency and 

public participation in policymaking. These reasonable requests 

conform with China’s Constitution and law. However, on June 4, 

1989, the petitioners were rewarded with machine guns and tanks. 

The massacre left thousands dead and injured, and thousands 

more imprisoned. Tiananmen Mothers have identified and documented 195 fatalities and, according to their assessment, ‘‘these are 

definitely not all, nor even a majority.’’ Hundreds of activists fled 

China into exile and most of them, joining the existing overseas 

dissidents of China, have been blacklisted from returning home 

ever since. 

The massacre also set China’s reforms down on the wrong path. 

If the recently published memoirs of Zhao Ziyang tells us anything, 

it is that we were so close to embarking on the road of peaceful 

transition to democracy, but now as then, very few people believe 

that China stood a real chance. The truth is the tragedy took place 

only because of four or five hardliners. The massacre created universal fear and universal cynicism in China, that, in turn, has resulted in a moral disaster, a human rights disaster, and an environmental disaster. These three disasters have in the past 20 years 

minimized the short-term cost of capitalists and that of government 

16 

embezzlement. That is how China’s economic miracle has become 

possible. 

The Chinese regime is a four-legged table. The regime will collapse should any one of the four legs be cut. One leg is fear, behind 

which is violence. One leg is untruth; the Chinese Government, for 

example, has kept the truth about the 1989 movement and the 

magnitude of this tragedy from the ordinary people. One leg is economic growth; this is the only source of the legitimacy of its rule. 

The fourth leg is corruption; the Chinese Government exchanges 

the loyalty of the elite with opportunities for corruption. It has not 

only co-opted the Chinese elite but also the foreign elite who are 

the sinologists, the business people, and the policymakers. The Chinese Government appeals to the universal tendency for corruption, 

which conflicts with the universal value of human rights. 

This is the so called ‘‘China’s model’’ and this model is now challenging the democratic way of life worldwide. The model is not sustainable for many reasons but primarily because the Chinese people will abandon it. One evidence being that every year there are 

hundreds of protests against corruption, such as the incident when 

Chinese people were outraged by tainted milk or by the tragic 

deaths of children in the earthquake. We also have seen a growing 

willingness to make public statements through publication, as is 

the case with the Internet posting of Charter 08 last December. 

People are eager to find a breakthrough point. A reversal of the 

verdict on the Tiananmen incident is widely considered one such 

breakthrough point. I agree. With this good intention, some democracy-oriented intellectuals have recently called for reconciliation 

with regard to the tragedy. I think the notion of reconciliation is 

very important; we sooner or later will have to come to terms with 

our troubled past. But putting forth the proposal of reconciliation 

now is premature; primarily because the Chinese Government has 

not even acknowledged any mistake in all this. One cannot reconcile to a non-event. The admission of the events of June 4 must 

precede any reconciliation. Rather than acknowledge the past 

events, the CCP continues on the path of untruth. It continues to 

persecute the victims and their families, tens of those known as 

‘‘June 4 prisoners’’ are still being imprisoned, no compensation has 

been made to victims or their families. The government remains a 

one-party repressive regime continuing to lie about the tragic 

events, to ignore the pleas from its own people and to demonstrate 

an unwillingness to listen. They repeatedly show us that they have 

no intention to change. 

The truth is not out. When it is, perhaps it will be through an 

impartial truth-seeking committee, one of the major demands from 

Tiananmen Mothers. It should be the regime, the more powerful 

party, not the victims that first raises up the issue of reconciliation. 

First an honest admission of the incident. Truth must be before 

reconciliation. 

The democratic forces in China are not strong enough to get the 

regime to sit at a negotiation table and begin a process toward the 

truth and toward reconciliation. And the regime has no willingness 

to engage in any such program because it has accumulated too 

many grievances of incredible magnitude. Tiananmen is just one of 

the many tragedies. So, to reach the end point of reconciliation, we 

17 

must first develop the critical mass of democratic forces. This is 

necessary for any breakthrough. The key to reconciliation is the 

growth of the democratic forces in China. 

What the international community, particularly the United 

States, can and should do: First, we should put the Chinese regime 

on the defensive by raising the human rights issues on any occasion possible. It is the Chinese that should worry more about economic relationship with other countries. This is one of the four legs 

on which the Chinese Government stands. 

Second, we should nurture the growth of Chinese democratic 

forces. Third, we should help tear down the firewall that has been 

erected by the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]. If the United 

States is not in a position to face down the regime’s violent forces— 

one of its four legs—it is most certainly in a position to expose its 

lies—another leg. Truth liberates. 

Fourth, when a movement similar to the one in 1989 arises national leaders in the United States should openly recognize and 

support the democratic forces and any democracy-oriented factions 

within the party. Had U.S. leaders had access to Zhao’s memoirs 

beforehand, I believe they would have openly supported his faction 

during the Tiananmen uprising. The least the United States should 

do would be to press the CCP to enter into dialogue with the opposition leaders. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Yang appears in the appendix.] 

Representative WALZ [presiding]. Well, thank you to each of our 

panelists. Very enlightening. We’ll go to some questions here from 

each of us, but there’s a couple of things. First of all, Dr. Link, I 

would like to say, you admitting being naive back in 1989 made me 

feel better. I, too, was right there and it seems like a lifetime ago 

when I remember the debate in the early 1990s over most-favorednation status and how many of us thought that economic reforms 

would instantly translate into social reforms. It does seem like 

quite some time ago. 

I remember just a couple of years ago I asked Secretary Albright 

to characterize the U.S.-China relationship. She said, oh, it is really easy. It’s like a drug user and a pusher, only we don’t know 

which is which. It’s very difficult. I ask this, Dr. Link, because I 

thought you brought up a very interesting point, having a newlyminted bachelor’s degree holder, and someone who, my students 

said, spoke beautiful baby Mandarin, when I got there I watched 

and I saw the values, and trying to learn the culture. 

This issue you bring up is something I, too, notice. It’s always 

very troubling for me because I don’t want to pass judgment, but 

this values vacuum you spoke of is something that I find very troubling. I have seen it as my generation has aged into middle age 

and my friends in China, and I have seen this. I think many of 

them are reevaluating this, as many of us do, what’s truly important. 

My question to you, as you think of it, I know it’s incredibly subjective: what will fill that? How will that be filled? What’s the outcome of that? Because a country with a values vacuum is troubling. 

Just to hear your thoughts on it. 

18 

Mr. LINK. Well, it’s easy to say what some of the feeling has been 

already. There has been a revival of religions. Christianity has 

boomed in China. About 60 times as many Christians have been 

produced by this value vacuum than were produced by one century 

of American missionaries between 1850 and 1950 going to make 

converts. Then Daoism and Buddhism have seen revivals. The 

problem here is that anytime someone organizes something that is 

not either controlled by, or controllable by, the Party, it gets 

crushed. Falun Gong is a good example of that. 

Representative WALZ. The Falun Gong example. 

Mr. LINK. But underground churches are good examples of that, 

too. So religions have been creeping back. I think some of the assiduous watching of these television programs is almost a communal 

thing, too. There’s a wonderful television series called ‘‘Xerbing 

Tudzhe’’ about a soldier in the People’s Liberation Army who’s actually kind of mentally retarded. He’s not smart, he’s not fast, he 

doesn’t shoot well, he doesn’t do any of these things well, but he’s 

honest and he tells the truth and he acts on principle. It becomes 

essential phenomenon to talk about him and to indirectly praise 

these values. That, to me, is pretty eloquent testimony for the kind 

of values seeking that I see that, again, can’t be organized, but certainly is widespread. 

Representative WALZ. And that hits that cultural nerve. What 

was it that we learned from Li Fong, that we all did, the soldier 

who selflessly gave the Cultural Revolution, that it was a sense of 

that, of trying to instill values from the top down. 

Mr. LINK. That was top down. This is sort of mid-level media, up 

and down, I would say. 

Representative WALZ. Thank you. 

Mr. LINK. But it does show a popular thirst for ethical values. 

What eventually will fill it is still an open question, though. 

Representative WALZ. Thank you. 

Dr. Shirk, two years ago now you wrote ‘‘The Fragile SuperPower.’’ Has anything changed, in your mind? I always watched, 

over these last several years, when I would ask my friends every 

time I would travel back, especially over the last decade or so, 

what’s going on, what are you doing, they said we’re just watching 

you to see how a super-power acts. I thought to myself, gee, I don’t 

know, necessarily. But what do you think? 

Ms. SHIRK. Internationally China’s influence has grown in the 

last two years. Its presence in Africa and Latin America, I talk 

about it in my book, but it has certainly become a much bigger 

story. Of course, in the global financial crisis, China’s role is recognized and even deferred to. So internationally, China’s influence 

has grown. 

Domestically, a couple of things have changed that are very significant. One, cross-strait relations with Taiwan have improved. 

This is very important from the standpoint of U.S. security interests because—— 

Representative WALZ. Do you think that is anything China has 

done or the lack—the opposition party in Taiwan is not nearly 

as—— 

Ms. SHIRK [continuing]. Well, President Ma Ying-jeou in Taiwan 

created the opportunity, but Beijing has exploited this opportunity 

19 

by appointing a very able diplomat, Wang Yi, as head of the Taiwan Affairs Office. They have just gone full steam ahead for economic integration and moving as quickly as they can toward a kind 

of reconciliation. They’ve been trying to win the hearts and minds 

of the people of Taiwan, which is a positive dynamic, and it reduces 

the risk of a military conflict in the strait into which we could be 

drawn. So, it’s very important from our security interests. 

But then the third thing I just want to point out is that the Tibet 

issue has become more prominent. I argue in my book that Chinese 

foreign policy on the hot-button domestic issues of Japan, Taiwan, 

and the United States are driven by the insecurity of China’s leaders and their hyper-responsiveness to nationalist public opinion. 

Well, Tibet used to not be a particularly salient issue to the public in China, until those violent demonstrations last spring in 

Lhasa, which were all over the Internet in video and photographs. 

The pictures of Tibetans beating Chinese shopkeepers just infuriated the Chinese public, as did the disruption of the torch relay by 

Tibetan protesters in Paris. It became a very emotional issue of nationalism. 

What has been the result? It is very bad. Beijing now has elevated Tibet to a core issue of sovereignty, the same level as the 

way they treat the Taiwan issue. They have launched an international campaign to strong-arm everyone into isolating the Dalai 

Lama, and they are taking a very tough stand. This could become—I predict, unfortunately, it will become—a major obstacle to 

U.S.-China cooperation on other issues. 

Representative WALZ. Well, thank you very much. My final question before my colleagues take over—this is probably the toughest 

one for all of you—is the criticism of spending time on these types 

of issues and looking back. Several days ago I was sitting down in 

a meeting with Prime Minister Erdogan and mentioned the Armenian genocide. Not a very happy subject with Prime Minister 

Erdogan. But I am absolutely convinced that getting these things 

out and getting them in a historical context that is as accurate as 

we can possibly get is important. 

What do you say to those people who say the work that is done 

by this great commission, and there is a great commission staff, on 

keeping the lists, the prisoners’ list and things like that, is detrimental to those relationships? How would each of you, as experts 

with lots of experience respond? Why are we here today on June 

4, and why is it important, as the Chairman said? 

So, Ambassador? 

Mr. LORD. Well, there are many reasons. I paid tribute to the 

Commission for all these reasons at the opening. First of all, we 

owe it to the people in China who are looking for greater freedom, 

not to mention those who sacrificed 20 years ago. We owe it to our 

value system. We owe it to maintaining domestic and congressional 

support for an overall policy of engagement with China, which I do 

favor. But if we engage with China and ignore these dimensions, 

we will lose support for that policy. 

We owe it because promoting human rights and democracy—and 

that is one of the reasons why one should remember what did happen—is in our national security interest, as well as promoting our 

values. The fact is that more democratic countries and those who 

20 

observe the rule of law and human rights are much better partners 

on the world scene. Democracies do not fight each other. Democracies don’t spawn refugees, they don’t harbor terrorists. They are 

better economic partners. They don’t cover up swine flus and SARS 

and tainted milk. 

So there are very concrete reasons to keep this as part of our 

agenda beyond just the values which are traditional in our foreign 

policy. Thus, I think it is very important, what you’re doing, and 

it’s very important that this remain, as I said in my statement, a 

major part of our policy with China. It is painful, just as it is, say, 

with Saudi Arabia and their treatment of women, and even North 

Korea, where we can’t get progress on any subject, where you have 

to sometimes assign higher priorities to other issues. I’m afraid 

that’s prudent. I’m afraid you have to do it, because much as I believe strongly in promoting human rights and democracy, it cannot 

dominate our agenda with some of these big, important countries. 

But it is an essential part of that agenda. 

Representative WALZ. Thank you. If anyone else wants to take 

that, otherwise I’ll move to Mr. Smith. 

Representative SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I again want 

to thank this very distinguished panel for your insights and your 

wisdom at this hearing, but really through the course of your lives. 

So many of you have spent so much time thinking what ought to 

be done and it makes a difference. 

Let me just ask a couple of questions. Ambassador Lord, I do 

thank you for your comment about the Global Online Freedom Act, 

and suggesting that it may eventually get done. Unfortunately— 

and I have been here 29 years as a Member of Congress—I am not 

as optimistic about my own bill because the Googles and the other 

Internet giants have spread money ad nauseam on this place and 

in other places in town to prevent that legislation from coming to 

the Floor. It was ready for floor action last Congress. 

It is ready right now, having gotten through all three committees 

of jurisdiction, only to be held up and never brought to a floor vote. 

Just for those who may not be familiar with it, that legislation is 

all about providing or promoting non-violent political speech and 

non-violent religious speech. That is what is in the bill. It would 

provide for a very serious accounting. 

What is it that Google is censoring, working hand-in-glove with 

the propagandists in Beijing, that allows the people in China right 

now who would love to know, on June 4, what happened 20 years 

ago, from getting that basic information without getting the big lie, 

if you will, that they do get each and every day. So your help, any 

of your help in getting that legislation through would be of enormous impact. 

I would note that some of the giants, including Yahoo!, have 

taken some corrective action, especially in Vietnam, where they put 

personally identifiable information, information that could so easily 

be gleaned by the secret police, outside of the control of Vietnam 

and in another country. Now the secret police can’t walk in the 

door and say, we want to know everything about Shi Tao and to 

whom he’s talking. 

That was in direct relationship to a previous remembrance of 

Tiananmen Square, as you all know so well, and Shi Tao got 10 

21 

years in prison after Yahoo! coughed up all those names. Well, at 

least they have learned, and I think they are to be applauded for 

taking that action. But, unfortunately, others have not taken corrective action and it continues to be a serious problem. So, we appreciate any help you can give us. 

Despite the good work that has been done in busting through 

this new bamboo curtain, if you will, this new censorship is stifling. 

As we all know, if you go online in China and you put in your information, if you do something, like talk about the Dalai Lama, within 

an hour or so they’ll be at your door—that is to say, the secret police. They could hold onto control forever, I think, with that kind 

of censorship—so your help on that legislation is appreciated. 

Mr. LORD. May I comment on that? 

Representative SMITH [presiding]. Ambassador Lord? Sure. 

Mr. LORD. First of all, in terms of getting the truth into China, 

I want to take this occasion to urge that we expand funding for 

Radio Free Asia [RFA] and Voice of America [VOA]. That is something the Chinese block and so on, but it does get through. They 

do terrific reporting on China for its people and what is happening 

there indirectly to us. So, that is one specific step that I strongly 

urge: not just maintain, but expand this. It is money well spent 

and related to the issue you’re talking about. 

One final comment on the computer companies. I think there’s 

different degrees of culpability here. I don’t agree with this completely, but I see the dilemma of some of the companies where they 

say, by having these Web sites, Google, and search engines in 

China, even if they’re partially blocked, it is subversive and over 

the long run it can be helpful, even if it’s not perfect. If we don’t 

do it, the Europeans or the Japanese will do it. That’s not a frivolous argument, that part of the rationale, in terms of submitting 

themselves to some censorship. 

Then you’ve got people providing hardware to help the police. 

That’s unacceptable. Then you have people giving up email addresses and getting people run down. That’s not acceptable. So I 

think there are some distinctions here. To be candid, I’m not familiar with the latest specific portions of your bill—and I’d like to look 

at it—but I do think there are some tougher dilemmas on part of 

this spectrum of issues than on other parts. 

Representative SMITH. I appreciate that. We have worked with a 

coalition of human rights organizations, and Chinese human rights 

organizations especially, and it’s been endorsed by virtually all of 

them, Reporters Without Borders, and others. Your point is well 

taken, there are gradations. 

But I think when we’re talking about an active disinformation 

campaign—for example, when Manfred Nowak did his incisive inspection of the use of torture, the pervasive use of torture by the 

Chinese Government, his findings were totally blocked online by 

the Chinese. But you can get Manfred Nowak’s commentary on 

Gitmo and you can get other publications he has done, but not the 

one about China. Google is a part of that. VOA and Radio Free 

Asia are blocked by Google as well, I know because I tried to get 

their sites, and others have tried it. In China, they block it. Yes? 

Please. 

22 

Mr. YANG. We all agree, nationalism in China is phenomenal. 

But if you get online, look at what the Internet users say, mostly 

the younger generation people in China, you will find a pattern. 

When it comes to the issue of local issues, maybe domestic issues 

like government corruption, people will side with the victims. When 

it comes to the issue of the relationship with the United States, the 

across-the-strait relationship, and Tibetan issues, the Internet 

users will very likely side with the Chinese Government. Why? Information. Because people in China, when it comes to the issue, domestic issues, local issues, they just base it on their experiences to 

make a judgment. 

But for the issues of the international relations and Tibetan 

issues and any issues like that, very largely they are based on the 

information provided by the Chinese Government. So in that way, 

for a long time they have been brainwashed. So I think Internet 

freedom is a very important issue. Actually, technology exists to bypass the firewall erected by the Chinese Government. So modest 

investment will make much progress in this field. Thank you. 

Representative SMITH. Unfortunately, House Members need to 

leave for a vote. But let me ask, and maybe for the record you can 

give an answer, when you talk about next steps, we have had 20 

years of thinking, naively, but I think with good faith, and I believe 

it, that trading would lead to a matriculation from dictatorship to 

democracy. Has that not happened? 

I believe it has gotten demonstrably worse and now they’re 

spreading these errors to Africa, as Dr. Shirk pointed out. I held 

two hearings on Africa—on China’s influence on Sudan, Zimbabwe, 

and other countries with egregious human rights records; they’re 

fleecing Africa of its minerals, its wood. I can go on and on. 

But it’s time to revisit things like reestablishing a trade link or 

some kind of link. There’s no penalty phase. China gets away, literally, with murder. It attacks its women in the worst violation of 

women’s rights, I believe, in the history of human kind with its 

forced abortion policy. And they get more money from the United 

Nations, rather than less, money from the UN population fund. 

Egregious behavior cannot be rewarded or we’ll get more of it, no 

matter how insecure these individuals happen to be. The Nazi leadership, we know from historians and psychiatrists who have looked 

back, were very insecure men, men with phobias and problems. 

That made them even more dangerous in the execution of their 

policies. We have the same thing happening in China, and they are 

expanding rather than contracting. 

PNTR [permanent normal trade relations] shouldn’t be PNTR 

anymore. It needs to be revisited, I would suggest, respectfully. 

This is an unbridled bully. I have many other questions. IRFA, the 

International Religious Freedom Act; they’ve been on that list for 

five, almost six years with no penalty phase ever from the Bush 

Administration, nor now from the Obama government. Thank you. 

If you’d like to touch on next steps, I’d appreciate it. 

Mr. LINK. Maybe I can jump in here. This is sort of a next step, 

and it is also a second to Ambassador Lord’s plea for more funding 

for RFA and VOA. It’s also a sort of answer to the question of why 

this Commission’s work is important. In addition to everything 

that’s been said, I think that public articulation of our values, not 

23 

arrogantly and pushing it on people, but articulation of it, is important. 

Now, an authoritarian regime like China’s wants to say in response, just do this privately. Don’t say these things publicly. Let 

us tuck it in our pocket and talk about it. That doesn’t work. I 

think that the articulation of values publicly works not only for 

those Chinese citizens that are eagerly wanting to hear it, like the 

signatories of Charter 08 and like the other people in this room. 

It also works for the people inside the authoritarian system. I don’t 

know what my friend Susan would say, but this is part of what I 

mean by the insecurity of the people inside the system. They, too, 

have many levels in their psychology and they’re obliged, in official 

contexts, to hew to the Party line, to the government line. I’m going 

to tell you one very quick anecdote to illustrate this and then I’ll 

yield the floor back. 

A few years ago I edited this compilation called ‘‘Tiananmen Papers’’ with my friend Andy Nathan, which immediately was highly 

radioactive in Beijing. They didn’t like it at all. They said, this is 

illegal and the people that did it had bad motives. He, I, and many 

others were denounced that were in connection with it. 

A few months later, a delegation of Chinese academics, a highlevel delegation, came to Princeton where I was teaching at the 

time to talk about academic exchange. We had a cordial lunch. 

After lunch, they came to my office and one of them excused himself to go to the men’s room. As soon as he did, the other one said, 

do you have a copy of the ‘‘Tiananmen Papers? ’’ Can you give it 

to me? Yes, I can. Okay. Here it is. I signed it for him. 

Then he said, do you have a manila envelope that you could put 

it in? Because he didn’t want his colleague coming back—they were 

friends in other ways, but that man was genuinely interested. 

There are levels in the psychology of the people that are inside the 

system to whom we speak when we articulate our values, even 

though they can’t give us, and won’t give us, an immediate response to it. So I find it baffling sometimes that we are not more 

relaxed, but open about articulating our public values. 

Representative SMITH. Dr. Shirk? 

Ms. SHIRK. One quick word. That is that I think something we 

could do that would be very constructive would be to spend more 

money helping promote legal system development and the free 

press and civil society in China, which will be the foundation for 

an effective democracy if one is ever to develop in China. I understand why we have restrictions on the money we can spend because 

we feel it as a matter of principle we shouldn’t support the Chinese 

Government. But the time has come for us to reduce those restrictions. If you compare what we do in China compared to other 

smaller countries, it is much less even though the need is very 

great in China. Congress could help a lot by allowing the U.S. Government to help support the development of China’s legal system, 

civil society, and free press. 

Representative SMITH. Thank you. 

Ms. Kaptur? 

24 

STATEMENT OF HON. MARCY KAPTUR, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM OHIO, MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE 

COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Representative KAPTUR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I 

wanted to also thank Chairmen Dorgan and Levin for this opportunity to remember, with all of you, the Tiananmen Square massacre. 

I just wanted to put two minutes of formal testimony on the 

record since I wasn’t here initially, and look to the degree that 

China has not changed its policies in the last 20 years. I thank you 

very much for your testimony. Despite what many laud as progress 

in China, obviously the Commission’s research shows that a number of cases demonstrating the 1989 mentality remain. 

The protesters two decades ago presented a list of seven demands, including elections, admission of past government mistakes, 

independent press, and free speech. Today, with a number of 

Tiananmen participants still imprisoned, and some in the audience 

with us today who have paid the price of free expression, we have 

seen little progress on these fronts. 

In fact, we have seen labor, expression, and other human rights 

deteriorate. In the past few days, China has further restricted freedom of speech by blocking Web sites like Flickr that may describe 

the actual events of 1989, and though the Chinese have still not 

given in to the protesters’ demands, the protests are still fresh in 

the government’s mind. 

In the United States, however, though we know the full extent 

of the tragedy of that day, we, too, are keen to forget. President 

George H.W. Bush implemented a number of sanctions as a result 

of the Chinese Government’s heinous reaction to the protests, and 

since 1989 all but a few have been effectively revoked, either by a 

wholesale or consistent case-by-case basis. 

Indeed, one of the very few so-called Tiananmen sanctions still 

in force to any degree puts export controls on crime control devices, 

but is waived in a wide variety of cases, despite the Chinese Government’s documented use of these devices against dissidents. For 

example, after the United States allowed various crowd control devices in for the U.S. Olympics, including cameras, Keith Bradsher 

reported, ‘‘The autumn issue of the magazine of China’s Public Security Ministry prominently listed places of religious worship and 

Internet cafes as locations to install new cameras.’’ 

Although China has made little progress toward meaningful elections or freedom of expression or basic human rights for so many 

protesters who gave their lives and livelihoods, our country appears 

to make few demands for true reform, while sending American jobs 

and tax dollars abroad and borrowing to unprecedented levels, supporting that closed economy and strict authoritarian regime. 

In fact, many attribute directly the weakening of labor and 

human rights to the United States granting permanent normal 

trade relations [PNTR] to China—relations I do not regard as ‘‘normal’’ at all, but highly abnormal—which also led to the wholesale 

repeal of a number of the Tiananmen sanctions. 

So I want to commend the Commission, and all of you, for revealing the course that China has followed and the progress it has yet 

to make on the human rights and democracy front. 

25 

I have a few questions I would like to ask. 

Dr. Shirk, I wanted to ask you, before PNTR was passed you 

stated that you believe that most favored nation would give the 

United States more tools to address human rights. So I would be 

very interested to ask you today, what are these new tools that you 

thought might occur as a result of PNTR when the debate occurred 

here in the Congress? What has resulted? What are these new 

tools? 

Ms. SHIRK. The tools are largely the channels of communication 

and cooperation at every level between our two countries, starting 

from every agency in the Federal Government that has some programs or dialogues with counterparts in China. For example, our 

Department of Labor went to China, bringing the ideas of free organization of labor to China just a couple of years ago. So at every 

level in the government, in our Federal Government, we have those 

kinds of channels. 

Also, I’m sure in your State, your district, there are many more 

interactions at the sub-national level, too. For example, in California, the State of California is cooperating with a number of provinces in China on climate change issues and helping develop capacity to verify and monitor actions that we hope will be taken in the 

future on climate change. 

Then, of course, the amount of investment in China has absolutely skyrocketed after China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. So you have all of those international companies and their 

employees and people going back and forth, and cross-strait interactions with Taiwan. All of those kinds of contacts in the long run 

do make China a more open place, a more responsive place. I don’t 

think any of us argued that PNTR and China’s entry to the World 

Trade Organization were going to achieve full-fledged democracy in 

China overnight. I admit that progress has been slow, but I think 

there has been progress nonetheless. 

Representative KAPTUR [presiding]. What kind of body politick is 

China today where there is no democracy, but there is a type of 

state-run capitalism? How does one describe that polity? Some of 

you have called it Communism, but what is it? Dr. Link, what 

about yourself? Ambassador Lord? 

Mr. LINK. Nicholas Kristof had a clever phrase. He called it 

‘‘market Leninism,’’ which is sort of a new animal on the world political scene. I think the Russian polity is evolving in that direction. 

It doesn’t have the label ‘‘Communist,’’ but domination of a political 

economic elite that is corrupt—I’m not ready to go point-by-point. 

I came from a hearing this morning where we were comparing 

these and parallels were striking to me, but I can’t recall them oneby-one now. 

Representative KAPTUR. How many members of that political 

elite are there? 

Mr. LINK. Well, it depends on how far down the tip of the iceberg 

you want to measure the elite. 

Representative KAPTUR. The top 25 percent. 

Mr. LINK. Pardon? 

Representative KAPTUR. The top 25 percent. How many individuals would you say are in that, what is described in your testimony 

as ‘‘masters of the regime? ’’ 

26 

Mr. LINK. Well, I knew just a few dozen families. 

Representative KAPTUR. A dozen. 

Mr. LINK. Interlocking families. Yes. In that testimony, that’s 

what I meant by that, yes. 

Representative KAPTUR. I’m being given a signal. I have to run 

back to the House and vote, and I will return. But I’m very interested in all of the witnesses stating for the record, and I will ask 

the Staff Director to sit up here in our absence, to struggle with 

us over the issues of democracy and capitalism and what kind of 

society China is today. 

I was very taken by the numbers of young people being recruited 

into the regime and what that bodes for the future. I do not for a 

minute believe that capitalism brings democracy, it’s the other 

way, at least a capitalism that we know is free, or even partly free 

and open. 

But I am very troubled about what I see, and I am very troubled 

by the statement made in Ambassador Lord’s formal statement, 

‘‘With a Burma or Sudan, our values can be our predominant preoccupation, but with a China or Saudi Arabia, we pursue a more 

nuanced course.’’ Does that mean a valueless course? What are our 

key values as a society? I’m very interested in each of you talking 

about, politically, what type of society China is today. Marxist? 

How did you describe that? Leninism? 

Mr. LINK. Market Leninism. 

Representative KAPTUR. Market Leninism. How each of you 

would describe the society today. Then in terms of what kind of political economy, what kinds of values does that political economy 

have today globally? What does it represent? It obviously does not 

represent freedom, so what is it? What is it galloping toward from 

a value standpoint, a political value standpoint? I would be very interested in your comments on that. 

Mr. LORD. Have you got time now or do you have to leave? 

Representative KAPTUR. Well, I am going to let you, Ambassador 

Lord, answer that question for the record and we will come back. 

Mr. LORD. These are big questions and there’s not much time 

here. But first of all, China so far has defied history, as I said in 

my statement. In other examples—for example, Taiwan and South 

Korea—— 

Ms. OLDHAM-MOORE. Excuse me, Mr. Lord. As you know, the 

Constitution requires them to vote, and we have a series of votes 

in the House. The Chair, I hope, will return by 4 o’clock. He also 

has another hearing he is chairing right now. 

So Ambassador Lord, if you could respond to her question. 

Mr. LORD. Yes. 

Ms. OLDHAM-MOORE. And also I sense that you wanted to talk 

about the description of the body politick. 

Mr. LORD. Yes. As I started to say, in examples like Taiwan and 

South Korea, once the economic engine got going, you brought up 

a middle class, then man or woman does not live by rice alone, if 

you will, and there was pressure for political liberalization. That’s 

what all of us hoped, 20 years ago, would happen in China. 

So far, as I said in my statement, a combination of repression, 

great economic growth, and an appeal to nationalism has allowed 

China to actually carve out a unique path. I would agree with 

27 

Perry Link, on the political side it is still Leninist. On the economic 

side, it is partly capitalist, partly socialist, and partly state-run. So 

it’s a unique phenomenon. 

So the question is, how long can they defy history? Have we 

found something new? This is a very important question, because 

if China’s model does prevail, that’s going to set a very unfortunate 

example for other countries around the world. So we have a real 

interest in hoping that China does evolve in a more politically liberal direction, and that the Indias of the world are not discredited, 

while the Chinas of the world triumph. 

I remain optimistic, as I said, because I don’t think the Chinese 

can defy the laws of history forever. They have done it longer than 

I thought possible. Without taking the time it deserves, let me just 

tick off the reasons why I think, over time, China will evolve. I 

think it’s going to come from the bottom up. I strongly support 

what Susan Shirk said about building up civil society. That’s about 

the best we can do at this point, in addition to articulating, privately and publicly, our values and our concerns and funding VOA, 

RFA, and some of the other steps that have been mentioned. 

But it seems to me in an age of information and globalization, 

China can’t go on forever trying to censor the Internet and flows 

of information and manage to segregate out various topics. At some 

point they’re going to pay a price for the lack of information and 

freedom. Also, if you do not have the rule of law, at some point 

you’re going to lose investments. So, therefore, economic growth is 

going to depend, I think over the long run, on a freer society. They 

cannot get at corruption without a freer press or the rule of law, 

and that is crippling them. So at some point, in their own self-interest, they are going to have to move for economic reasons. 

Second, political stability. If people can’t go to the courts, if they 

can’t go to a free press, if they can’t elect their officials, the only 

alternative if they have gripes—and it doesn’t have to be about political freedom; it could be about the environment or local land 

grabs or pollution—then they take to the streets. So in terms of political stability, there has got to be a safety valve. 

If China wants Taiwan to get closer, beyond economics, and reunify, that will never happen as long as Taiwan is a democracy and 

China is repressive. If they want full-fledged relations with us that 

can equal, say, those with Japan or Great Britain, we have got to 

share values as well as interests. The Chinese want strong ties 

with the United States and to lift their stature in the world. 

So on all their major goals—economic growth, political stability, 

ties with Taiwan, ties with the United States—they’re going to 

have to move in this direction. I’m not going to naively predict, as 

I did 20 years ago, that it will come soon, but I think it will come, 

and I think we can encourage it with some of the steps we have 

all discussed today. 

Ms. OLDHAM-MOORE. You all have watched our China policy for 

a very long time. One of the critiques of our human rights policy 

has been that it has been ‘‘ghettoized,’’ and run out of a small division in the State Department. Therefore, it has not been taken seriously by the Chinese, or by our own leadership at times. 

What is your assessment of this view? Do you think that more 

of our leverage on these issues resides in other branches, other deVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:52 Nov 03, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51191.TXT DEIDRE
28 

partments such as Treasury? The Strategic Economic Dialogue is 

occurring this July. Many issues which inherently concern the rule 

of law will be considered in that forum. I would just be interested 

in your view on a better architecture for U.S. foreign policy toward 

China in regard to raising rule of law and human rights concerns? 

Dr. Yang, do you have any thoughts? 

Mr. YANG. Yes. I want to talk about it in general terms, first. As 

far as I see, the U.S. policy toward China has a major problem, and 

that is inconsistency. It changes so quick, so many times. A lot of 

people think engagement with China, with the human rights issue 

openly, creates resentment among the Chinese people, which is not 

true. It is inconsistency that has actually damaged the U.S. image 

among the Chinese people. 

So I think public articulation of this country’s values has no 

problem with the Chinese people. If the United States has a consistent policy toward China and shows its sincerity in this field, I 

think eventually it will win the respect of the Chinese people. So 

I would say consistency is a key word. 

Ms. OLDHAM-MOORE. Thank you. 

Dr. Link, do you have anything on that? 

Mr. LINK. Well, I think Dr. Shirk is better at this question of the 

American Government and how to unify policy within the government. 

Ms. SHIRK. I think our rule of law initiative is too small and that 

we have bound our hands because of a distaste for cooperation with 

the Chinese Government, a political distaste. I think we should 

have a much more expansive effort because China has itself said 

that it wants to have rule of law, that rule of law is important for 

their own objectives. 

In fact, their legal system lacks autonomy, lacks professional capabilities. It is at a very early stage of developing an independent 

autonomous legal system. The Europeans and other countries have 

a lot more active programs than the United States does, and that 

is also to the detriment of our commercial interests because they 

will end up following other legal systems other than our own. 

Ms. OLDHAM-MOORE. Thank you. 

Mr. YANG. I want to add a few words. 

Ms. OLDHAM-MOORE. Yes. We have five more minutes. Yes. 

Mr. YANG. Three conditions must be present to effect political 

change in China: (1) viable opposition; (2) crisis; (3) international 

support. So I don’t know why so many people are afraid of talking 

about opposition. I think a part of U.S. policy toward China must 

be nurturing the growth of opposition in China. Democracy forces, 

if you will. Opposition may be too harsh a word. But without that, 

I don’t see there is a possibility for China to change. So I always 

call for open engagement with democratic forces in China. 

Democratic forces in China, for a long time, have not been visible, but the most significant thing about Charter 08 is now people 

are organizing around Charter 08 and the opposition is visible. I 

do not think a lot of people do not like opposition. Democracies in 

China are visible and we have to help them to become viable, become a force that can apply necessary pressure on the regime to 

have a political change. 

Ms. OLDHAM-MOORE. Dr. Shirk, you’re shaking your head. 

29 

Ms. SHIRK. I think that’s actually a pretty dangerous policy, to 

nurture an insurgency or a democratic opposition overtly in China. 

It would be a suicidal policy for U.S.-China relations. I also think 

that it would undercut the potential of such an opposition if it is 

viewed as somehow just the puppets of the United States. Unfortunately, our leverage is very limited. The demand for political reform in China has to be domestic, primarily. 

Ms. OLDHAM-MOORE. Do you have anything to add, Ambassador 

Lord? 

Mr. LINK. There’s a big distinction in my mind between speech 

and action here. If we’re going to go in and organize a resistance, 

I would agree with Dr. Shirk, that’s going to be counterproductive. 

But it doesn’t follow from that that we shouldn’t be open in speaking about ideas and ideals and speaking with all of the Chinese 

people, not just with the government. 

Representative Kaptur, as part of her question, referred to young 

people joining the regime and she seemed worried about that. The 

young people who are joining the Party these days, as far as I can 

figure it out, are doing it for very personal, practical reasons. It is 

pretty far removed from any ideals, not only about Communism or 

Marxism, that’s way in the past, but even public ideas that the 

Party now is promoting. Most of them are more cynical than that. 

They’re joining the Party because it’s the ladder up. That is part 

of what I mean by that group of people in Chinese society, too, 

being insecure and multi-leveled, and can be spoken to openly. I 

still think that’s the best policy. 

Ms. OLDHAM-MOORE. I think we have the topic for our next hearing, 

Mr. YANG. But Ambassador Lord, you take the last one. 

Mr. LORD. I quickly want to get at that question on promoting 

democracy and human rights. Two points. First, to get to your 

question, it has got to be consistent throughout the U.S. Government. It cannot just be the State Department. I had a painful experience in the early 1990s where we had modest conditions on trade 

with China, and the State Department was pushing it. It was the 

President’s policy. His own economic Cabinet officers totally undermined it and the President didn’t back up the Secretary of State. 

The Chinese saw we were disunited, and the modest progress we 

were making with these modest conditions went down the tubes 

and we had to reverse course. 

Therefore, you have got to have a consistent message across the 

government. It can be in strategic dialogues, where you have many 

ministers and Cabinet officials in the same room. It’s important 

that we’re all singing from the same tune. 

Now, second, she took exception to my saying we need a nuanced 

policy with a Saudi Arabia or with a China. It is painful, but prudent. As I said in my statement, Mr. Obama is pursuing this approach, e.g. when he was in Saudi Arabia, and now in Egypt. This 

man is clearly for democracy, but he has got to worry about other 

issues. So I do not apologize for a very uncomfortable double standard we have to apply. 

When it is Burma, we don’t have many other interests, but when 

you are trying to fight terrorism or not have nuclear weapons get 

around the world, or fight crime or pollution, or maintain American 

30 

jobs, these are concrete interests that we have. We can’t just throw 

them away for one other interest, as much as we would like to. 

Ms. OLDHAM-MOORE. Thank you. Thank you so much to our panelists. It was extremely stimulating testimony. Thank you for having mercy on me in my promotion, however unexpected. We’ll have 

the transcript of this full hearing on our Web site. Due to Judy 

Wright, our Director of Administration, we have a Web cast as 

well. 

Thank you so much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kamm appears in the appendix.] 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Minxin Pei appears in the appendix.] 

[Whereupon, at 4 p.m. the hearing was concluded.] 

(31) 

A P P E N D I X 

32 

PREPARED STATEMENTS

PREPARED STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR WINSTON LORD

JUNE 4, 2009

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission: 

I am honored to participate in this commemoration of a most significant event in 

recent history. Someday June 4th, 1989 will be recognized as the seminal episode 

that evoked the political future of one fifth of humanity. 

True, the Chinese authorities have shrouded, distorted, and defaced what happened in the seven weeks that led to the bloodshed in the Square. True, the Chinese 

youth of today have scant knowledge and even scanter interest in how two decades 

earlier their age group stirred the hearts and minds of the people. True, Tiananmen 

anniversary demonstrations around the world have faded. Timid governments, visaanxious academics, contract-hungry entrepreneurs tip-toe semantically: The 

Tiananmen massacre becomes the ‘‘June 4th incident,’’ if not a valid response to 

chaos. 

History will render a just verdict. Let us recall what happened. Common descriptions 

of that spring suggest only that students marched in Beijing. Not true. Demonstrations flourished in over 250 cities and towns throughout China. And if students 

were the vanguard, people from all walks of life—workers, peasants, teachers, merchants, journalists, lawyers, monks, police, soldiers and Party members—championed them. In the capital up to a million petitioned for fifty days without an act 

of violence, indeed any vandalism—unless one counts the paint sprayed on Chairman Mao’s portrait. 

No wonder the amazing spectacle in the Square inspired millions in Eastern Europe who went on to achieve more benign outcomes. 

For the Chinese people, the Goddess of Democracy symbolized not only the hope 

for greater freedoms but curbs on corruption and inflation. Their requests were 

moderate—calls for dialogue with the government, not its overthrow. By the close 

of May, the petitioners camped in the Square had dwindled to a few thousand. Surely the ending did not have to be tragic. But the red-faced patriarchs ruled to hammer home lessons and petrify the public. Twenty years later no one yet knows how 

many were bloodied, maimed or died in the massacre. 

Meanwhile, the Party drew firm conclusions. 

First, maintain a united Politburo on sensitive issues. So far, success. 

Second, nip demonstrations in the bud. Despite a couple hundred per day by even 

official count, the authorities have contained and isolated them. 

Third, gain legitimacy through prosperity and nationalism. Economic reforms accelerated after the massacre. To China’s credit, the standard of living has risen continually and dramatically. The Yuan, not Marxism and Maoism, is the ideological 

glue. So too is nationalism which innately goes hand in hand with China’s rise in 

the world. 

Finally, control the media. Here, too, the government has kept the lid on, screwing 

it tight on delicate topics. Still, media outlets press the envelope. And the Internet 

and the cell phone haunt the Party most. For every new censor, there are dueling 

bloggers and hackers. Today, their weapons are humorous double entendres. Tomorrow, what? 

To date, therefore, Beijing defies history—the emerging middle class and elites eschew politics, content to follow the Party’s lead. The only checks and balances they 

hanker to expand are those held by their banks. Ironically, the most disaffected 

today are the peasants and workers. 

Evidently no Tiananmens lurk around the corner. But I’ve learned my lesson on 

predicting China’s future. In 1989, I was overly optimistic, if not naive, about political reform. The depressing record of repression and human rights violations since 

then is amply documented by this Commission, the State Department and international monitors. The grieving parents of Tiananmen, still harassed, still seek 

answers. The grieving parents of Sichuan now suffer the identical fate. 

Nevertheless, I remain convinced that China will move toward greater transparency and liberty—not as a concession to the West but as the proven route to a 

brighter future. The rule of law, a thriving civil society, the accountability of officials, freedom of the media and expression would serve Beijing’s own stated goals: 

economic growth, political stability, the control of pollution and corruption, the improvement of ties with Taiwan and the United States, the heightening of its stature 

in the world. 

33 

How fast, how smooth, how democratic—who can predict? 

No doubt only Chinese can determine China’s fate. 

Meanwhile, we should strive for positive relations with Beijing. I have done so for 

forty years. 

Supporting human rights and democracy is a salient dimension of our policy. But 

America’s vast and crucial agenda with China cannot be subsumed to one element. 

This is a painful but prudent calculation we apply to countries around the globe. 

With a Burma or Sudan our values can be our dominant preoccupation. With a 

China or Saudi Arabia we pursue a more nuanced course. 

Let us encourage China toward a more liberal society by appealing to its self-interests. 

Let us cooperate with China on a host of bilateral, regional and global challenges. 

And let us remain confident that one day the official verdict on June 4th will be 

overturned, that ‘‘hooligans’’ will be heroes, that ‘‘Black Hands’’ will be harbingers 

of history. 

For fabrications litter the ash heap of time while authenticity survives. Zhao 

Ziyang was Premier and then Party Secretary. He was sympathetic to the petitioners and against the launching of tanks. He wept in the Square. He was thrown 

out of office and into house arrest for sixteen years. He died in ignominy. 

And yet? On this 20th Anniversary, his recordings speak truths. The journey toward freedom may begin with soft whispers from a solitary grave. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF PERRY LINK

JUNE 4, 2009

I wish to alter our question, slightly, to ‘‘What is the significance of the crackdown 

that ended the demonstrations?’’ I do this because it is the crackdown more than 

the demonstrations themselves that has made a profound difference in shaping the 

China that we see today. 

First we must understand that the 1989 demonstrations sprang from discontent 

that was much deeper and broader in Chinese society than the feelings of some students at elite universities who had become enamored of Western political ideals. 

There were, that spring, large demonstrations in more than 30 Chinese cities; these 

protests were usually led by students, but workers and many kinds of other citizens 

supported them broadly. The major complaints were about corruption, special privileges for the political elite, and the urban ‘‘work unit’’ system that was restricting 

personal freedoms and was seen as holding China back. The 1989 movement was 

a nationalist movement in an important sense. And it was animated much more by 

revulsion against Chinese state socialism than by attraction to foreign ideas. 

For the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the challenge of the 1989 upsurge was 

how to handle it (stifle it, adjust to it, accommodate it—or a combination) while continuing to serve the Party’s top priority, which was, and still is, monopoly political 

power. The Party offered the Chinese people a new bargain in the 1990s: make 

money, in almost any way you can, and we will also allow you more personal freedoms in your daily lives; but you may not challenge CCP power in public and may 

not form organizations—political, religious, or otherwise—that the CCP does not 

monitor and (if it chooses) control. In short: money, yes; politics no. 

The Chinese people have accepted this bargain and it is hard to blame them for 

doing so. Freedom in one sphere of life, after all, is better than freedom in no 

sphere. People pursued what they could, worked hard, and have greatly improved 

their material lives. At the same time the consequences of rejecting the bargain 

were set out in unmistakable terms, beginning with the 1989 massacre itself. Why 

did the regime use tanks and machine guns in 1989, instead of tear gas, water 

hoses, or (as it did in breaking up the April 5, 1976 Tiananmen protests) billy clubs? 

The use of overwhelming force with bloody consequences served to put an exclamation point on the regime’s message of ‘‘no more politics!’’ In the ensuing months, 

policies of mandatory military service for students, ‘‘patriotic education’’ in textbooks 

and schools, and thoughtwork in the media aimed at consolidating the new formula. 

The regime was very successful in the 1990s in turning the latent nationalism of 

the 1989 movement into an explicit version of nationalism that served CCP interests. The message that ‘‘to be a patriot is to support the Party’’ was constantly 

stressed in the media, in textbooks, in bids for the Olympic Games (as well as the 

eventual staging of the Games), and in conflicts, real and imagined, with ‘‘foreign 

forces’’ such as Japan, the United States, and the Dalai Lama. By the end of the 

1990s, money-making and nationalism were the dominant public values in Chinese 

society, and both were strong. 

34 

But this left the society with a badly distorted value system. It is a deeply-rooted 

assumption in Chinese culture—and ‘‘Confucian’’ cultures generally—that a society 

needs values that are both ethical and public. In the mid-1990s Chinese intellectuals began to speak of a ‘‘values vacuum’’ because they found this kind of public 

morality to be missing. In recent years Chinese popular fiction has made clear a 

strong appetite among the public for characters who—as if in contradiction to the 

society that readers live in—are honest, sincere, decent, and ready to do what is 

right even if it is not in their material self-interest. During the same years China 

has seen revivals of religion—Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, and others— 

but the project of letting religions lead the way to shared public values has been 

frustrated by CCP repression, which happens any time a religious organization is 

seen to be wandering outside Party control. Chinese people continue today with 

their frustrating search for public ethical values, and personal insecurity remains 

a problem among people at many levels of society. These problems must be viewed 

as important long-term consequences of the 1989 repression. 

The generation of people now in their teens and twenties comprise an important 

special case. This generation has grown up with the ‘‘money, yes; politics, no’’ bargain, and many have internalized the formula so well that it seems to them simply 

odd—counterintuitive—to work for political ideals when one could be pursuing selfinterest instead. (The focus on self in this generation is reinforced by the fact that 

almost all of them, at least in the cities, have grown up without siblings.) For them, 

allegiance to the Party is built on self-interest. It would be a mistake to view them 

as deeply committed to Party principles; they could veer in other directions in the 

future. 

Few among the young have very clear ideas about what happened in 1989 or 

much desire to dig deeply into the question. Their education has taught them that 

the events were only an ‘‘incident’’ caused by troublemakers and that ‘‘the Chinese 

people’’ long ago reached a ‘‘correct historical verdict’’ and have moved on. In this 

generation, the Party policy of distorting the record and inducing amnesia has largely succeeded. 

But among the middle and older generations, much remembering continues. The 

families of victims of course remember, and people like Ding Zilin, head of the 

Tiananmen Mothers group, have done courageous work to help these families ‘‘come 

out’’ with their painful memories. Many others—not themselves victims but direct 

or indirect witnesses—also continue to remember, if only privately. The June Fourth 

massacre remains a festering sore in Chinese political culture. 

Among those who certainly do remember are the top leaders themselves. Why else 

would early June be declared a nationwide ‘‘sensitive period’’ year after year? Why 

else would the regime dispatch a bevy of plainclothes police, during these sensitive 

periods, to accompany the 72-year-old Ding Zilin as she goes out to the market to 

buy vegetables? To ‘‘protect her’’, as they put it? Clearly not. The purpose is to protect themselves, the masters of the regime, from the power of the ideas that this 

elderly woman symbolizes. It is hard to imagine a clearer demonstration that memories of 1989 are alive in the minds of the men on top. 

For the past twenty years critics of the 1989 repression have been calling on the 

regime to ‘‘reverse the verdict’’ on it. This would mean, in essence, declaring that 

the Tiananmen demonstrations were a ‘‘patriotic’’ movement—not, as in the official 

formulation that has held for twenty years, ‘‘anti-Party and anti-socialist’’. It would 

also entail an admission that the military repression was a ‘‘mistake.’’ So far the 

Party leaders have rebuffed demands for ‘‘verdict reversal’’, and it is likely for the 

foreseeable future that they will continue to rebuff them. For critics of the repression, the important issues are that truth should be acknowledged and justice should 

be done. Not so for the regime leaders. For them, the key question (always their 

key question) is whether ‘‘reversing the verdict’’ would add to or detract from the 

Party’s grip on power. On the one hand, to admit to the truth and make amends 

with aggrieved parts of the populace would reap a certain harvest in popular support; on the other hand, it would entail admission that the regime had made a serious ‘‘mistake,’’ and this admission might endanger the claim to monopoly power. 

The top leaders are aware, too, that certain ones of their own number could use the 

‘‘mistake’’ at Tiananmen as a political weapon to discredit rivals, and the possibility 

remains that this kind of opportunism might appear some day. But there is no current sign of it, and for now a verdict-reversal appears highly unlikely. Beneath the 

surface, though, the issue continues to fester and shows little sign of healing. 

35 

1This essay draws on the author’s book, China: Fragile Superpower (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUSAN L. SHIRK

JUNE 4, 2009

Ever since 1989, Chinese leaders have been haunted by the fear that their days 

in power are numbered. The massive prodemocracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen 

Square and 132 other cities nearly ended communist rule in China. The regime was 

shaken to its roots by six weeks of student protests and the divisions within the 

Communist Party leadership over how to handle them. The regime remained standing only because the military followed Deng Xiaoping’s order to use lethal force to 

crack down on the demonstrators.1

Just months after the crackdown, the Berlin Wall was torn down, a popular uprising overthrew the Romanian communist dictatorship, and communist regimes in 

Eastern Europe were toppled in rapid succession. The Soviet Union itself, the 

strongest communist power the world had ever seen, collapsed two years later. China’s leaders watched with horror and had every reason to believe they could be next. 

Today, two decades after the ‘‘life-and-death turning point’’ of Tiananmen, Chinese Communist rule has survived, but its leaders remain anxious about the possibility of another revolutionary moment. To foreigners, China appears like an emerging superpower, strong economically and influential internationally; but its communist leaders feel much weaker as they struggle to stay on top of a society roiled 

by thirty years of market reform and opening to the world. They have a deep sense 

of domestic insecurity and perceive latent political threats all around them. 

Since 1989, everything China’s leaders do is aimed at preventing another 

Tiananmen. They are fixated on what they call ‘‘social stability.’’ They use that euphemism to convince the Chinese public that Communist Party rule is essential for 

maintaining order and prosperity, and that without it, a country as large as China 

would descend into civil war and chaos. 

Although never publicly articulating it, the Chinese Communist Party has devised 

a formula for survival based on the lessons they drew from the Tiananmen experience. First, prevent large-scale protests. Second, avoid public leadership splits. And 

third, keep the military loyal to the Party. 

The three rules are interconnected. If the leadership group remains cohesive despite the competition that inevitably arises in it, then the Party and the security 

police can stop the protests from spreading and challenging the regime. Unless people receive some signal of ‘‘permission’’ from the top, protests are likely to fizzle out 

or be extinguished before they grow politically threatening. But if the divisions 

among the top leaders come into the open as they did in 1989, people will take to 

the streets with little fear of punishment. Then, if the military splits too, or refuses 

to use armed force to defend the Party leaders, the entire regime could collapse. For 

the past twenty years, with the specter of another Tiananmen crisis haunting them, 

China’s leaders have worked hard to shore up all three fronts—social quiescence, 

elite unity, and military loyalty. 

SOCIAL QUIESCENCE

The fear of large-scale protests that could topple the Communist Party has made 

economic growth a political imperative for China’s leaders. They calculate that the 

economy must grow at a certain annual rate (7 or 8 percent) to create enough jobs 

to prevent widespread unemployment and labor unrest. Today, when they acknowledge an unemployment rate approaching double digits (9.4 percent), you know that 

for them, a stimulus that effectively restores jobs is their highest political priority. 

As protests have increased in number over the past two decades, the jittery leaders 

have sought to protect themselves by demonstrating their responsiveness to public 

concerns. Premier Wen Jiabao, accompanied by television crews, rushes to disasters 

like the 2008 massive snowstorms and Sichuan earthquake, to dramatize the government’s compassion and competence; on camera, he apologizes for mistakes, tearfully expresses sympathy for victims, and directs rescue efforts. Individual officials 

are promptly fired for government failures or corruption once they become publicized by the media. Government responsiveness is more than just a show. Anxieties about unrest have spurred the central government to address problems that 

anger the public, such as taxes on farmers, environmental pollution, tainted food 

and medicine, and inadequate healthcare. But local officials do not have the same 

interests as the central leaders in Beijing. Local officials care more about rapid 

growth and big construction projects that enable them to build political machines 

and line their pockets by doling out patronage. Getting the local bosses to impleVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:52 Nov 03, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 U:\DOCS\51191.TXT DEIDRE
36 

ment central policies is a persistent dilemma for central leaders. Rent-seeking behavior by local leaders that outrages citizens could endanger the survival of Communist Party rule. 

The possibility of gradually introducing direct elections from the bottom-up as 

Taiwan successfully did has been on the table for decades, but remains stalled at 

the village level. Since 1989, the CCP leadership has felt that its hold over society 

was too tenuous to risk losing control over the selection of officials, which is the 

linchpin of Party rule. Political reform efforts have instead focused on creating noninstitutionalized substitutes for elections like petitioning or public hearings. 

In the absence of elections, national officials increasingly rely on the media and 

Internet to serve as watchdogs over local officials. They have learned that when 

they suppress news of epidemics like SARS, tainted food and medicine like the melamine in baby formula, environmental disasters like the poisoning of rivers by 

chemical plants, it aggravates crises. The trend is to allow the media to report problems—official mouthpieces like the Xinhua News Agency are beginning to publish 

exposes and reporting protests—but to spin the coverage so the public is persuaded 

that the government is competently solving problems. 

Worries about political unrest also cause China’s leaders to do everything they 

can to impede organized collective action against the regime. They view any independent social organization, no matter how innocuous and non-political it may be, 

as a potential threat. Every organization must be licensed and its leadership approved by the political authorities. Many organizations, such as the Falun Gong, unregistered churches, and labor organizations, are declared illegal and suppressed. 

Even in the environment and public health space which is relatively more open, 

NGOs operate under tight political constraints. Collective petitioning is discouraged. 

And many petitioners who find their way to Beijing are detained and then shipped 

home as trouble-makers. 

To co-opt the groups who are most likely to oppose Party rule, and the individuals 

most likely to become the leaders of an opposition, the Communist Party has made 

a big push to recruit college students and private businesspeople as members. College students are the most rapidly growing group within the Party. In 1990 only 

1.2 percent of college students were CCP members, but as of 2003, 8 percent of them 

were members, and the percentage has continued to rise. For political activists who 

are not susceptible to co-optation, including the urban lawyers who are helping 

rural people assert their rights in court, the CCP contains their influence by 

harassing them, putting them under house arrest, or sending them to prison. 

The Internet has become an arena for virtual collective action particularly among 

young people. Netizens organize petitions online and form Internet mobs called 

‘‘human flesh search engines’’ that gang up on individuals accused of corruption or 

other crimes. Party leaders, who feel too insecure to simply allow Netizens to vent, 

go all-out to prevent online activism from spilling over into the streets. Using ingenious filtering technologies, site managers who screen and censor postings, paid 

stooges who post pro-government views, and career incentives to encourage self-censorship, the Party maintains a surprising degree of control, but not air-tight control, 

over Internet content. 

At the same time, China’s leaders are hyper-responsive to media and online public 

opinion and try to deflect it from targeting them. For example, when newspaper and 

Internet opinion strongly attacked as too lenient a sentence of life imprisonment for 

an organized crime figure convicted of several crimes, Party leaders pressed the 

Supreme Court to review the case, and the crime boss was executed the same morning. In a more positive example, the media outrage over the beating to death of a 

young college-trained migrant in Shenzhen who been picked up by the police for not 

carrying a temporary residence permit led the central government to abolish the detention system for migrant workers. 

CCP leaders are particularly sensitive to nationalist criticism focused on the hotbutton issues of Japan, Taiwan, and the United States. Nationalism is intensifying 

in China, in part as a spontaneous expression of China’s revival as a powerful nation and in part as a result of the Communist Party’s efforts to enhance its legitimacy and build popular support for itself. China’s leaders are well aware that the 

previous two dynasties, the Qing and the Republican government, both fell to revolutions in which the various discontents of different rural and urban groups were 

fused together by the powerful emotional force of nationalism. They want to make 

sure that the same fate doesn’t befall them. For example, when Chinese Netizens 

reacted with outrage against the March 2008 violent attacks by Tibetan protesters 

against Chinese shopkeepers in Lhasa and the feebleness of the government’s 

response, the leaders defended themselves by vilifying the Dalai Lama and intensifying their diplomatic campaign to isolate him internationally. Foreign policy reVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:52 Nov 03, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 U:\DOCS\51191.TXT DEIDRE
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lated to Tibet and other issues that arouse popular nationalism is motivated in large 

part by political self-defense. 

Whenever protests over domestic issues do break out, Beijing has a standard approach to containing them: The central leaders deflect blame away from themselves 

to local officials; buy off the demonstrators by satisfying their economic demands, 

and punish the organizers. Local police sometimes enlist local citizens as a kind of 

police auxiliary to keep order by beating up demonstrators. 

CCP strategies for averting another Tiananmen constitute a mixture of responsiveness, cooptation, and coercion. So far these strategies have succeeded in keeping 

protests small scale, localized, and not targeted on the central government or Communist Party. But China’s Communist Party leaders continue to worry that a crisis, 

or a politically significant anniversary of a historical event like Tiananmen, might 

be the spark that ignites a firestorm of opposition to CCP rule. 

ELITE UNITY

The CCP leaders appear to have learned the lesson of Tiananmen. If they don’t 

hang together, they could hang separately, as the Western saying goes. Still, each 

individual politician has moments of temptation, when an interest in gaining more 

power for himself might cause him to exploit a crisis situation and reach out beyond 

the inner circle to mobilize a mass following, as many Chinese officials believe that 

Zhao Ziyang attempted to do during the Tiananmen crisis (Zhao denies this charge 

in his recently published memoirs.) Large protests increase the risk of a split by 

showing leaders that a following is already in place and forcing them to take a 

stand on the protests. Social unrest actually can create schisms at the top. The danger is not a matter of the particular personalities in the Party leadership at any 

one time, but is built into the structure of communist systems. Changes in the mass 

media heighten the risk of the public being drawn into elite disagreements. Leadership splits telegraphed to the public through the media or over the Internet have 

triggered revolutionary upheavals in other authoritarian regimes. To reduce this 

risk, the CCP bans all reporting of leadership competition or decision-making at the 

top, even though the Hong Kong media has provided lively and sometimes accurate 

analyses of Beijing politics for many years. It was big news recently when the Chinese media were permitted to report that the CCP Politburo held a meeting and 

some of the topics it discussed. No Mainland newspaper or website dares publish 

leaks about was actually said at the meetings, however. The handful of journalists 

who have dared violate this taboo were accused of leaking state secrets and imprisoned. 

Beginning with Deng Xiaoping, CCP leaders have sought to reduce the risk of destabilizing splits by introducing institutional rules and practices that bring greater 

regularity and predictability to elite politics. Fixed terms of office, term limits, and 

mandatory retirement age regularize leadership competition. When Jiang Zemin, 

having reached the age of seventy-seven, retired as CCP general secretary (2002) 

and president (2003), it was the first time that a leader of a large communist country had ever handed down power to a successor without putting up a fight of dying. 

As the price of retirement, Jiang managed to hang on to his job as head of the Central Military Commission. But without the institutional authority of the top Party 

post, Jiang’s influence began to evaporate, and two years later in September 2004, 

he retired completed. During the two years when Jiang and Hu shared power, subordinate officials were uneasy. The last time China had had two different voices 

coming from the leadership they caused the near disaster of the Tiananmen crisis. 

Anxious to prevent a repetition, senior and retired leaders reportedly convinced 

Jiang that the best way to preserve his legacy was to retire completely. 

Today’s top leaders—President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao, and the seven 

other members of the Politburo Standing Committee—constitute an oligarchy that 

strives to prevent divisions among themselves, or at least to hide them from the 

public. The current leaders lack the personal charisma or popular following of their 

predecessors Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. They are comparatively colorless organization men who came up through the Party ranks and are more or less interchangeable and equal in stature. So far, at least, they have shown themselves willing 

to subordinate themselves to the group to maintain the Party’s hold. 

The authority of Hu Jintao, and Jiang Zemin before him, as the number one leader 

who fills the three top positions—CCP General Secretary, President, and Chairman 

of the Central Military Commission—is sharply circumscribed. The top leader is 

only first among equals in the senior leadership, reversing the decades of domination by the top leader as the ‘‘core’’ of the leadership. Judicious balancing of major 

institutional constituencies—the party apparatus, government agencies, and repVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:52 Nov 03, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 U:\DOCS\51191.TXT DEIDRE
38 

resentatives of the provinces—in the Politburo and its Standing Committee is aimed 

at inhibiting any one group from dominating the others. 

On the surface, relations within the CCP’s inner circle appear impressively 

smooth. There is no daylight between the public positions of the top leaders even 

in the face of the tension created by China’s current economic downturn and this 

year’s important political anniversaries. In 2007, the oligarchy managed to get 

agreement on the next leadership succession which should occur in 2012–13. Xi 

Jinping and Li Keqiang were selected to succeed President Hu Jintao and Premier 

Wen Jiabao respectively when their terms expire; if not challenged, these two men 

will be leading China until 2022–23. (In what other country could we identify the 

individuals who will be in charge so many years into the future?) 

Despite all that Chinese leaders have accomplished in institutionalizing and stabilizing politics at the top, they know that maintaining the unity of oligarchic rule 

remains a difficult challenge. That is why they strive to keep elite politics inside 

a black box, well hidden from public view. But in a society undergoing explosive 

change, political outcomes are unpredictable because the political game is evolving 

too. Every day new opportunities present themselves to ambitious politicians in 

China. Keeping leadership competition under wraps is becoming increasingly difficult as the media and Internet compete for audiences by testing the limits on what 

they can report. Nationalism is a natural platform for an ambitious politician who 

wants to build a public reputation. We should anticipate the very real possibility 

that an international or domestic crisis in the text few years could tempt a challenger to reach out to a public following and challenge the status quo. 

MILITARY LOYALTY

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been a key player in Chinese politics 

since before the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. During the Revolution, 

the People’s Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party were practically 

merged. Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and other CCP leaders served as commanders, 

and the top generals were members of the CCP Politburo. 

When Deng Xiaoping led China, he was so confident of the loyalty of the PLA that 

he squeezed it financially in order to concentrate on the civilian economy. Deng encouraged the PLA to become a more professional force, but he didn’t provide the resources to accomplish it. Official defense spending stayed almost flat during the 

1980s at a time when investments in the domestic economy were dramatically increasing. If we factor in inflation, defense spending actually declined in real terms 

to the point by the late 1980s that PLA budget chiefs confessed that the official 

budget could only meet around 70 percent of the military’s actual spending requirements. The number of soldiers was cut almost in half, from 4.5 million in 1981 to 

2.31 million in 2001. By cutting the size of the bloated military, China’s capabilities 

got stronger. But at the same time, military units were told to earn money by running businesses to ease the financial burden on the state. 

In 1989, when CCP rule was threatened by widespread protests and divisions 

within the leadership, Deng turned to the military to save the Party and end the 

crisis. And with only one exception, the PLA units obeyed Deng’s orders and turned 

their tanks and guns against the students. 

Today’s leaders have not served in the military, and cannot count on its automatic 

allegiance. Hu Jintao, like Jiang Zemin before him, lavishes resources on the PLA 

to make sure that he can count on it to defend him. Defense spending has risen 

in real terms and as a percentage of GNP since 1999. Official military spending has 

increased at double-digit rates up to the present. 

The PLA is enjoying bigger budgets in large part because today’s leaders are less 

politically secure and have a greater need to win the military’s allegiance. The strategic justification for increasing the military budget in the late 1990s was that 

China was preparing to solve the Taiwan problem militarily if need be. The emergence of democratically elected presidents in Taiwan who appeared to be moving the 

island toward formal independence provided the main impetus. At present, trends 

across the Taiwan Strait are moving in the direction of reconciliation, but new missions related to protecting Chinese imports of oil, gas, and other resources over the 

sealanes of communication give the PLA a new rationale for acquiring advanced 

naval and air capabilities. Yet reinforcing these international justifications is the 

logic of domestic politics that Mao Zedong identified many years ago and that was 

dramatized in Tiananmen, i.e. ‘‘political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.’’ 

Since 1989, China’s insecure leaders have placed a high priority on keeping the military well-funded, satisfied, and loyal. 

39 

THE POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF TIANANMEN

Today, twenty years after the Tiananmen crisis, most Chinese citizens probably 

have forgotten all about it, or been kept ignorant of it because of the official silence 

imposed by the Chinese Communist Party. Only a small minority of politically 

aware citizens are focused on the significance of the event. 

The memory of Tiananmen is felt most intensely by China’s leaders who still 

worry that it could happen again. As the twentieth anniversary approached, the 

leaders revealed how insecure they are by tightening press and Internet censorship 

and blocking former protest leaders now living abroad from visiting the Mainland 

or Hong Kong. But the leaders’ efforts to avert another Tiananmen go much beyond 

these recent actions. They are reflected in the larger patterns of Chinese politics 

that have extended the lifespan of Party rule for two decades: namely, the mixture 

of responsiveness, cooptation, and coercion the leaders employ to avert large scale 

protests and maintain social quiescence; the institutionalization of elite politics designed to prevent elite competition from breaking out into the open and mobilizing 

a mass opposition; and the generous military budgets intended to guarantee that 

should all else fail, the army will loyally defend the Party. 

PREPARED STATEMENT YANG JIANLI

JUNE 4, 2009

I wish to make the following statement regarding the significance of the 1989 

Demonstrations in China and their implications for U.S. Policy today. 

It is important to understand why events of June 4th, 1989 occurred as they did. 

China started market oriented reform in 1978. Three results soon came from this 

economic reform. First, fast growth. Second, it led to the negation of the CCP’s revolution and the legitimacy of the CCP regime itself. The purpose of the revolution 

and the communist new regime was to destroy capitalism and establish socialism. 

Now that you have got rid of socialism and reintroduced capitalism, don’t you have 

to admit the revolution was a mistake? Therefore, economic reform is not the self 

perfection of the revolution and of the one-party dictatorship, but their negation. 

The third result is corruption. As economic reform went, official business dealings 

and manipulations thrived, and corruption became more widespread. The widespread corruption caused widespread discontent and became a reason for the 1989 

democracy movement. 

The 1989 democracy movement had two slogans. One was ‘‘freedom and democracy,’’ and the other was ‘‘no official business dealings, no corruption.’’ The 1989 

democracy movement caused unprecedented split within the CCP leadership. The 

moderate faction led by Zhao Ziyang was opposed to martial law and crackdown. 

At that time, a quarter or even a third of the officials in Beijing joined the protesters. Most of the rest also were sympathetic towards the students. Such was the 

degree of the split. However, Deng Xiaoping cruelly suppressed the democracy movement with the army. Why did Deng suppress the democracy movement? Is it 

because he still believed in socialism? No. Not at all. Deng stopped believing in socialism a long time before. Deng’s aim was solely to maintain CCP’s autocratic 

power. 

The June 4th massacre set the reforms in China down the wrong path. During 

the first year or two after the massacre, as a result of the dramatic changes in Soviet Union and East Europe, the CCP was very anxious and fearful. To maintain 

their power, CCP leaders proposed guarding against ‘‘peaceful evolution.’’ They opposed capitalism not only politically, but economically as well. As a result, economic 

reforms came to a sudden halt and even backslidden. 

Yet, in the spring of 1992, Deng Xiaoping proposed accelerating economic reforms 

without asking whether they were socialist or capitalist. He clearly understood that 

the socialist economic system was not working, and ending reforms meant running 

into a dead end. He knew that, after June 4th and the changes in Soviet Union and 

East Europe, socialist ideology was all but dead, and the CCP regime lost its ability 

to cheat in this regard and could rely only on naked violence. In this situation, it 

was impossible, and unnecessary, to maintain a socialist facade. Violence had its advantages. It required no pretense and therefore was subject to no restraint. Earlier 

economic reforms were handicapped by the fear of being labeled capitalistic. Now 

the fear was gone, and more capitalist elements could be introduced. In this way, 

China’s economic reforms moved faster and further after 1992. 

Because the democratic forces in the CCP and the nation were suppressed after 

June 4th, the economic reforms in China after 1992 unavoidably became privatization among the powerful. In the name of reform, government officials of all ranks 

40 

morphed into capitalists; assets owned by the people as a whole became private 

assets of officials. Such reform could not have happened without the June 4th massacre. In the reform of publicly owned companies, for example, hundreds of thousands of workers were laid off and given very little compensation. Without the June 

4th massacre, those workers would have formed unions, and the government would 

not have dared to abandon them. In short, the massacre, by creating universal fear 

and cynicism, gave the rise to the economic efficiency based on the deficiency in 

human rights. 

The irony is that this kind of reform, while morally reprehensible, was perhaps 

for a certain period of time the easiest to carry through successfully. The economic 

reform of socialist countries consists of making the transition from public ownership 

to private ownership. It is a task much easier said than done. Some people compared it to ‘‘turning fish soup back into fish.’’ 

Russia and East Europe mainly used the method of ‘‘division’’: assets were divided 

into shares and then awarded to everyone. The advantage of this method is that 

it is fair and acceptable to all. Since assets were supposedly owned by the whole 

people, the most reasonable privatization plan was to award assets to everyone 

equally. This is the so called the privatization among the masses. 

But this method has its own shortcomings. Shares are left far too dispersed in 

this approach; everyone has a share, but at the same time, everyone has only one 

share: in the end, no one really cares about operational efficiency, thus perpetuating 

a managerial weakness inherent in past ownership. It requires a period of competition during which certain qualified individuals will consolidate an ever greater concentration of shares, and finally become true ‘‘capitalists’’ capable of managing their 

enterprise. However, in the early stages prior to the ‘‘arrival’’ of these capitalists, 

an enterprise’s efficiency will not necessarily improve, and may in fact decline. 

China did not practice privatization among the masses. Without democratic participation and public supervision, the privatization in China became privatization 

among the powerful. CCP government officials of all ranks made public assets their 

own. Factory directors and party secretaries became rich capitalists in an instance. 

Today’s CCP is the Board of China and the government officials its CEOs. In this 

way, China avoided the economic hardship of Russia and East Europe. 

Thus, the essence of the ‘‘China’s economic miracle’’ can be briefly summarized as 

follows: economic reform has been implemented under the iron fist of a one-party 

dictatorship, providing officials with an opportunity to get rich by plundering state 

assets, thus make every official an enthusiastic reformer; officials have reaped fortunes through deception and the use of force, and have implemented instant privatization by making public assets their own. They have been dedicated advocate of 

economic development and efficiency, deficiency-in-human-rights induced-efficiency, 

if you will. Due to the interweaving of power and money, those with most power 

are most likely to rapidly accumulate a massive abundance of capital. Such an 

arrangement provides a fertile environment for the privatization of former stateowned enterprises and the development of larger enterprises, and thus drives economic development in general. 

Because China remains governed by a one-party dictatorship that nips any and 

all sources of instability in the bud (for example, by banning independent workers’ 

or peasants’ unions), Chinese society appears to have attained a state of extreme 

stability . Meanwhile, the government’s control over the economy, its highly consistent and predictable economic behavior and the absence of any opposition or any 

prospect of a change in leadership all serve attract international businesses, while 

also providing the domestic economy with resilience against international economic 

shocks. Similarly, because China remains governed by a one-party dictatorship, 

many fields of activity—especially political activity—have been designated ‘‘off limits, ’’ leaving the majority of people with no choice but to focus on economic activity. 

These restrictions, combined with the emergence of spiritual vacuum, individual 

greed and an unprecedented emancipation of material desires, have added fuel to 

the fire of economic development. Meanwhile those at bottom of social ladder who 

have suffered at the hands of bigwig officials and their manipulation of economic 

reform have no outlets to pursue justice with the present system. Chinese labor is 

already quite cheap, but the creation of slave labor through the CCP’s policy has 

naturally made labor even cheaper, further boosting China’s ‘‘great advantage’’ in 

global economic competition. 

As we know, one of the most important strategies the Chinese government uses 

in economic development is export processing. It attracts huge amount of foreign 

capital into China, takes advantage of the deficiency in human rights in general, 

uses China’s low cost labor in particular, and then exports the products. The Chinese 

government becomes very rich this way, but the purchasing power of the ordinary 

people do not increase accordingly. In countries that imported Chinese products, the 

41 

capitalists make a fortune and ordinary people get cheap merchandise, but capital 

flows out, and industries shrinks rapidly. Workers lose jobs, welfare tends to decline, and public finances run into trouble. In other words, by exploiting the low levels of human rights of Chinese workers, China is able to maintain a competitive 

edge. Even free market economies such as the U. S. find it hard to compete with 

China, to say nothing of the welfare states. 

But China’s model has a fatal flaw: it lacks any legitimacy whatsoever. This fact 

is without precedent in China or abroad, and is therefore little understood by most 

people. 

When we speak of the widening gap between the rich and the poor in China 

today, what I want to strongly emphasize is that not only is the gap very large, but 

the character of the problem is particularly malevolent. China’s economic disparity 

problem is a unique one; it was not created by history or by the market forces, but 

by autocratic rule. In China, the reason why the poor live in poverty is because their 

possessions have been seized by those in power; the rich live in wealth because they 

are able to use their influence to snatch away the things that others have produced. 

Most people look at the Chinese economy and only see the breakneck speeds at 

which it has developed. Indeed, when compared to Russia and other former Communist countries in Eastern Europe, China’s economic reform appears superior. But 

the problem is, no matter how many difficulties that Russia and the former Soviet 

countries have encountered in their economic reform and development, these difficulties occurred, at least, within systems of public supervision and democratic participation. In those countries, the citizens have the right to express themselves and 

the right to vote—which gives their reforms a certain kind of basic legitimacy. 

China’s situation is exactly the opposite. No matter how many dizzying accomplishments that China’s reforms seem to achieve, because they take place in a system that lacks public supervision and democratic participation, it all inevitably 

leads to the plundering of the masses’ property by the rich and powerful. First, the 

party used the name of revolution to transform the common people’s private property into the public property of the ‘‘whole people.’’ Then it used the name of reform 

to turn the whole people’s public property into the private property of its own members. First it stole in the name of revolution, then it divided the spoils in the name 

of reform. Yet these two opposite crimes were both committed in the space of 50 

years by the same Party. This kind of reform bears no legitimacy whatsoever. 

Therefore, the twisted pattern of wealth distribution that it has spawned cannot be 

recognized or accepted by the people. 

Is the Chinese model sustainable? My answer is No. The first and foremost reason 

is that the ‘‘Chinese model’’ is built upon an unfair, illegitimate foundation that goes 

against humanity, against both human rights and democracy; people in China, as 

elsewhere in the world, demand for fairness, human rights and democracy. That is, 

they are demanding change. 

My mind at this moment cannot help but going back to May 30, 1989. In the 

midst of a national movement of millions—millions—demanding democratic reforms 

in China, the statue of the Goddess of Democracy was unveiled in Tiananmen 

Square by students who declared: 

‘‘The statue of the Goddess of Democracy is made of plaster, and of course cannot 

stand here forever. But as the symbol of the people’s hearts, she is divine and inviolate. . . . Chinese people, arise! Erect the statue of the Goddess of Democracy in 

your millions of hearts! Long live the people! Long live freedom! Long live democracy! ’’ 

The statue, together with thousands of young lives, was crashed four days later 

by government tanks. But the desire for democracy was not crushed by these tanks. 

Indeed, the desire for democracy cannot be crushed in the hearts of any people. On 

December 10, 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human 

Rights, 303 Chinese intellectuals published Charter 08. Its opening statement asserts: 

‘‘A hundred years have passed since the writing of China’s first constitution. 2008 

also marks the sixtieth anniversary of the promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the thirtieth anniversary of the appearance of [the] Democracy Wall in Beijing, and the tenth of China’s signing of the International Covenant 

on Civil and Political Rights. We are approaching the twentieth anniversary of the 

1989 Tiananmen massacre of pro-democracy student protesters. The Chinese people, 

who have endured human rights disasters and uncountable struggles across these 

same years, now include many who see clearly that freedom, equality, and human 

rights are universal values of humankind and that democracy and constitutional 

government are the fundamental framework for protecting these values. By departing from these values, the Chinese government’s approach to ‘modernization’ has 

42 

proven disastrous. It has stripped people of their rights, destroyed their dignity, and 

corrupted normal human intercourse.’’ 

Despite the Chinese government’s heavy-handed measures against the organizers 

of the Charter 08 petition, the number of signers continues to rise, and today it 

stands at nearly 10,000. 

The meaning of numbers is important to understand. Some academics in China 

and in the United States cite the scales of popular participation in activities encouraged or even orchestrated by the authorities as evidence of the people’s approval of 

the government. But statistics based on the coercion of the tyrant’s baton obviously 

misrepresent the true state of the minds of people living under dictatorship. More 

telling indicators are the numbers of people who engage in activities the government 

aims to prevent—or actually cracks down upon once they have begun. ‘‘Mass incidents’’ is the term the Chinese government uses to describe protests in which 100 

or more people participate. The number of these ‘‘incidents’’ has risen to 100,000 per 

year—which means that, on average, a new, large protest against the policies of the 

Chinese government takes place every five minutes. 

People are eager to find a breakthrough point. A reversal of the verdict on 

Tiananmen incident is widely considered one such breakthrough point. I agree. With 

this good intention, some democracy-oriented intellectuals have recently called for 

reconciliation with regard to the tragedy. I think the notion of reconciliation is very 

important; we sooner or later will have to come to terms with our troubled past. 

But putting forth the proposal of reconciliation now is premature; primarily because 

the Chinese government has not even acknowledged any mistake in all this. One 

cannot reconcile to a non-event. The admission of the events of June 4th must 

precede any reconciliation. Rather than acknowledge the past events, the CCP 

continues on the path of untruth. It continues to persecute the victims and their 

families, tens of those known as ‘‘June 4 prisoners’’ are still being imprisoned, no 

compensation has been made to victims or their families. The government remains 

a one-party repressive regime continuing to lie about the tragic events, to ignore the 

pleas from its own people and to demonstrate an unwillingness to listen. They repeatedly show us that they have no intention to change. 

The truth is not out. When it is, perhaps it will be through an impartial truth 

seeking committee, one of the major demands from Tiananmen mothers. It should 

be the regime, the more powerful party, not the victims that first raises up the issue 

of reconciliation. First an honest admission of the incident. Truth must be before 

reconciliation. 

The democratic forces in China are not strong enough to get the regime to sit at 

a negotiation table and begin a process towards the truth and towards reconciliation. And the regime has no willingness to engage in any such program because 

it has accumulated too many grievances of incredible magnitude. Tiananmen is just 

one of the many tragedies. So, to reach the end point of reconciliation, we must first 

develop the democratic forces, the viable opposition in China. That is necessary. 

I am often asked by American friends: ‘‘What you say is all well and good, and 

I am myself convinced about the universality of democracy and freedom, but other 

than that, why should we care about whether, and how fast, China becomes democratic? ’’ My answer is simple. If China continues its path of economic development 

under a one-party dictatorship, it will pose a serious threat to our democratic way 

of life in the United States. China will serve as a model for dictators and juntas. 

In fact, it is already a model and a leading supporter of these regimes. Pick a dictator anywhere on the globe—from North Korea to Sudan, from Burma to 

Zimbabwe, from Cuba to Iran—and you’ll almost certainly find that the Chinese regime is supporting it today. 

In the United States today, the Chinese government takes advantage of our freedom and democracy to solidify its position at home. It, or its surrogates, have wide 

access to our universities, think tanks, and media through which they can advance 

their opinions and rationalize their actions. The Chinese government has co-opted 

numerous American businessmen and academics by providing them with favorable 

business opportunities and all manner of privileges; in turn, they serve the purposes 

and interests of the Chinese government back in America as lobbyists for favorable 

policies towards China. Indeed, are not many of our opinions on China clouded by 

what has been the ‘‘business-first’’ priorities of our China policy which has benefited 

neither working-class Americans nor ordinary Chinese? 

Make no mistake, the expansion of China’s military power is also a significant 

and alarming development. Throughout the past decade, China’s defense budget has 

increased at an annual rate double that of its GDP growth. The Chinese People’s 

Liberation Army is acquiring more than enough power to intimidate surrounding 

East Asian countries, some of them America’s allies. It seems clear that at present, 

China wants to minimize military confrontation with the United States and seeks 

43 

instead to concentrate on developing its economy. Yet this could well be a temporary 

strategy, aimed at delaying conflict with the United States while giving China the 

time it needs to develop a more powerful military. Who can say what grandiose 

dreams and ambitions Chinese leaders may harbor 20 or 30 years hence if their regime is richer and stronger? History and a well-developed body of political theory 

show that established democracies rarely go to war with one another. If this is true, 

then the United States has a clear national security stake in whether China becomes an established democracy. 

But what leverage do we have with the Chinese government to push for positive 

change in China in the field of political rights? Some—even those who want to restore human rights as a centerpiece of foreign policy—will say that we have little 

leverage to effect meaningful change. 

Exactly the opposite is true. But a detailed list of effective policies can emerge 

only after we rid ourselves of the delusions and false assumptions upon which our 

China policy has long been based. Above all, we must understand democracy in 

China is homegrown and not imposed by outside world as many have suggested and 

many others would worry it would be. But this does not mean that we must sit back 

and wait for democracy to bloom. Instead, it means engaging with and nurturing 

democratic forces already at work in China. People often talk about prerequisites 

for democratization; for me, the most important of all is that there must be democratic forces in Chinese society and I believe today more than ever that a visionary 

part of the U.S. engagement policy with China is to openly and systematically engage with the Chinese democratic forces and to nurture their growth. 

More than this, we need political leaders who will call attention to the fact that 

trade has not yet brought, and will never alone bring, an end to political repression 

or the Chinese Communist Party’s monopoly on power. America has been carrying 

out a policy that benefits business interests in both the United States and China 

far more than it helps ordinary people in either country. It is time for change. 

To that end, I want to offer the idea of Reciprocity as a foreign policy platform. 

In 1997, Harvard University invited Jiang Zeming, then President of China, to 

speak at the campus. In response to this invitation, I organized a student demonstration which became the largest campus protest at Harvard since the Vietnam 

War. Those in favor of Jiang’s visit argued for it on the basis of freedom of speech. 

Our protest argued against it on the grounds of Reciprocity. 

The lack of reciprocity gives the Chinese government a huge advantage in the 

field of world opinion, and in tamping down internal dissent. By insisting on reciprocity, the United States and the rest of the world’s democracies can showcase 

their own freedoms while forcing the Chinese government into an untenable position 

with respect to its denial of basic rights to its own citizenry. 

As I said earlier, in the United States today, the Chinese government and its surrogates have wide access to our universities, think tanks, and media outlets through 

which they can advance their opinions and rationalize their actions. 

When U.S. government officials travel to China, their movements, their contacts, 

and their communications are tightly controlled. If officials give a speech it is not 

typically broadcast to the Chinese people. Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey 

reported that on his last trip to China, his meetings with reform-minded Chinese 

citizens were suddenly canceled and that he could not access his own website on 

the Internet. Even Presidents Bush and Clinton had their speeches to Chinese citizens blocked when they visited China. Virtually all American media are blocked or 

jammed in China. Here in the United States, China can freely broadcast. In fact 

it is estimated that over 90% of the Chinese-language media in the United States 

are Chinese-government controlled. The Chinese government exploits our freedoms 

to extend its influence with Chinese communities in the United States. 

In short, there exists no reciprocity between China and the democratic world. 

It is fair and appropriate to ask the Chinese government for the same freedoms 

for its people that we ourselves enjoy; the same access to the Chinese people for our 

officials and delegations; the same open discussion and exchange of ideas that we 

extend to the Chinese government here in the United States. This idea of Reciprocity will allow us to directly and indirectly infuse the issue of human rights into 

all sectors of our dialogue with China in a way that would make it very difficult 

for the Chinese government to refuse. It would give the United States, and the other 

democracies of the world, further leverage in their discussions with China and help 

to restore the moral compass of the United States as it navigates the choppy seas 

of world diplomacy. 

The United States was founded on the principles of freedom, democracy, and certain inalienable rights. But the desire to meet short-term interests tends to compromise faithfulness to these principles. That inconsistency weakens American 

credibility. But the United States remains a great country, and its people a great 

44 

people. I have an incurable confidence in American democracy, know as I do that 

its structure always makes it possible for its citizens to correct past mistakes. At 

present, isolationism is not the solution to the problem of a tarnished international 

image. Promoting democracy and freedom around the world will panic dictators and 

gain the interest of even those who have been hoodwinked by their rulers. We 

should always remember Reverend Martin Luther King’s admonition that ‘‘injustice 

anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’’ 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. BYRON DORGAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH

DAKOTA, CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

Welcome to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China’s first hearing in 

the 111th Congress. We have a distinguished group of witnesses before us today 

who will help us examine the significance of the tragic events of June 4, 1989, and 

aid us in exploring the implications of the 1989 democracy movement and its crackdown on U.S. policy toward China today. 

We are honored to have a number of Tiananmen student leaders and others who 

participated in those demonstrations here with us in the hearing room today. I want 

to welcome one person in particular—Mr. Fang Zheng. Mr. Fang was an athlete at 

the Beijing College of Sports. On June 4, he was participating in the protests. When 

he sought to pull a girl out from in front of a tank, his legs were crushed under 

the tank. Refusing later to publicly deny that the source of his injury was a military 

tank, Mr. Fang was expelled from school. Despite enormous hardship, he went on 

to become China’s wheelchair discus and javelin champion. Earlier this year, he 

moved to the United States with his family. Welcome, Mr. Fang. 

Twenty years ago, peaceful protesters like Mr. Fang gathered in Beijing’s 

Tiananmen Square calling for the elimination of corruption and for political reforms. 

In Beijing and hundreds of other cities across China, the asked for the right to 

speak freely, and for other freedoms we take for granted here in the United States. 

These protesters included not only students. Government employees, journalists, 

workers, police, and even members of China’s armed forces also demonstrated that 

day. 

Chinese authorities tried to persuade the demonstrators to leave Tiananmen 

Square. But they refused. Thousands of armed troops carrying automatic weapons 

in large truck convoys moved into to ‘‘clear the Square’’ and surrounding streets of 

demonstrators. Then, soldiers in columns of tanks fired directly at citizens and into 

crowds, inflicting high civilian casualties, and killing or injuring unarmed civilians. 

Twenty years later, the exact number of dead and wounded remains unclear. The 

wounded are estimated to have numbered in the thousands. Detentions at the time 

were in the thousands. Some political prisoners who were sentenced in connection 

with the events surrounding June 4th still sit in Chinese prisons today. 

I ask to be included in the hearing record a representative list of Tiananmen 

Square prisoners who remain jail today. This list was developed from the Commission’s political prisoner database, the largest publicly accessible database of China’s 

political prisoners. 

An untold number of Chinese citizens died in the government’s bloody crackdown. 

Relatives and friends have a right to mourn their sons, their daughters, their colleagues and their friends publicly. They have a right to call for a full and public 

accounting of the wounded and dead. They have a right to call for the release of 

those who are still imprisoned. 

But for attempting to exercise these rights, relatives and friends of those killed 

in 1989 have faced harassment. They have faced arrest. They have suffered abuses. 

Today, we express our sympathy to them. Most of all we honor the memory of those 

whom they loved whose lives were lost. 

Chinese authorities frequently tell us that today the Chinese people enjoy greater 

freedom to express themselves. I believe that it is true. But, at the same time, they 

repeatedly show the world how they violently silence those who work for fundamental rights for all of China’s citizens. 

Right now, Chinese authorities are harassing and detaining human rights advocates. These include Mr. Liu Xiaobo and his wife, Liu Xia. Mr. Liu was a 

Tiananmen Square protester. He is now an important writer and thinker who 

signed Charter 08, which is a call for peaceful political reform published on-line last 

December by over 300 citizens. It has since been signed by thousands of individuals. 

For his endorsement of Charter 08, Mr. Liu is now under house arrest, and his wife 

faces constant harassment. 

Last month, I met in my office with Geng He, the wife of the great human rights 

lawyer, Gao Zhi Sheng. Mr. Gao has not been seen or heard from since this past 

45 

February. He represented the poor and politically dispossessed, persecuted Christians and Falun Gong, exploited coal miners, and those battling official corruption. 

After Mr. Gao was released from prison on politically-related charges, he was placed 

under house arrest, and his family faced constant police surveillance and intimidation. For a period, even his 16-year-old daughter was barred from attending school. 

The treatment became so brutal that the family decided that their very survival depended on escaping from China. After his family fled, Mr. Gao was abducted from 

his home by members of the security services. He remains missing. 

I urge the Chinese government to inform Mr. Gao’s wife, and his children, about 

where he is and to release him. His family is desperately worried about his wellbeing. I also appeal to the government to enforce internationally recognized standards of fairness and due process in judicial proceedings, and ask that it release 

those individuals imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising their rights—whether 

they exercised those rights in Tiananmen Square in 1989 or in China today. China 

is an extraordinary country which has had immense success on many fronts and is 

justifiably proud. China must now lead on strengthening the human rights of its 

people and the integrity of its legal and political institutions with no less skill and 

commitment than it has used to lead millions of its people out of poverty. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. SANDER LEVIN, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM

MICHIGAN, COCHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

JUNE 4, 2009

Two decades ago, the Chinese people stood up at Tiananmen, but China’s leaders 

ordered them to stand down. Many defied that order, choosing instead to remain 

faithful to their democratic aspirations. The world took note. And we preserve that 

memory for history today. 

In the last 20 years since Tiananmen Square, the significance of the U.S.-China 

relationship has grown dramatically—on a variety of foreign policy issues and in our 

economic relations. In pursuing these relations successfully, a key challenge has 

been to find the right combination of factors in pursuit of basic American values. 

That was a challenge in consideration of trade relations with China in its accession to the WTO. There was incorporated in the legislation before Congress in 2000 

the creation of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China to pursue issues 

relating to human rights, including labor rights, and the rule of law. The Commission actively has engaged on these issues and has issued a comprehensive report 

every year since its inception. 

When peaceful protesters gathered in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989—and 

in over 100 other Chinese cities—it represented a burst of freedom. But after thousands of armed forces moved into Beijing, and surrounded protesters—students, government employees, journalists, workers, and police alike—bursts of gunfire killed 

that burst of freedom on June 4, 1989. Training its firepower directly into the 

crowds around Tiananmen Square, the People’s Liberation Army killed and injured 

thousands of unarmed civilians. 

We express our sympathy to the relatives and friends of those killed on that day, 

and we stand with them today as we honor the memory and the courage of those 

whose lives were lost, of those who were unjustly wounded or detained, and those 

who continue to suffer today, including prisoners of conscience still languishing in 

Chinese prisons. 

We have asked our distinguished panelists here today in part to help us determine whether we ever will or even can know the exact number of dead, wounded, 

and detained. As we ask China’s leaders for full and independent investigations into 

the Tiananmen Square crackdown with a full commitment to openness, we turn to 

you to help us understand whether there can be any realistic cause for optimism 

that such a public accounting can or will take place. 

As we call on Chinese authorities to release those individuals imprisoned solely 

for peacefully exercising their internationally recognized rights, we ask you to help 

us better understand what else we may do to enhance the prospects that the Chinese authorities will respond appropriately. When we call on Chinese authorities to 

end the harassment and detention of those who were involved in the 1989 protests, 

and to end the harassment and detention of those who continue to advocate peacefully for political reform, we ask you to help us identify the factors that most determine the nature of the response we realistically may expect from Chinese authorities. 

But let us be absolutely clear: in all of this, we ask of China nothing that is inconsistent with commitments to international standards to which China in principal already has agreed. So we are not looking for more agreements. We are waiting for 

46 

action. We are looking for China’s leaders to demonstrate true commitment, not just 

in words but in deeds, to prioritizing human rights, including worker rights, and 

the development of the rule of law in no lesser measure than they have prioritized 

economic reform. 

The first meeting of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington, DC during the last week of July 2009, provides an important opportunity 

to underline how the challenges of protecting and advancing the welfare of citizens—American and Chinese citizens alike—must neither be separated nor distinguished from a demonstrated and full commitment to freedom of speech, freedom 

of assembly, anti-corruption, democratic processes, and other fundamental human 

rights. 

In closing, I note again that, two decades ago, the Chinese people stood up at 

Tiananmen, but China’s leaders ordered them to stand down. Many defied that 

order, choosing instead to remain faithful to their democratic aspirations. We must 

preserve that memory for history today. To remain faithful to our pursuit of basic 

American values, we must do nothing less. If we do not, the world will take note. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE

FROM NEW JERSEY, RANKING MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION

ON CHINA

JUNE 4, 2009

On this tragic 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, I am afraid 

that, even today, American technology and know-how is enabling the Chinese Government to repress the truth about what happened on that day—about which it is 

absolutely vital that the Chinese people know the truth. After all, it is the truth 

about their history. 

Similarly, while the Internet has opened up commercial opportunities and provided access to vast amounts of information for people the world over, the Internet 

has also become a malicious tool: a cyber sledgehammer of repression of the government of China. As soon as the promise of the Internet began to be fulfilled—when 

brave Chinese began to email each other and others about human rights issues and 

corruption by government leaders—the Party cracked down. To date, an estimated 

49 cyber-dissidents and 32 journalists have been imprisoned by the PRC for merely 

posting information on the Internet critical of the regime. And that’s likely to be 

only the tip of the iceberg. Of course, one of the points on which the Chinese Government is most eager to crack down is dissemination of the truth about 

Tiananmen. 

Tragically, history shows us that American companies and their subsidiaries have 

provided the technology to crush human rights in the past. Edwin Black’s book IBM 

and the Holocaust reveals the dark story of IBM’s strategic alliance with Nazi Germany. Thanks to IBM’s enabling technologies, from programs for identification and 

cataloging to the use of IBM’s punch card technology, Hitler and the Third Reich 

were able to automate the genocide of the Jews. 

U.S. technology companies today are engaged in a similar sickening collaboration, 

decapitating the voice of the dissidents. In 2005, Yahoo’s cooperation with Chinese 

secret police led to the imprisonment of the cyber-dissident Shi Tao. And this was 

not the first time. According to Reporters Without Borders, Yahoo also handed over 

data to Chinese authorities on another of its users, Li Zhi . Li Zhi was sentenced 

on December 10, 2003 to eight years in prison for ‘‘inciting subversion.’’ His ‘‘crime’’ 

was to criticize in online discussion groups and articles the well-known corruption 

of local officials. 

Women and men are going to the gulag and being tortured as a direct result of 

information handed over to Chinese officials. When Yahoo was asked to explain its 

actions, Yahoo said that it must adhere to local laws in all countries where it operates. But my response to that is: if the secret police a half century ago asked where 

Anne Frank was hiding, would the correct answer be to hand over the information 

in order to comply with local laws? These are not victimless crimes. We must stand 

with the oppressed, not the oppressors. 

I believe that two of the most essential pillars that prop up totalitarian regimes 

are the secret police and propaganda. Yet for the sake of market share and profits, 

leading U.S. companies like Google, Yahoo, Cisco and Microsoft have compromised 

both the integrity of their product and their duties as responsible corporate citizens. 

They have aided and abetted the Chinese regime to prop up both of these pillars, 

propagating the message of the dictatorship unabated and supporting the secret poVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:52 Nov 03, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 U:\DOCS\51191.TXT DEIDRE
47 

lice in a myriad of ways, including surveillance and invasion of privacy, in order to 

effectuate the massive crackdown on its citizens.- 

Through an approach that monitors, filters, and blocks content with the use of 

technology and human monitors, the Chinese people have little access to uncensored 

information about any political or human rights topic, unless of course, Big Brother 

wants them to see it. Google.cn, China’s search engine, is guaranteed to take you 

to the virtual land of deceit, disinformation and the big lie. As such, the Chinese 

government utilizes the technology of U.S. IT companies combined with human censors—led by an estimated force of 30,000 cyber police—to control information in 

China. Websites that provide the Chinese people news about their country and the 

world, such as AP, UPI, Reuters, and AFP, as well as Voice of America and Radio 

Free Asia, are regularly blocked in China. In addition, when a user enters a forbidden word, such as ‘‘democracy,’’ ‘‘China torture’’ or ‘‘Falun Gong,’’ the search results 

are blocked, or you are redirected to a misleading site, and the user’s computer can 

be frozen for unspecified periods of time. 

Google censors what are euphemistically called ‘‘politically sensitive’’ terms, such 

as ‘‘Tiananmen,’’ democracy,’’ ‘‘China human rights,’’ ‘‘China torture’’ and the like 

on its Chinese search site, Google.cn. A search for terms such as ‘‘Tiananmen 

Square’’ produces two very different results. The one from Google.cn shows a picture 

of a smiling couple, but the results from Google.com show scores of photos depicting 

the mayhem and brutality of the 1989 Tiananmen square massacre. 

Google claims that some information is better than nothing. But in this case, the 

limited information displayed amounts to disinformation. A half truth is not the 

truth—it is a lie. And a lie is worse than nothing. It is hard not to draw the conclusion that Google has seriously compromised its ‘‘Don’t Be Evil’’ policy. It has become 

evil’s accomplice. 

And that continues. Last summer Frank Wolf and I were in Beijing. We tried to 

look up ‘‘Tiananmen Square’’ on the tightly-controlled Chinese Internet. Of course, 

mere mention of the slaughter has been removed from the Chinese Internet. We 

walked across Tiananmen Square—officials searched us before we entered the 

square, and squads of police surrounded us while we were on it, terrified we might 

hold up a simple sign or banner. 

Standing for human rights has never been easy or without price, and companies 

are extremely reluctant to pay that price. That’s why our government also has a 

major role to play in this critical area, and that a more comprehensive framework 

is needed to protect and promote human rights. 

This is why I have re-introduced The Global Online Freedom Act, H.R. 2271. I 

believe it can be an important lever to help disseminate the truth—about 

Tiananmen and so many more things in the history of China—to the Chinese people 

by means of the Internet. 

I’d like to ask you to support this bill, which would prevent U.S. high-tech Internet companies from turning over to the Chinese police information that identifies 

individual Internet users who express political and religious ideas that the communists are trying to suppress. It would also require companies to disclose how the 

Chinese version of their search engines censors the Internet. 

In the last Congress, the bill passed the Foreign Affairs Committee and was ready 

for a floor vote, but influential lobbies prevented a vote on the bill. 

I also want to mention the exciting firewall-busting technology that a group of 

dedicated Chinese human rights activists are promoting. They have technology that 

enables users in China to bypass the Chinese government’s so-called ‘‘Golden 

Shield’’ censorship effort and surf the Internet freely. With this technology, which 

has been demonstrated to me in my office, Chinese users can visit the same Internet 

you and I do, and there is nothing the Chinese government can do about it. I think 

we should all ask the State Department to financially support this technology— 

which could produce a human rights and rule of law revolution in China. 

Today provides us an important reminder that the fight the Tiananmen protesters 

took on 20 years ago is still going on, in the streets, the Internet cafe’s and here 

today. To the brave men and women who continue to fight for the rights of the Chinese people—we say, we stand with you, we remember you, and we will not abandon the fight for your freedoms. 

48 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD


511911.eps
49 


511912.eps
50 

[From the New York Review of Books, Volume 56, Number 1, January 15, 2009] 

CHINA’S CHARTER 08 

(Translated from the Chinese by Perry Link) 

The document below, signed by more than two thousand Chinese citizens, was conceived and written in conscious admiration of the founding of Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, where, in January 1977, more than two hundred Czech and Slovak intellectuals formed a 

loose, informal, and open association of people . . . united by the will to 

strive individually and collectively for respect for human and civil rights in 

our country and throughout the world. 

The Chinese document calls not for ameliorative reform of the current political system but for an end to some of its essential features, including one-party rule, and 

their replacement with a system based on human rights and democracy. 

The prominent citizens who have signed the document are from both outside and 

inside the government, and include not only well-known dissidents and intellectuals, 

but also middle-level officials and rural leaders. They chose December 10, the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as the day on which to express their political ideas and to outline their vision of a constitutional, democratic 

China. They want Charter 08 to serve as a blueprint for fundamental political 

change in China in the years to come. The signers of the document will form an informal group, open-ended in size but united by a determination to promote democratization and protection of human rights in China and beyond. 

—Perry Link 

I. FOREWORD

A hundred years have passed since the writing of China’s first constitution. 2008 

also marks the sixtieth anniversary of the promulgation of the ‘‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights,’’ the thirtieth anniversary of the appearance of the Democracy Wall in Beijing, and the tenth of China’s signing of the International Covenant 

on Civil and Political Rights. We are approaching the twentieth anniversary of the 

1989 Tiananmen massacre of pro-democracy student protesters. The Chinese people, 

who have endured human rights disasters and uncountable struggles across these 

same years, now include many who see clearly that freedom, equality, and human 

rights are universal values of humankind and that democracy and constitutional 

government are the fundamental framework for protecting these values. 

By departing from these values, the Chinese government’s approach to ‘‘modernization’’ has proven disastrous. It has stripped people of their rights, destroyed 

their dignity, and corrupted normal human intercourse. So we ask: Where is China 

headed in the twenty-first century? Will it continue with ‘‘modernization’’ under authoritarian rule, or will it embrace universal human values, join the mainstream of 

civilized nations, and build a democratic system? There can be no avoiding these 

questions. 

The shock of the Western impact upon China in the nineteenth century laid bare 

a decadent authoritarian system and marked the beginning of what is often called 

‘‘the greatest changes in thousands of years’’ for China. A ‘‘self-strengthening movement’’ followed, but this aimed simply at appropriating the technology to build gunboats and other Western material objects. China’s humiliating naval defeat at the 

hands of Japan in 1895 only confirmed the obsolescence of China’s system of government. The first attempts at modern political change came with the ill-fated summer 

of reforms in 1898, but these were cruelly crushed by ultraconservatives at China’s 

imperial court. With the revolution of 1911, which inaugurated Asia’s first republic, 

the authoritarian imperial system that had lasted for centuries was finally supposed 

to have been laid to rest. But social conflict inside our country and external pressures were to prevent it; China fell into a patchwork of warlord fiefdoms and the 

new republic became a fleeting dream. 

The failure of both ‘‘self- strengthening’’ and political renovation caused many of 

our forebears to reflect deeply on whether a ‘‘cultural illness’’ was afflicting our 

country. This mood gave rise, during the May Fourth Movement of the late 1910s, 

to the championing of ‘‘science and democracy.’’ Yet that effort, too, foundered as 

warlord chaos persisted and the Japanese invasion [beginning in Manchuria in 

1931] brought national crisis. 

Victory over Japan in 1945 offered one more chance for China to move toward 

modern government, but the Communist defeat of the Nationalists in the civil war 

thrust the nation into the abyss of totalitarianism. The ‘‘new China’’ that emerged 

in 1949 proclaimed that ‘‘the people are sovereign’’ but in fact set up a system in 

51 

which ‘‘the Party is all-powerful.’’ The Communist Party of China seized control of 

all organs of the state and all political, economic, and social resources, and, using 

these, has produced a long trail of human rights disasters, including, among many 

others, the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957), the Great Leap Forward (1958—1960), 

the Cultural Revolution (1966—1969), the June Fourth [Tiananmen Square] Massacre (1989), and the current repression of all unauthorized religions and the suppression of the weiquan rights movement [a movement that aims to defend citizens’ 

rights promulgated in the Chinese Constitution and to fight for human rights recognized by international conventions that the Chinese government has signed]. During 

all this, the Chinese people have paid a gargantuan price. Tens of millions have lost 

their lives, and several generations have seen their freedom, their happiness, and 

their human dignity cruelly trampled. 

During the last two decades of the twentieth century the government policy of 

‘‘Reform and Opening’’ gave the Chinese people relief from the pervasive poverty 

and totalitarianism of the Mao Zedong era, and brought substantial increases in the 

wealth and living standards of many Chinese as well as a partial restoration of economic freedom and economic rights. Civil society began to grow, and popular calls 

for more rights and more political freedom have grown apace. As the ruling elite 

itself moved toward private ownership and the market economy, it began to shift 

from an outright rejection of ‘‘rights’’ to a partial acknowledgment of them. 

In 1998 the Chinese government signed two important international human 

rights conventions; in 2004 it amended its constitution to include the phrase ‘‘respect and protect human rights’’; and this year, 2008, it has promised to promote 

a ‘‘national human rights action plan.’’ Unfortunately most of this political progress 

has extended no further than the paper on which it is written. The political reality, 

which is plain for anyone to see, is that China has many laws but no rule of law; 

it has a constitution but no constitutional government. The ruling elite continues 

to cling to its authoritarian power and fights off any move toward political change. 

The stultifying results are endemic official corruption, an undermining of the rule 

of law, weak human rights, decay in public ethics, crony capitalism, growing inequality between the wealthy and the poor, pillage of the natural environment as 

well as of the human and historical environments, and the exacerbation of a long 

list of social conflicts, especially, in recent times, a sharpening animosity between 

officials and ordinary people. 

As these conflicts and crises grow ever more intense, and as the ruling elite continues with impunity to crush and to strip away the rights of citizens to freedom, 

to property, and to the pursuit of happiness, we see the powerless in our society— 

the vulnerable groups, the people who have been suppressed and monitored, who 

have suffered cruelty and even torture, and who have had no adequate avenues for 

their protests, no courts to hear their pleas—becoming more militant and raising 

the possibility of a violent conflict of disastrous proportions. The decline of the current system has reached the point where change is no longer optional. 

II. OUR FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

This is a historic moment for China, and our future hangs in the balance. In reviewing the political modernization process of the past hundred years or more, we 

reiterate and endorse basic universal values as follows: 

Freedom. Freedom is at the core of universal human values. Freedom of speech, 

freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom in where 

to live, and the freedoms to strike, to demonstrate, and to protest, among others, 

are the forms that freedom takes. Without freedom, China will always remain far 

from civilized ideals. 

Human rights. Human rights are not bestowed by a state. Every person is born 

with inherent rights to dignity and freedom. The government exists for the protection of the human rights of its citizens. The exercise of state power must be authorized by the people. The succession of political disasters in China’s recent history is 

a direct consequence of the ruling regime’s disregard for human rights. 

Equality. The integrity, dignity, and freedom of every person—regardless of social 

station, occupation, sex, economic condition, ethnicity, skin color, religion, or political belief—are the same as those of any other. Principles of equality before the law 

and equality of social, economic, cultural, civil, and political rights must be upheld. 

Republicanism. Republicanism, which holds that power should be balanced among 

different branches of government and competing interests should be served, resembles the traditional Chinese political ideal of ‘‘fairness in all under heaven.’’ It allows different interest groups and social assemblies, and people with a variety of 

cultures and beliefs, to exercise democratic self-government and to deliberate in 

52 

order to reach peaceful resolution of public questions on a basis of equal access to 

government and free and fair competition. 

Democracy. The most fundamental principles of democracy are that the people are 

sovereign and the people select their government. Democracy has these characteristics: (1) Political power begins with the people and the legitimacy of a regime derives from the people. (2) Political power is exercised through choices that the people 

make. (3) The holders of major official posts in government at all levels are determined through periodic competitive elections. (4) While honoring the will of the majority, the fundamental dignity, freedom, and human rights of minorities are protected. In short, democracy is a modern means for achieving government truly ‘‘of 

the people, by the people, and for the people.’’ 

Constitutional rule. Constitutional rule is rule through a legal system and legal 

regulations to implement principles that are spelled out in a constitution. It means 

protecting the freedom and the rights of citizens, limiting and defining the scope of 

legitimate government power, and providing the administrative apparatus necessary 

to serve these ends. 

III. WHAT WE ADVOCATE

Authoritarianism is in general decline throughout the world; in China, too, the 

era of emperors and overlords is on the way out. The time is arriving everywhere 

for citizens to be masters of states. For China the path that leads out of our current 

predicament is to divest ourselves of the authoritarian notion of reliance on an ‘‘enlightened overlord’’ or an ‘‘honest official’’ and to turn instead toward a system of 

liberties, democracy, and the rule of law, and toward fostering the consciousness of 

modern citizens who see rights as fundamental and participation as a duty. Accordingly, and in a spirit of this duty as responsible and constructive citizens, we offer 

the following recommendations on national governance, citizens’ rights, and social 

development: 

1. A New Constitution. We should recast our present constitution, rescinding its 

provisions that contradict the principle that sovereignty resides with the people and 

turning it into a document that genuinely guarantees human rights, authorizes the 

exercise of public power, and serves as the legal underpinning of China’s democratization. The constitution must be the highest law in the land, beyond violation by 

any individual, group, or political party. 

2. Separation of Powers. We should construct a modern government in which the 

separation of legislative, judicial, and executive power is guaranteed. We need an 

Administrative Law that defines the scope of government responsibility and prevents abuse of administrative power. Government should be responsible to taxpayers. Division of power between provincial governments and the central government should adhere to the principle that central powers are only those specifically 

granted by the constitution and all other powers belong to the local governments. 

3. Legislative Democracy. Members of legislative bodies at all levels should be chosen by direct election, and legislative democracy should observe just and impartial 

principles. 

4. An Independent Judiciary. The rule of law must be above the interests of any 

particular political party and judges must be independent. We need to establish a 

constitutional supreme court and institute procedures for constitutional review. As 

soon as possible, we should abolish all of the Committees on Political and Legal Affairs that now allow Communist Party officials at every level to decide politically 

sensitive cases in advance and out of court. We should strictly forbid the use of public offices for private purposes. 

5. Public Control of Public Servants. The military should be made answerable to 

the national government, not to a political party, and should be made more professional. Military personnel should swear allegiance to the constitution and remain 

nonpartisan. Political party organizations must be prohibited in the military. All 

public officials including police should serve as nonpartisans, and the current practice of favoring one political party in the hiring of public servants must end. 

6. Guarantee of Human Rights. There must be strict guarantees of human rights 

and respect for human dignity. There should be a Human Rights Committee, responsible to the highest legislative body, that will prevent the government from 

abusing public power in violation of human rights. A democratic and constitutional 

China especially must guarantee the personal freedom of citizens. No one should 

suffer illegal arrest, detention, arraignment, interrogation, or punishment. The system of ‘‘Reeducation through Labor’’ must be abolished. 

7. Election of Public Officials. There should be a comprehensive system of democratic elections based on ‘‘one person, one vote.’’ The direct election of administrative 

heads at the levels of county, city, province, and nation should be systematically imVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:52 Nov 03, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 U:\DOCS\51191.TXT DEIDRE
53 

plemented. The rights to hold periodic free elections and to participate in them as 

a citizen are inalienable. 

8. Rural—Urban Equality. The two-tier household registry system must be abolished. This system favors urban residents and harms rural residents. We should establish instead a system that gives every citizen the same constitutional rights and 

the same freedom to choose where to live. 

9. Freedom to Form Groups. The right of citizens to form groups must be guaranteed. The current system for registering nongovernment groups, which requires a 

group to be ‘‘approved,’’ should be replaced by a system in which a group simply 

registers itself. The formation of political parties should be governed by the constitution and the laws, which means that we must abolish the special privilege of one 

party to monopolize power and must guarantee principles of free and fair competition among political parties. 

10. Freedom to Assemble. The constitution provides that peaceful assembly, demonstration, protest, and freedom of expression are fundamental rights of a citizen. 

The ruling party and the government must not be permitted to subject these to illegal interference or unconstitutional obstruction. 

11. Freedom of Expression. We should make freedom of speech, freedom of the 

press, and academic freedom universal, thereby guaranteeing that citizens can be 

informed and can exercise their right of political supervision. These freedoms should 

be upheld by a Press Law that abolishes political restrictions on the press. The provision in the current Criminal Law that refers to ‘‘the crime of incitement to subvert 

state power’’ must be abolished. We should end the practice of viewing words as 

crimes. 

12. Freedom of Religion. We must guarantee freedom of religion and belief, and 

institute a separation of religion and state. There must be no governmental interference in peaceful religious activities. We should abolish any laws, regulations, or 

local rules that limit or suppress the religious freedom of citizens. We should abolish 

the current system that requires religious groups (and their places of worship) to 

get official approval in advance and substitute for it a system in which registry is 

optional and, for those who choose to register, automatic. 

13. Civic Education. In our schools we should abolish political curriculums and 

examinations that are designed to indoctrinate students in state ideology and to instill support for the rule of one party. We should replace them with civic education 

that advances universal values and citizens’ rights, fosters civic consciousness, and 

promotes civic virtues that serve society. 

14. Protection of Private Property. We should establish and protect the right to private property and promote an economic system of free and fair markets. We should 

do away with government monopolies in commerce and industry and guarantee the 

freedom to start new enterprises. We should establish a Committee on State-Owned 

Property, reporting to the national legislature, that will monitor the transfer of 

state-owned enterprises to private ownership in a fair, competitive, and orderly 

manner. We should institute a land reform that promotes private ownership of land, 

guarantees the right to buy and sell land, and allows the true value of private property to be adequately reflected in the market. 

15. Financial and Tax Reform. We should establish a democratically regulated 

and accountable system of public finance that ensures the protection of taxpayer 

rights and that operates through legal procedures. We need a system by which public revenues that belong to a certain level of government—central, provincial, county 

or local—are controlled at that level. We need major tax reform that will abolish 

any unfair taxes, simplify the tax system, and spread the tax burden fairly. Government officials should not be able to raise taxes, or institute new ones, without public 

deliberation and the approval of a democratic assembly. We should reform the ownership system in order to encourage competition among a wider variety of market 

participants. 

16. Social Security. We should establish a fair and adequate social security system 

that covers all citizens and ensures basic access to education, health care, retirement security, and employment. 

17. Protection of the Environment. We need to protect the natural environment 

and to promote development in a way that is sustainable and responsible to our descendants and to the rest of humanity. This means insisting that the state and its 

officials at all levels not only do what they must do to achieve these goals, but also 

accept the supervision and participation of nongovernmental organizations. 

18. A Federated Republic. A democratic China should seek to act as a responsible 

major power contributing toward peace and development in the Asian Pacific region 

by approaching others in a spirit of equality and fairness. In Hong Kong and Macao, 

we should support the freedoms that already exist. With respect to Taiwan, we 

should declare our commitment to the principles of freedom and democracy and 

54 

then, negotiating as equals and ready to compromise, seek a formula for peaceful 

unification. We should approach disputes in the national-minority areas of China 

with an open mind, seeking ways to find a workable framework within which all 

ethnic and religious groups can flourish. We should aim ultimately at a federation 

of democratic communities of China. 

19. Truth in Reconciliation. We should restore the reputations of all people, including their family members, who suffered political stigma in the political campaigns of the past or who have been labeled as criminals because of their thought, 

speech, or faith. The state should pay reparations to these people. All political prisoners and prisoners of conscience must be released. There should be a Truth Investigation Commission charged with finding the facts about past injustices and atrocities, determining responsibility for them, upholding justice, and, on these bases, 

seeking social reconciliation. 

China, as a major nation of the world, as one of five permanent members of the 

United Nations Security Council, and as a member of the UN Council on Human 

Rights, should be contributing to peace for humankind and progress toward human 

rights. Unfortunately, we stand today as the only country among the major nations 

that remains mired in authoritarian politics. Our political system continues to 

produce human rights disasters and social crises, thereby not only constricting China’s own development but also limiting the progress of all of human civilization. 

This must change, truly it must. The democratization of Chinese politics can be put 

off no longer. 

Accordingly, we dare to put civic spirit into practice by announcing Charter 08. 

We hope that our fellow citizens who feel a similar sense of crisis, responsibility, 

and mission, whether they are inside the government or not, and regardless of their 

social status, will set aside small differences to embrace the broad goals of this citizens’ movement. Together we can work for major changes in Chinese society and 

for the rapid establishment of a free, democratic, and constitutional country. We can 

bring to reality the goals and ideals that our people have incessantly been seeking 

for more than a hundred years, and can bring a brilliant new chapter to Chinese 

civilization. 

—Perry Link, December 18, 2008 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN KAMM, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE DUI HUA

FOUNDATION

JUNE 3, 2009

HOW TIANANMEN CHANGED CHINA

In ‘‘The Book of Laughter and Forgetting,’’ Milan Kundera tells the story of an 

official who falls from power in Communist Czechoslovakia, is executed and 

airbrushed from history. Because he gave his hat to another official on stage with 

him, his hat was not airbrushed from history. Whenever people saw the hat, they 

remembered the man. Kundera gives voice to the hope of those who would erase 

history and those who would remember it: ‘‘Before long the nation will forget what 

it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster. The struggle of 

man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.’’ 

By that measure, the struggle that began in Tiananmen Square 20 years ago continues today. It lives in memory and in legacy. It gave birth to an era of protest 

and the rise of a human rights consciousness among the Chinese people. For the 

first time in history, the Chinese government faced massive international criticism 

for its human rights record. Pressure from abroad and rising dissent at home have 

together helped bring about significant developments in the area of human rights, 

though much work remains to be done. 

During the last two weeks there has been an outpouring of memories of June 4. 

We have heard from many of the June 4 protest leaders, including Bao Tong, Wang 

Dan, Chai Ling, and Wu’erkaixi, as well as many more lesser-known dissidents who 

went to prison for what they did in the square and in hundreds of cities across the 

country. (Zhejiang prisoners have eloquently spelled out what it means to be branded as a June 4 prisoner: ‘‘We are waiting to die.’’) The New York Times devoted an 

entire page to remembrances of June 4 by four Chinese artists. Ma Jian, author of 

‘‘Beijing Coma,’’ has written a particularly moving testimony of what he went 

through in June 1989. I recommend it to you. 

Ding Zilin and the Tiananmen Mothers, those who lost children in the suppression of the protests, have released another in a series of calls for the government 

to take responsibility for the large number of civilian deaths in Beijing. In Hong 

55 

Kong—the only place administered by China where June 4 is remembered publicly—a huge candlelight vigil is to take place in a few hours. Hong Kong University 

students overwhelmingly condemned the killings and subsequent repression, even 

voting out the student body president for attempting to take a softer line on 

Tiananmen. Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule almost 12 years ago, but the memory of Tiananmen lives on. 

Striking from the grave, ousted party secretary Zhao Ziyang has provided fresh 

and vivid reporting in his recently published memoirs of how the crackdown against 

protesters came about. His book is flying off the shelves in Hong Kong and is doubtless already available in some form or another inside China itself. 

After years of seeming apathy among China’s students, there are signs that China’s youth are taking more interest in what happened on June 4. In a recent article 

in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, the story is told of a lecture by 83-yearold Professor Zhang Sizhi to a rapt audience of 300 students at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. Professor Zhang, who is also a criminal 

defense lawyer, spoke openly of his work defending leading June 4 dissidents, including Wang Juntao and Bao Tong, and admonished the students to face truth and 

history with courage. 

While the professor spoke, security agents hovered around the perimeter but 

never actually intervened. There have been small—no, tiny—signs that Beijing is 

willing to allow a little more leeway for discussion of June 4. Private memorial services are held with the knowledge of the police. A proxy for the government writes 

an op-ed in which it is acknowledged that ‘‘mistakes were made.’’ Mention is made 

of June 4 in an official newspaper, Global Times. 

Chinese police have reacted in familiar fashion to those identified as trouble-makers in the run-up to June 4, hustling dissidents out of town, detaining them for brief 

periods, or inviting them to ‘‘drink tea’’—a euphemism for a mild form of interrogation, cutting off their access to outsiders. Yet, so far, Beijing has shown relative restraint, at least when compared to the past. Interference with media, extending to 

shut-downs of Twitter, Flickr, hotmail, and numerous websites is intensifying and 

monitoring of emails is at an all-time high. But the days when the Chinese government can effectively control the access of its citizens to information and opinions not 

sanctioned by the state are coming to an end. As China’s citizens become wealthier 

and have more time to debate and ask questions, travel more and enjoy more ways 

of finding out information, interest in what happened 20 years ago will grow, not 

subside. China has produced many of the world’s great historians. The history of 

Tiananmen is yet to be written. 

Tiananmen lives on in memory, but it also lives on in legacy. What happened in 

Tiananmen Square twenty years ago changed China in big but as yet undetermined 

ways. When asked more than 50 years ago for his assessment of the French Revolution, Zhou Enlai replied that it was too early to say. We should bear Premier Zhou’s 

wisdom in mind as we seek to understand how China changed and is changing because of Tiananmen. In trying to assess how Tiananmen changed China, we not 

only lack the benefit of time—twenty years in the sweep of Chinese history is, after 

all, not a long time—we also lack key information on the events in Beijing and the 

subsequent uprisings all over the country. 

Vitally important questions remain to be answered before the history is written 

and verdicts passed. What was the decision process whereby martial law was 

declared? Zhao Ziyang says that the decision to send in the troops violated Party 

procedure. Was martial law itself legally declared? In terms of operational responsibility, which units did what under whose command? 

What is so striking to me as someone whose human rights career spans the entire 

20 years since Tiananmen is that we still don’t know the answers to critical questions such as these. 

How many died in the massacre? The Chinese government has released a figure 

of 241 dead and 7,000 wounded. I go with Nicholas Kristof’s estimate of 800 deaths 

in Beijing; Kristof won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the 1989 protests. It is 

increasingly accepted that students were not shot in the square itself. The majority 

of deaths occurred throughout the city as enraged citizens took up arms and fought 

with soldiers. 

How many were executed? In Beijing, we know of one dozen executions shortly 

after Tiananmen. There were also executions in the provinces. All told, fewer than 

100 people were probably executed. 

How many were detained? The Dui Hua Foundation keeps track of statistics on 

political cases discovered and solved by China’s political police, the First Bureau of 

the Public Security Ministry. Estimates based on statistics covering 11 percent of 

China’s population show that political cases quadrupled in 1989 from 1988’s total 

to reach a level of 13,500 cases, of which about 10,000 were solved. If we subtract 

56 

cases not related to June 4, and assume two individuals per case, we arrive at an 

estimate of at least 15,000 people detained in political cases arising from June 4. 

It is possible that not all instances of rioting were classified as political cases, so 

the number of people detained post-June 4 around the country could be higher. 

Whatever the number is, it is staggeringly high. Dui Hua maintains a database 

on individuals arrested in political cases since 1980. We have records on 2,125 individuals detained for the actions they committed on or around June 4. We add names 

all the time. Recently, a Chinese NGO released a report with new names of people 

detained. Based on this report, we will add 100-200 names to the database, but we 

still probably know fewer than 15 percent of the names of people detained. 

How many places were affected by the protests? This is where it gets really difficult. I was in southern China on June 4, within range of Hong Kong TV, which 

broadcast footage of the suppression of the protests. I would hazard a guess that 

every township of any size in the Pearl River Delta witnessed protests in the aftermath of the bloodshed in Beijing. The number of places affected by protests certainly exceeds a thousand nationwide. About a quarter of political cases from June 

4 apparently went unsolved, a percentage much lower than 90 percent solution rate 

for other periods. Like today, China’s police simply couldn’t cope with the number 

and intensity of protests. 

As with our work uncovering the names of those detained, Dui Hua records accounts of local protests in China’s police records about June 4. Recently we discovered a detailed account of the protests in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province. 

The city witnessed protests that began in April and lasted for nearly a week after 

June 4. Marches before the killings already exceeded 30,000 participants. Citizen organizations arose to manage the protests. According to official statistics, there were 

68 incidents of industrial unrest, 130 street protests, and 51 hunger strikes. Seventeen cases of ‘‘counterrevolution’’ were solved. A total of 61 individuals were 

detained, of whom 25 were formally arrested and brought to trial, 16 sent to ‘‘reeducation-through-labor,’’ and 20 handled through other methods. This in a city of more 

than two million inhabitants. 

THREE OBSERVATIONS

Despite the difficulties in assessing how Tiananmen changed China, I would like 

to offer three observations on how the 1989 protests and their suppression impacted 

the Chinese government and the Chinese people. 

(1) Tiananmen delayed economic reform and growth by at least three years, probably 

more. 

It took Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Tour in 1992 to affirm the export-driven, 

wealth-generating model developed largely by the purged Zhao Ziyang. Wherever 

China is today economically, it would have gotten there sooner and with much less 

sacrifice had Tiananmen not taken place. Tiananmen also stifled legal reform. Perhaps the best example is the removal of counterrevolution as a crime. It was well 

on track to be removed in 1988. Tiananmen, labeled a counterrevolutionary riot, put 

paid to the idea of getting rid of counterrevolution. It wasn’t until 1997 that China 

removed counterrevolution from its criminal code. At that time, there were just 

under 2,000 counterrevolutionaries in prisons under the jurisdiction of the Ministry 

of Justice. Today, 12 years later, there are still more than 100 counterrevolutionaries in prison, including several convicted of counterrevolutionary sabotage during 

the June 1989 protests. Their continued incarceration has affected China’s ability 

to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 

Another area where Tiananmen might have affected legal reform is with regard 

to the death penalty. Unfortunately, we have too little data on the number of executions in China to draw firm conclusions. The only county for which detailed statistics have been found is Maguan County in Yunnan. These numbers show a big jump 

in the number of executions in 1989 and thereafter. 

China has recently made great strides in reducing the number of executions nationwide, from about 15,000 a year a decade ago to around a third that many in 

2008. However, what strikes me about this fact—other than the sheer numbers involved—is that it took over a decade after Tiananmen until serious reductions in 

the use of capital punishment began to take place. 

(2) Tiananmen ushered in the era of ‘‘mass protests,’’ and gave rise to a greater 

human rights consciousness among the Chinese people. 

The Chinese government has, since Tiananmen, had to contend with mounting 

protests covering a wide range of grievances, including some of the very grievances, 

many economic, that led to the 1989 protests. Dui Hua keeps track of mass incidents in a database that currently holds information on nearly 1,400 incidents over 

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the last three years—a small fraction of the total. Not only are protests erupting 

every day somewhere in China, the vast majority are peaceful expressions of discontent and more often than not they are resolved without recourse to violence. 

When violence takes place and offenders are sentenced by courts, the sentences are 

less harsh than those imposed on the 1989 June 4 protesters. 

China’s police are more sophisticated and less heavy-handed in dealing with mass 

incidents today than they were in 1989, and to some extent this appears to be the 

case with dissent by intellectuals (witness the relatively lenient treatment of ‘‘Charter 08’’ drafters, at least thus far). The exception to this lighter touch is in Tibet 

and Xinjiang. In these autonomous regions and in other areas of the Tibetan plateau, a severe crackdown is underway. In 2008, there were more than 1,600 arrests 

for ‘‘endangering state security’’ crimes in China, more than double the number in 

2007. Large-scale arrests in protests classified as endangering state security have 

taken place in Tibetan areas and in Xinjiang, accounting for well over 50 percent 

of all ESS arrests. 

(3) For the first time in Chinese history, a Chinese government had to contend with 

an outpouring of negative international public opinion after the suppression of 

the 1989 protests. 

Perhaps the best illustration of what happened to China’s favorability rating in 

the United States is a graph of results obtained by the Gallup Poll’s annual survey 

of American opinion towards foreign countries. Before Tiananmen, China was 

viewed favorably by more than 70 percent of the American people. After Tiananmen, 

only half that number still had a favorable impression of the country. Although 

there has been movement up and down over the years, the percentage of American 

people who view China favorably has never exceeded 50 percent since Tiananmen, 

and today stands at 41 percent. (I am very concerned by data that suggests that 

China’s unpopularity has metastasized in the US. Thee separate polls released so 

far this year have a majority of Americans holding negative views of China). 

Of course, it is not only American public opinion that was badly affected by 

Tiananmen; opinion elsewhere in the world was equally negative. The EU imposed 

an arms embargo that it has to this day refused to lift because of Tiananmen. As 

in North America, there is little to suggest that opinion towards China has changed 

in European countries and in other democracies. A BBC poll taken in January this 

year shows a sharp drop in China’s popularity across the board in the last 12 

months. 

In part to counter the bad image that arose after Tiananmen, the Chinese government has, in a sense, ‘‘discovered human rights.’’ To my way of thinking, this is one 

of the most significant changes originating from what happened in Tiananmen 20 

years ago. China now takes into account what the world thinks about it, not as 

much as the world might want, but far more than in any other period, certainly 

within the life of the People’s Republic. Chairman Mao didn’t give a damn about 

what foreigners thought, and he presided over far greater horrors than Tiananmen. 

Consider what China has done in human rights policy and diplomacy since 1989: 

• Sharply reduced the number of executions (a development especially popular 

in Europe); 

• Passed a new labor law that increases protections for workers; 

• Reduced use of Reeducation through Labor from more than 300,000 inmates 

in RTL camps five years ago to roughly 170,000 today (China has yet to carry 

out the promised ‘‘fundamental reform’’ of RTL); 

• Established a network of rights dialogues and exchanges; 

• Held talks with the Vatican and Tibetan exiles; 

• Hosted UN rapporteurs, and taken a leadership role in the UN Human 

Rights Council; 

• Published a National Human Rights Action Plan; 

• Signed but not ratified the ICCPR; and 

• Released and reduced the sentences of hundreds of political prisoners presented on lists to the Chinese government. 

It should be remembered that, prior to Tiananmen, the Chinese government had 

never released a political prisoner as a result of international diplomacy, public and 

private. In the years since Tiananmen, the practice has become commonplace. I myself have been involved in hundreds of what I call ‘‘transactions’’ in this area. 

Polling data suggests China’s image has improved when prisoners are released. 

In my opinion, China’s international image could benefit from a large-scale special 

pardon on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China this fall. This proposal is being vigorously debated in China, and 

I am told that some senior leaders have shown an interest, but it is too early to 

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say if Beijing will in fact issue a 60th anniversary special pardon, and if it does, 

who will benefit.. 

What took place 20 years ago today in China not only changed China, it also 

changed the world. 

It presaged the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Governments faced with mass protests decided against using force, in part because of 

the revulsion so widely felt after the killings in Beijing. 

It fueled the rise to power of a San Franciscan congresswoman who led the fight 

against the renewal of China’s Most-Favored-Nation Status. Had she succeeded in 

imposing conditions that the Chinese government refused to meet, China would 

have lost its access to the US market. It is no exaggeration to say that, had that 

happened, there would have been no Chinese economic miracle. 

It ushered in the era of cable news. A fledgling network by the name of CNN covered the protests live, and gave us pictures which remain vivid in the memory of 

the world, including that iconic picture of a man facing down a tank on Chang An 

Jie, or the ‘‘Avenue of Eternal Peace.’’ 

Tiananmen changed my life forever. Twenty years ago, I was a successful businessman, a business leader in Hong Kong. Today, I run The Dui Hua Foundation 

in San Francisco, a group promoting respect for human rights in China and the 

United States. My first intervention in May 1990 was on behalf of a Tiananmen protester. The last release Dui Hua announced was of a June 4 hooligan, maybe the 

last person convicted of hooliganism for his involvement in the protests. 

(Hooliganism, like counterrevolution, was removed from Chinese law in 1997). In 

all, I have asked the Chinese government about more than 250 prisoners convicted 

of June 4 related offenses. The great majority have been released before the end of 

their sentences. 

Dui Hua estimates that there are about 30 people still in prison for offenses committed on or around June 4, 1989, in China. They are now mostly middle-aged men 

who were once young workers swept up in a tide of anger and destruction, youngsters like Wang Jun in Xi’an, who at 18 was sentenced to death, suspended for two 

years and ultimately commuted, for burning two police motorcycles and stealing a 

policeman’s calculator. All of those who remain in prison for June 4 related offenses 

have received sentence reductions. They have served more than half of their sentences, in most cases at least 80 percent. Several are serving sentences for crimes 

removed from the criminal code 12 years ago. They no longer represent a threat to 

society. 

When I first pleaded for the release of a prisoner at a business dinner in May 

1990, I fumbled to express sentiments not yet completely formed, even in my own 

mind. As I struggled to find the words that I needed to convince the Chinese official 

to release the young protester, I found myself quoting what Shakespeare said about 

the quality of mercy: ‘‘It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. Tis mightiest 

in the mightiest.’’ 

China today is not the China of 20 years ago. It is a mighty country, full of success on many fronts and justifiably proud. It should shed its insecurity about June 

4 and boldly face its history. To start the process of healing the country’s deep 

wounds, I hope the Chinese government will temper justice with mercy, and release 

those still serving sentences for what they did in the Tiananmen protests of 20 

years ago. 

Æ