#Tiananmen32: A reflection and a call to action

In memory of those who stood up for their rights, lost their lives and for those still unjustly imprisoned today in China.

Students peacefully demonstrating in Beijing in 1989

Thirty two years ago tonight it began.

The Pro-Democracy Movement that had taken to the streets in April of 1989 was violently crushed by the Chinese communist dictatorship beginning on the evening of June 3, 1989. By dawn on June 4, 1989 scores of demonstrators had been shot and killed or run over and crushed by tanks of the so-called People's Liberation Army.

Thousands more would be rounded up, arrested and sentenced to prison in show trials. As many as a thousand received death sentences that were carried out.

The response of the West and the United States at the forefront?  Pro forma protests to satisfy the outrage of their citizens while secretly meeting with the men who had ordered the mass killing to let them know that what was important was their economic relationship.

Bodies at Shuili hospital mortuary. All died from bullet wounds. Credit Jian Li

 The failure of the Western Democracies to side with China’s democratic forces due to narrow economic interests to trade and subsidize a murderous communist dictatorship that murdered more than 45 million of its own people has cost much both materially and spiritually.

The behavior of Western tech firms in China, who collaborated with the secret police in identifying dissidents who were rounded up, jailed, tortured and in some cases killed and censoring information on the internet to erase the crimes of Tiananmen, the Cultural Revolution, and the mass famines of the Mao era laid the groundwork for silencing and censoring courageous Chinese scientists, and journalists who tried to warn the world of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is shocking to think that the 3.7 million dead worldwide in the COVID-19 pandemic is not even 10% of the number killed in the People's Republic of China by the Communists. Estimates range in the 45 million range.

Tiananmen Square in June of 1989 prior to the crackdown

In 1989 the struggle for freedom was occurring in Beijing, today it is happening in Hong Kong, with communist repression being visited on Hong Kong residents, Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, and the Tibetan people who live under a communist occupation of their homeland Tibet.  Now we witness American actors and athletes kowtowing to Beijing and apologizing for correctly referring to Taiwan as a country.

We must not remain passive before this avalanche of injustice and genocide.

Elie Wiesel at his Nobel Lecture in 1986 observed: "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." Bearing witness and taking action continues to be necessary to avoid forgetting. Wiesel in the same lecture explained the consequences of not remembering: "To forget the victims means to kill them a second time. So I couldn't prevent the first death. I surely must be capable of saving them from a second death."

We owe it both to the dead and the living to remember, and continue to seek justice. The last year of death and disease should be a wake up call for the high price of being complicit with Communist China.  

Tonight in a candlelight vigil in Washington, DC listened to the wise counsel of Chinese dissidents Yang Jianli, Sean Lin, and Chen Guangcheng. May the world listen to them, and repent.

China's communist regime defends June 1989 massacre calling it an "incident" but free Chinese seek to set the record straight

"To forget the victims means to kill them a second time. So I couldn't prevent the first death. I surely must be capable of saving them from a second death." - Elie Wiesel explained in his 1986 Nobel Lecture

At least 10,000 killed during the Tiananmen Square massacre.

 Chinese Communist Defense Minister Wei Fenghe on June 2, 2019 at a regional forum defended the Tiananmen Square massacre claiming "[t]hat incident was a political turbulence and the central government took measures to stop the turbulence, which is a correct policy," and an official newspaper, The Global Times, doubled down claiming that the mass killings and crackdown were "[a]s a vaccination for the Chinese society, the Tiananmen incident will greatly increase China's immunity against any major political turmoil in the future." The message is clear the Communist Chinese regime in China is willing to kill large numbers of Chinese to remain in power.

A 2017 declassified British diplomatic cable revealed that "at least 10,000 people were killed in the Chinese army's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in June 1989."

We must also remember the courage of the late Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo who saved the lives of many young Chinese in Tiananmen Square in June of 1989 obtaining safe passage for them and persuaded these students to leave before the massacre unfolded.  This courageous and nonviolent human rights defender was jailed in 2008 and died on July 13, 2017.

We must remember and honor Liu Xiaobo

The Cuban government was one of the very few that publicly supported the June 4th crackdown on Chinese protesters in 1989. The Cuban foreign minister commended Chinese authorities for“defeating the counter revolutionary acts.”

This pattern would continue for the next 30 years.  In the year when the 20th anniversary of  Tiananmen was observed, China underwent its first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on February 9, 2009. During this session the Cuban Ambassador, Mr. Juan Antonio Fernández Palacios, after a short, ideologically biased and rambling run through of Chinese history then recommended that the Chinese regime repress human rights defenders in China with greater toughness.

Other countries, either for ideological or economic interests, have given China a pass on human rights. This is already having terrible consequences and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

The second largest economy in the world, now modernizing its military, and projecting itself onto the international scene defends the mass murder of its own people as government policy.  Let that sink in for a moment.

The Goddess of Democracy looks out over Tiananmen Square.

Tonight in Washington, DC attended a candlelight vigil organized by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation where I listened to Chinese dissident Dr. Yang Jianli and he reminded us of the other China. The China of the students who erected the Goddess of Democracy and risked and lost all for freedom.

"Tonight, we gather once again to remember our fallen brothers and sisters in Tiananmen Square and celebrate their courage that showed the world that the Chinese people desire freedom and justice above all earthly goods.  We are here to reaffirm that, no matter how many days or decades have gone by, there will never come a time when we forget their sacrifices."

Below are Dr. Jianli's full remarks followed by videos of what happened 30 years ago in China. Please remember and share with others. See you tomorrow at 1:30pm at the rally on Capitol Hill.