[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
TIANANMEN AT 25: ENDURING INFLUENCE ON U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS AND CHINA'S
POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 20, 2014
__________
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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
Senate House
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Chairman CHRIS SMITH, New Jersey,
CARL LEVIN, Michigan Cochairman
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California FRANK WOLF, Virginia
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina
TIM WALZ, Minnesota MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
MICHAEL HONDA, California
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
NISHA DESAI BISWAL, U.S. Department of State
Lawrence T. Liu, Staff Director
Paul B. Protic, Deputy Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Statements
Page
Opening Statement of Hon. Sherrod Brown, a U.S. Senator from
Ohio; Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.... 1
Smith, Hon. Christopher, a U.S. Representative from New Jersey;
Cochairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China........ 3
Walz, Hon. Tim, a U.S. Representative from Minnesota; Ranking
Member, Congressional-Executive Commission on China............ 4
Roy, Hon. Stapleton, Former U.S. Ambassador to the People's
Republic of China, 1991-1995................................... 6
Lord, Hon. Winston, Former U.S. Ambassador to the People's
Republic of China, 1985-1989................................... 8
Lee, Liane, Eyewitness to June 4th Events as Part of Hong Kong
Federation of Students Delegation.............................. 21
He, Rowena, Lecturer, Harvard University......................... 22
Wasserstrom, Jeffrey, University of California-Irvine............ 24
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements
Lord, Hon. Winston............................................... 34
Wasserstrom, Jeffrey............................................. 35
Brown, Hon. Sherrod.............................................. 38
Smith, Hon. Christopher.......................................... 39
TIANANMEN AT 25: ENDURING INFLUENCE ON U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS AND CHINA'S
POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
----------
FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2014
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 3:36 p.m.,
in room 562 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Sherrod
Brown, Chairman, presiding.
Present: Representative Christopher Smith, Cochairman; and
Representatives Tim Walz and Mark Meadows.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHERROD BROWN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
OHIO; CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Chairman Brown. The China Commission will come to order.
Thank you for joining us, Congressman Walz, and especially
Cochair Congressman Smith from New Jersey. Nice to see you.
Ambassador Roy, Ambassador Lord, we particularly welcome you.
There will be a second panel also.
I'll make a brief opening statement and then turn it over
to Congressman Smith and Congressman Walz, then we'll hear from
the witnesses.
We remember an event that occurred 25 years ago next month
but continues to resonate in so many ways. Millions of people
across China, not just in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, rallied
in support of democracy and human rights and an end to
corruption.
Like many Americans of the time, I was inspired and moved
by the courage in their pursuit of those fundamental freedoms,
freedoms that we hold dear universally--internationally
recognized rights--freedoms and rights that we sometimes take
for granted.
I recall the optimism of the moment, how it was crushed
when troops and tanks rolled in. Today we assess what the last
25 years have meant and what our policies should be toward
China. In my view, opportunities were missed after Tiananmen.
We missed an opportunity to integrate China into the global
community while ensuring that our economic interests were
protected and that China moved in the right direction on
political reform not, of course, an easy task to be sure, but
25 years later China is still a fundamentally undemocratic
country, one that stubbornly refuses to play by international
rules of law.
In many respects, China reaped the benefits of open trade
with the rest of the world while avoiding many of its
obligations. In China, 800 million people still don't enjoy the
basic right to vote. Chinese citizens, including those who in
recent weeks have bravely tried to commemorate those events of
a quarter century ago, are in prison simply for peacefully
exercising their right to free speech, to assembly, to
religion. These include human rights lawyers Pu Zhiqiang and Hu
Shigen.
A generation of people inside and outside China knows
little about the events that transpired back then, other than
the government's official line. Emboldened by growing economic
clout that we in many ways supported, Chinese Communist leaders
are sowing instability through alarming and increasingly risky
attempts to exert territorial claims in the region.
Just yesterday we were reminded of the lengths China will
go to gain an unfair advantage for its state-owned enterprises
and industries. Our Department of Justice charged five members
of China's People's Liberation Army with hacking into computer
networks of the United Steelworkers Union and major U.S.
companies like U.S. Steel, ALCOA, and Allegheny Technologies.
This, we think, is just the tip of the iceberg. In 1989,
our trade deficit with China stood at $6 billion. The trade
deficit has grown by a multiple of 50, to $318 billion, the
highest ever. That trade deficit and China's currency
manipulation have cost Americans millions of jobs, and has had
a major impact on our trade deficit.
In the end, we compromised too much and bought into the
myth that China's economic integration after Tiananmen would
inevitably bring about human rights and respect for
international law. Congressman Smith has talked about this for
the 20 years that I have known him. That is not what happened.
The question now is, how do we fashion a better policy
toward China? Through this commission we have tried to honor
the memory of Tiananmen Square by making sure China's human
rights and rule of law are not forgotten in our discussions
over China.
Over the past year we have highlighted many concerns: Cyber
theft, threats to democracy in Hong Kong, illegal and unfair
trade practices, denial of visas to foreign journalists, food
safety, environment and public health concerns, and a crackdown
on human rights activists, including advocates for the Uyghurs
in Xinjiang, in that part of China.
In the Senate, I have pushed a bipartisan bill on currency
manipulation which has passed the Senate overwhelmingly. It is
my hope that we have an open and transparent debate about China
policy, whether it be on trade agreements that relate to China
or in growing Chinese foreign investments in this country. Our
debate should give proper weight to--rather than ignore our
concerns over--human rights, the rule of law, labor, public
health, and the environment.
Above all, the debate must include all segments of our
society, from our workers in small businesses to non-
governmental organizations and human rights groups instead of
just being led by powerful interest groups such as large
corporations, some of which themselves have a checkered history
in China.
Only in doing so and continuing to work for improvements in
China's human rights and rule of law record that we can
faithfully honor the memory of Tiananmen Square and ensure that
the sacrifices were not made in vain.
Chairman Smith?
STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER SMITH, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
NEW JERSEY; COCHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON
CHINA
Representative Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
most importantly for calling this vitally important hearing and
for inviting such distinguished witnesses as we will hear from
momentarily on both panels, but including two highly
distinguished diplomats who tried to ameliorate the abuses that
were occurring in the lead-up to, and then during, Tiananmen
Square, and for their work using every diplomatic means
available to them to promote democracy and freedom and trade
that was principled, free, and fair.
I want to thank them for their extraordinary service to our
country and to the Chinese people as well who benefited from
your stewardship as diplomat and Ambassador to the People's
Republic of China. Thank you very much, both of you.
Twenty-five years ago, the world watched as millions of
Chinese gathered all across China to peacefully demand
political reform and democratic openness. The hopes and
promises of those heady days ended with wanton violence, tears,
bloodshed, arrests, and exile. We must continue to honor the
sacrifices endured by the pro-democracy movement, by advocates
for independent labor unions, and those demanding fundamental
human rights for all Chinese.
Mothers lost sons, fathers lost daughters, and China lost
an idealistic generation to the tanks that rolled down
Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Tiananmen Square has come to
symbolize the brutal length the Chinese Communist Party will go
to remain in power. We remember Tiananmen annually here in
Congress because of its enduring impact on U.S.-China
relations.
We remember it also because an unknown number of people
died, were arrested, and exiled for simply seeking universally
recognized freedoms. We will continue to remember Tiananmen
until the Chinese people are free to discuss openly the tragic
events of June 3-4, 1989, without censorship, harassment, or
arrest.
We in Congress remain committed to the people of China
struggling peacefully for human rights and the rule of law. The
prospects for greater civil and political rights in China seems
as remote today as it did the day after the tanks rolled
through the square.
In 1989, the Chinese Government used guns and tanks to
suppress the people's demands for freedom and transparency. In
2014, they use arrests, discrimination, torture, and censorship
to discourage those who seek basic freedoms and human rights.
The names may change, but the ends remain the same: Crush
dissent at all costs because it challenges the authority of the
Communist Party.
This has been one of the worst years in recent memory for
the suppression of human rights activists in civil society. Xi
Jinping's tenure as president, which started with so much
promise of a new beginning, has proven that the old tactics of
repression will be used liberally against dissent. Top
Communist Party officials regularly unleash bellicose
statements on universal values and Western ideals.
In the past year, over 220 people have been detained for
their defense of human rights. The more things change in China
the more they stay the same. While the hopes of Tiananmen
Square demonstrators may have not been realized, their demands
for freedom of speech, basic human rights, political reforms,
and the end of government abuse and corruption continue to
inspire the Chinese people today. These are universal desires
not limited by culture, language, or by history.
There is an impressive and inspiring drive in Chinese
society to keep fighting for freedom under very difficult and
dangerous conditions. This drive is the most important asset in
promoting human rights and democratization in the country. If
democratic change comes to China it will come from within, not
because of outside pressure, although that pressure is needed.
U.S. policy, both short- and long-term, must be and must be
seen to be supportive of advocates for peaceful change,
supportive of the champions of liberty and civil society in
China seeking to promote human rights and freedoms for
everyone, not only to pad the economic bottom line.
Our strategic and moral interests coincide when we seek to
promote human rights and democratic openness in China. A more
democratic China, one that respects human rights and is
governed by the rule of law is more likely to be a productive
and peaceful partner rather than a strategic and hostile
competitor.
This future should also be in China's interests because the
most prosperous and stable societies are those that protect
religious freedom, freedom of speech, and the rule of law. We
in Congress remain committed to the people of China struggling
for universal freedoms.
There is no partisan divide on this, to move the Chinese
Government away from the past and embrace the greater openness,
democracy, and respect for human rights that its people called
for 25 years ago and continue to call for today.
Mr. Chairman, I do regret that I have a bill on the floor
of the House probably in 10 minutes called International
Megan's Law, but I will read the transcript and, of course, the
submissions by our distinguished witnesses.
I thank you again for calling this very timely and
important hearing.
Chairman Brown. Thank you very much for your comments and
your service.
Congressman Walz?
STATEMENT OF HON. TIM WALZ, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
MINNESOTA; RANKING MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION
ON CHINA
Representative Walz. Thank you, Chairman. Thanks to my
colleague, Mr. Smith, for his longstanding support of human
rights around the globe. I, too, am thankful for our witnesses
on both panels. It's a great opportunity for us to hear. I
would echo both my colleagues' statements that this is an
important conversation to have.
I'm looking at the title of this, ``Tiananmen at 25: the
Enduring Influence on U.S.-China Relations on China's Political
Development.'' I think that may be true to a certain level, but
I'm also very cognizant there's an entire generation of
Americans who don't understand what happened there, they don't
understand what the impact of it was.
I think many of them, once they knew, would stand proudly
with those fighters of human rights. I think for all of us if
we do not commemorate and we do not remember those who were
willing to risk all, it puts all of us at risk of history
forgetting the lessons that were there. For me, it certainly
had enduring influence on me. As a young man I was just going
to teach high school in Foshan in Guangdong province and was in
Hong Kong in May 1989. As the events were unfolding, several of
us went in. I still remember the train station in Hong Kong.
There was a large number of people--especially Europeans, I
think--very angry that we would still go after what had
happened. But it was my belief at that time that the diplomacy
was going to happen on many levels, certainly people to people,
and the opportunity to be in a Chinese high school at that
critical time seemed to me to be really important.
It was a very interesting summer to say the least, because
if you recall as we moved in that summer and further on, and
the news blackouts and things that went on, you certainly can't
black out news from people if they want to get it. I can still
clearly remember when the Berlin Wall fell and what was
happening. So I think it's important to put it in historical
context of what was happening.
For me, the conversations were fascinating. It was
interesting to watch many of those Chinese who so recently had
come through the Cultural Revolution, express concerns about
what would happen if you upset the fruit basket, if you will,
type of thing. I think it's important for many to understand
here why maybe there wasn't a broader societal response to what
had happened.
The lesson to me, though, was when you watch these things
happen you can justify and make up in your mind any reason
possible that you didn't stand up or that something didn't
happen or that no one remembered. So, as being part of this
commission, I take the charge very seriously, both looking at
the human rights records, looking at all those things, but
clearly understanding the human rights and the friendships and
the people that I know. It's critical to get this right. It's
critical for us to understand and it's certainly critical for
us as Americans to do soul-searching of our own.
No one is under the belief that we have reached that
perfect union. It's toward a more perfect union, but I think as
we watch and as this commemoration comes forward, I think it's
critically important globally that we mark this in the right
tone, we listen to the experts who were there before and after,
the witnesses who were there, and then understand what the
implications of this are because I think many of us, as you
know, for many people it would just be convenient to just
pretend it didn't happen, just pretend we moved on, just
pretend for all involved. But that's not what we can do. That's
not what the memory of those people that stood there deserve.
So I, for one, am again thankful for this commission, thankful
for the folks who are standing here, and look forward to the
testimony.
I yield back.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Mr. Walz.
We are joined by Congressman Meadows from North Carolina,
too. Thank you.
Welcome to the two witnesses. Ambassador Stapleton Roy was
born in Nanjing and went on to a career in the Foreign Service,
spanning some 45 years. He was Ambassador to the People's
Republic of China from 1991 to 1995, and also served our
country as Ambassador to Singapore and Indonesia. He
participated in the secret negotiations to establish diplomatic
relations with the People's Republic of China. Ambassador Roy
is at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars here
in Washington.
Ambassador Winston Lord's career in U.S.-China relations
has spanned the last four decades. In the 1970s, he accompanied
Henry Kissinger and Presidents Nixon and Ford on all nine of
their trips to China. He served as Ambassador to China under
Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He was Assistant
Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs under President
Clinton. Ambassador Lord has served as President of the Council
on Foreign Relations. He is currently the Chairman Emeritus at
the International Rescue Committee.
We will begin with five-minute opening statements from
Ambassador Roy, thank you, and from Ambassador Lord.
STATEMENT OF HON. STAPLETON ROY, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE
PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, 1991-1995
Ambassador Roy. Mr. Chairman, distinguished commissioners,
I am honored to have this opportunity to appear before this
commission to discuss my experience as U.S. Ambassador in China
in the aftermath of Tiananmen, the impact of that event on
U.S.-China relations, and my views on the best way to pursue
human rights diplomacy with China.
It is a pleasure for me to appear before this commission
with my friend and colleague, former U.S. Ambassador to China
Winston Lord.
My views on the human rights situation in China in the
period after Tiananmen are contained in the human rights
reports which the Embassy submitted annually to Washington. As
the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for China
during the latter years of the Reagan administration and
briefly in the first Bush administration, I was deeply involved
in Chinese affairs from October 1986 through President George
Herbert Walker Bush's visit to China in February 1989.
Beginning in March 1989, I was the Executive Secretary of
the State Department for the next two years and no longer had
any policy responsibilities for China until I arrived in
Beijing as the U.S. Ambassador in August 1991.
Three impressions struck me immediately on my return to
China in 1991. First, was the widespread availability of
consumer goods that had been in short supply during my first
assignment in Beijing from 1978 to 1981. This was a direct
result of the price reforms that had been introduced in the
mid-1980s.
Second, was the shift in attitude on the part of the
Chinese who had been sympathetic to the goals of the student
demonstrators in Tiananmen in the spring of 1989.
Overwhelmingly, I encountered the view based on their hindsight
that the demonstrators had been too uncompromising in their
approach and had set back the cause of political reform in
China.
This is quite separate from the question of whether the
Chinese Government had been justified in using force to quell
the demonstrators. While the Chinese Government strongly
defended the position that it had acted appropriately in June
1989, I did not encounter this view in non-official circles.
Third, I was struck by the degree to which images of China
in the United States were out of touch with realities on the
ground. This was less evident during my first year in Beijing,
but it became glaringly obvious during the summer and fall of
1992 when the economic reform forces in China strengthened
their position and strongly reaffirmed China's pre-Tiananmen
reform and openness policies at the 14th Party Congress of the
Chinese Communist Party in October 1992.
By the spring of 1993, Americans were flocking back to
China in growing numbers. Without exception, those who met with
me expressed shock and amazement that conditions in China were
so much better than they had been led to believe by the U.S.
media. Never before or since in my Foreign Service career did I
encounter such a large gap between perception and reality.
This perception gap related to conditions of life in China
in terms of the rising levels of prosperity, the openness of
society, the freedom of movement, and the access to
information. It did not relate to the human rights situation in
China, which remained oppressive.
During my assignment as U.S. Ambassador in Beijing, the
Chinese Government was no more willing to accommodate political
dissent than before and moved quickly to suppress any forms of
political or social organization that did not have government
authorization.
This had a negative impact on organizations such as the
Falun Gong and on the house churches which operated outside the
government-approved framework for organized religion. Within
that framework, however, membership in religious organizations
was rapidly expanding and churches were overflowing with
worshippers of all ages.
As regards prospects for political change in China, some
clues were contained in the communique of the Third Plenum of
the Central Committee last November. The plenum communique was
notable for its stress on strengthening market forces in the
Chinese economy, affirming Party leadership, enhancing rule by
law--not rule of law--and maintaining stability.
As expected, the plenum did not introduce any bold
political reforms. The communique continued to talk of
developing ``primary level democracy,'' suggesting that the Xi
regime is not in any rush to expand representative governance
above the primary level.
That said, the communique was noteworthy for the emphasis
put on ``governing the country in accordance with the law,
strengthening a system of restraining and supervising the use
of power, and ensuring that judicial and procuratorial bodies
independently and impartially exercise their respective powers
pursuant to law.''
Expanding on this concept of putting checks on power, the
communique pointed out that ``to ensure proper exercise of
power it is important to put power, Party, and government
operations and personnel management under institutional
checks.''
To drive these points home, the communique added the
assertion that ``letting the people exercise supervision over
power and letting power be exercised in broad daylight is the
fundamental way to keep power within the cage of regulations.''
While one should not read too much into these statements,
they certainly constitute building blocks for gradually moving
toward greater institutional checks on the exercise of power,
something that has been sadly lacking in Chinese practice to
date.
My point is: the language of discourse in China on
political reform issues is changing. I do not recall before
language referring to the need for checks on the exercise of
power, and that is beginning to enter into the domestic
dialogue in China.
Mr. Chairman, I hope we can explore these issues in greater
detail during the question and answer period. Thank you.
Chairman Brown. Thank you very much, Ambassador.
Ambassador Lord?
STATEMENT OF HON. WINSTON LORD, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE
PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, 1985-1989
Ambassador Lord. Well, I pay tribute to this commission for
its meticulous survey of the Chinese landscape over the years
and U.S.-China relations. It is my pleasure appearing with
Ambassador Roy. We have worked closely in and out of
government. I will say here what I say behind his back: he's
one of the top three or four diplomats in our generation.
Cochairmen and members of the commission, I am honored to
appear once again before this commission. I am inspired by your
renewed commemoration of events that will be enshrined in
history. In the words of Lu Xun, ``Lies written in ink cannot
disguise facts written in blood.''
We gather at a melancholy time. The Chinese authorities
continue to distort and erase the spring of 1989. They continue
to withhold answers from the mothers of the fallen, and they
seem more determined than ever to squash basic freedoms.
In five minutes I can only employ brush strokes to evoke
the China scene and the implications for American policy.
Please bear in mind, as I speak with the candor I use with my
Chinese friends, that I have worked to promote relations with
China ever since the Kissinger secret trip of 1971, and I will
continue to do so. It's in our national interest.
My three principal conclusions up front: (1) The political
system in China is unjust and inhumane. It is getting worse;
(2) American efforts to promote freedom have yielded slight
results but should endure; and (3) the near term prospects are
bleak, but in the longer run change from within will open
China.
Now, certainly the landscape has radically changed since
the disastrous 1950s and 1960s whenever the freedom of silence
was not allowed and in certain important areas China continues
to improve. Chinese can compete for college, choose their work,
change their residence, and travel. They can grouse loudly
among friends, selectively in social media.
Awesome economic progress has lifted the horizons of
hundreds of millions. But in certain key domains, the screws
have been tightened, especially in recent years. The weekly
salons for officials, academics, artists, and dissidents that
my wife and I hosted in the late 1980s at our official
residence can no longer take place.
The Party persecutes not only a blind activist, but also
his relatives. It locks up not only a Nobel Prize winner, but
his ill wife. It rounds up not only reformers, but those who
defend them. It not only jails the troublesome, but forces them
to confess on television. It not only mistreats Tibetans, but
punishes governments that host the Dalai Lama. It not only
smothers the domestic Internet and media, but threatens foreign
journalists and spurs self-censorship from Bloomberg to
Hollywood.
U.S. administrations of both parties have tried through a
variety of means to encourage greater freedom, from selective
sanctions to trade conditions to private dialogues and public
shaming, all to scant avail.
Other players undercut our official efforts. Few
governments will even raise the subject of human rights. In
America, contract-hungry business bosses, visa-anxious
scholars, and access-seeking former government officials
ignore, tiptoe around, even rationalize Chinese suppression.
Should we therefore bury this issue? No.
Certainly it cannot dominate our agenda, which features
critical security, economic, and political stakes. We derive
enormous benefits from our economic relations and our bilateral
exchanges. On many global problems we share common concerns and
the Chinese can be helpful: The curses of terrorism and nuclear
weapons; shipping lanes and piracy; climate change and clean
energy; health and food safety; and drugs and crime.
There are also many serious problems with China that I do
not have time to elaborate. We have just seen a new one this
week that Senator Brown, Congressman Smith, and Congressman
Walz have outlined.
On regional issues, the Chinese posture varies: helpful on
Afghanistan and Sudan, unhelpful on Syria, mixed on Iran and
North Korea. Beijing has become downright provocative and
dangerous with its probes in the East China Sea, its bullying
in the South China Sea, and its unilateral declaration of an
Air Defense Identification Zone.
Indeed, in its maritime encroachments Beijing evokes
Moscow's policy toward its neighbors. It also has great unease
about Moscow's policy. The Chinese don't like minorities
appealing to outside powers that come in, obviously. But in
many ways--and I can list at least 10--there are similarities.
Despite this daunting agenda, we should continue to
advocate for human dignity in China. This reflects our values
and international norms, it maintains public and congressional
support for our overall policy, it heartens Chinese reformers,
and it serves concrete national interests. Free societies do
not go to war against each other, harbor terrorists, hide
natural and man-made disasters, or spawn refugees.
We should proceed, however, without arrogance. Above all,
we should progress here at home. Gridlock and polarization in
this city sabotages our champion of democratic values abroad.
Many avenues exist to nourish liberty: Private dialogue;
public stances; and exchanges between non-governmental
organizations on topics like civil society, rule of law, and
the environment. Expand Voice of America and Radio Free Asia;
increase funding for new technology to break the Chinese
firewall; pursue the U.N. Commission's indictment of China's
abetting North Korean crimes against humanity; retaliate
against Chinese harassment of foreign journalists; and support
free elections in Hong Kong.
We should thus persist across a broad front. But change in
China will not result from outside encouragement or pressures.
It must come from the Chinese themselves. We must appeal to
China's own interests: The rule of law, freedom of the press,
an independent judiciary, a flourishing civil society, and
accountable officials would promote all of China's primary
goals: economic progress, political stability, reconciliation
with Taiwan, good relations with America, international stature
and influence.
Members of the Commission, given the dark clouds, it is
tempting to be pessimistic about the future of freedom for one-
fifth of humanity. I do believe, however, that a more open
society will emerge, impelled by universal aspirations, self-
interest, a rising middle class, the return of students, and
the explosive impact of social media.
No one can predict the pace or the contours of the process.
We might as well consult fortune cookies. Nevertheless, one day
mothers will have answers, Chinese history books will record
heroes not hooligans, and the promise of the Chinese Spring
will finally shape the destinies of a great people and a great
nation.
Thank you.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Ambassador Lord.
For both of you, take yourselves back a decade and a half,
1999, President Clinton asked the Senate and the House--I was a
Member of the House then--for permanent normal trade relations
[PNTR] with China, talking about jobs. U.S. CEOs came to
Washington and spoke about wanting access to a billion Chinese
consumers.
Others said that what they really want is access to a
billion Chinese workers. Both President Clinton, CEOs, and
newspaper editors were almost unanimous in their support for
PNTR in those days. Virtually all the major liberal and
conservative newspapers argued that PNTR would open up trade
and bring sweeping changes to China: Human rights, respect for
the rule of law, democracy. The promise of PNTR was all of
that. Your comments, especially Ambassador Lord's, but the
comments of both of you suggest movement in the opposite
direction in many ways.
So my first question is addressed to Ambassador Lord. What
did we learn, perhaps in the first decade after Tiananmen
Square, but especially since PNTR in 1999-2000, about the
actual relationship between trade, human rights, and how that
should inform our policy going forward?
Ambassador Lord. I was in the middle of this issue and I
negotiated conditional MFN [most-favored nation] with
Congresswoman Pelosi and Senator Mitchell. What we did was to
establish conditions for renewing trade privileges, but
moderate conditions. Meaningful ones, but ones we thought the
Chinese could meet.
To tell you a little secret, we were making some progress
but the economic agencies undercut us. We have huge economic
stakes with China--they were not enthusiastic and undercut our
policy. President Clinton did not back up the State Department
to carry out his own policy. We had a split administration. The
Chinese took advantage of that and therefore didn't move on
human rights in a significant way and we had to reverse policy
and pursue human rights in other ways. So it was a failed
experiment.
I think reasonable people can disagree. I was reluctant to
have any conditions for a long while, but I finally decided
moderate conditions were the way to go. I respect those who
felt that this was not going to move the Chinese. Regime
stability was their number-one goal then and it remains that
today.
Now, I do think expanding trade and investment are in our
national interest. It helps American workers and jobs and
exports. There are some serious economic frictions with China,
like intellectual property rights, cyber warfare, currency
manipulation, their favoring through subsidies of their state
enterprises. We have to negotiate and be firm on all of these.
But despite the deficit and despite other problems, I think
we should continue our deep economic engagement. It's not going
to bring about--to get to your question--a free China in and of
itself. I do think it helps the general conditions of the
Chinese people, it helps our economy. In any event, we need to
pursue promoting democracy in the other ways that I mentioned.
Chairman Brown. Okay. Thank you. We can debate what it does
for our economy, but that's another day.
Ambassador Roy, talk about the role of--and partly
answering his concerns and my question to Ambassador Lord about
how do we go forward, talk about the role of U.S. corporations
and our failure as a nation--I'm not saying only corporations'
failure, but as a nation--talk about the role of U.S. companies
and our failure to advance human rights in China.
There clearly has been--while the promise of PNTR was that
U.S. companies would play some role in the advancing of human
rights, that has fallen perhaps even more short than the U.S.
Government playing a role in human rights. What are your
thoughts there on their role in that for good and for bad, and
especially more importantly, that looking back is looking
forward on the role of U.S. companies and U.S. investment in
China?
Ambassador Roy. My experience with U.S. companies is that
their principal motive is to make their companies as profitable
as possible, and their actions are largely geared to that
objective. When they operate in foreign countries, they
nevertheless can represent a positive aspect of American
society insofar as they pay their workers decent wages, give
them health and other protections as desirable, and pursue what
I would call good responsible business practices.
That sets a standard that, in many of the countries that I
have served in, are not typical of the local business
practices, so in that sense they can carry a positive aspect of
what we stand for in terms of what business practices should
be.
I do not find that businessmen are motivated to promote
human rights at the expense of their business interests, and I
think it would be a misunderstanding of how corporations
function to expect them to do so. However, in certain
respects--for example, in Indonesia particularly--the Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act was an issue.
I did not encounter hostility on the part of the business
community to the fact that we had a law that made corrupt
practices by American corporations abroad punishable, and I
would have very frank dialogues with the members of the
American business community on that question.
So I think that we should not misinterpret what business is
about, but at the same time I think that we should consider
ways in which we can reinforce the positive images that well-
managed companies can convey to other countries where the labor
practices, the wage practices, et cetera, are substandard.
Let me briefly comment on a point that Ambassador Lord
touched on. There is a connection between economic development
and political change, but it is not automatic. east Asia is a
rare region of the world. It is the only region that I am aware
of where, after 40 years of rapid economic development, without
exception, authoritarian governments have given way to
representative governments.
In three out of the four cases that I can cite, it was a
violent transition. I was in Indonesia as Ambassador when that
occurred. In only one instance, the economy of Taiwan, where
Chiang Ching-kuo, the leader, prepared for the transition, it
was smooth, so smooth that most Americans barely noticed what
took place.
In South Korea, in Taiwan, in Thailand, and in Indonesia,
political change took place on the back of sustained economic
development. Two additional factors, however, are important.
They were open to the outside world. These were not closed
societies. Second, their economies were imbedded in the global
economy.
So I do not take the position that if China continues
economic development it will automatically move to a democratic
government. But based on the examples in east Asia, I would
rather bet that those pressures are going to become
overwhelming in China than bet on the reverse, as long as China
remains open and as long as the economy remains imbedded in the
global economy.
So I don't think that we should argue that economic
development is irrelevant to political change because political
change to democratic systems of government rests on the
emergence of middle classes. Indonesia had democratic elections
in 1955. It lasted two years, and they went back to guided
democracy, which was authoritarian rule.
When democratic elections again occurred in 1999, Indonesia
has, for over 12 years now, sustained a democratic system of
government, and that is on the back of the middle classes. It
was the students of the middle classes that were the moving
force in the demonstrations that eventually resulted in
President Suharto stepping down from power. So I think we need
to look at concrete examples and not simply look at this in
terms of theory.
Ambassador Lord. Could I add to that?
Chairman Brown. Sure.
Ambassador Lord. I was going to make the same points in the
sense that I think there are universal aspirations for freedom,
and we've seen that in a Chinese society like Taiwan. I think
the phenomenon there will come to China. I think your point is
well taken. The view that in the short term economic reforms
and progress are going to lead to democracy are too optimistic.
I do think there are positive elements at work. The Chinese
middle class has not yet reached the point that South Korea,
Taiwan, and Chile and some of the others did, but Beijing is
getting to a point now where it is going to have to go change
the economic policy since Deng. The Chinese are at an
inflection point.
They're going to need innovation, they're going to need
energy, they're going to need entrepreneurship, they're going
to need a more pluralistic society. So I think in their own
self-interest there's going to be forces at work for a freer
system, along with whatever we can do to encourage this trend.
Above all social media should promote this process.
So what I'm saying is, the decades of economic progress and
reforms have not brought about immediate success, but I think
over the long run they will have the impact that Ambassador Roy
has said.
Chairman Brown. Thank you. Let me ask one more question and
I'll turn it over to Congressman Walz and Congressman Meadows.
You said we may have been too optimistic. We were too
optimistic, as we were told by people in this country lobbying
for PNTR that we should be optimistic that something would
happen faster, but I guess that's kind of the way it is.
One more question. PNTR provided an opportunity, for want
of a better word. This perhaps was happening elsewhere, but it
is so accelerated with China. For a U.S. business to begin to
come up with a whole new business plan, if you will, across
many, many industries, that was the incentives of PNTR--again,
if that's the right word, the incentives of PNTR encouraged
U.S. companies to do something that I don't know in world
economic history that businesses have ever kind of followed
this business plan, and that is to shut down production in
Steubenville or Cleveland, Ohio, and move production to Xian or
Wuhan, China, get a tax break for it--that's a whole other U.S.
Tax Code issue--but then sell the products back into the home
country.
I guess I'm not asking for a comment on that as much as
just a recognition that that's partly what PNTR did, and when
you talk about what it has meant to the U.S. economy, it has
surely meant that, that companies--I've heard a major company
in my State who lobbied hard for PNTR, after it passed he told
me he had to move production to China because those are the
rules and my competitors have done that.
So it opened up something different and you can't exactly
blame the companies that made those decisions to move and then
sell production back here, except those were the same companies
that were lobbying me and others in both Houses for PNTR. But
that's more a comment than a question.
Mr. Walz?
Representative Walz. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you both. It is so refreshing to hear the rejection of the
simplistic look at things and to get at the heart of this
because we do have to figure this out. We do have to understand
and I do feel a sense of responsibility, asking those concrete
things we need to do. I would say for both of you, but
Ambassador Lord, your opening statement and call to action, my
only hope would be that all of my colleagues could hear that.
I think it was eloquent, it was on point, and it cut
through that. I think your point about it here is, we can't
agree it's Tuesday in this body. It's very difficult to talk
about basic universal human rights and what we can do on a
global economic scale on the very important issues that the
Senator brought up.
One thing I'd like to ask Ambassador Roy, something you
mentioned and I am interested in, you're hearing a change in
the language, you said. You're hearing a change for the first
time of a recognition of that, probably, as we think, most of
us, predicated on this growing--I think this growing belief
that as the middle class grows there's going to be this force
for change in things that are happening. But what can you
attest now? Why at this point do you think you're hearing it
when you didn't hear it before in the language on power and the
need to have that balance?
Ambassador Roy. That's an excellent question, and I've been
thinking about it. The fact is that China is not simply
changing economically because of its rapid development; the
nature of society is changing. We now have over three decades
of large numbers of Chinese going abroad. The Chinese middle
class can now get passports easily, and tourism in east Asia
and elsewhere, in Europe, for example, is becoming a big thing.
So the Chinese now don't simply judge their circumstances
in terms of their domestic environment; they also are familiar
with the situation elsewhere. Everywhere that middle class
Chinese go in east Asia, almost without exception, middle
classes have the right to vote in democratic elections.
You have several political systems in greater China. You
have a democratic system run by Chinese in Taiwan. You have a
mixed system in Hong Kong and Macau, where half of the
Legislative Council is freely elected and half represents
constituencies. You could say it's a more controlled process,
but in both cases there's more democratic freedom in the way
that those elections are handled than in the method used in
China to select their leaders.
There are additional changes that are taking place in
China. For example, name another authoritarian system in the
world in which the leaders change every 10 years, and where
their successors are always younger than they are. In China,
the successor has to be under 60, because 70 is the age cutoff.
This is one of the merits of democratic systems of government,
in that to change policies you often need to change leaders.
Well, we have the first generation of leaders in China now,
and not all the signals are positive, who spent most of their
adult lives under conditions of reform and openness as opposed
to under conditions of cultural revolution and the earlier
Maoist policies.
Representative Walz. I'm fascinated by this because I see
this--you mentioned something and you said never in your
diplomatic career had you seen such a misnomer of the reality.
I would argue--and this is more due to the fact of lack of
information--that in the mid-1980s, and many of you would have
this, the misinformation about us going this way.
I would say in many cases, especially amongst the youths
enamored with the West for all of the right reasons but for all
of the wrong reasons, I see the movement back to a very strong
sense of nationalism that is coming back. So it used to be when
you emigrated you were not coming back. Now there is no doubt
whatsoever there are. How does that play into it, this
resurgence of--and I know it's always been there. It is much
more latent. But there is, to me--maybe I am misreading this. I
see a strong resurgence of Chinese nationalism.
Ambassador Roy. There is a strong resurgence of Chinese
nationalism, but one of the really significant changes since
the period when Ambassador Lord was Ambassador in China, is
everywhere you go in China now, in the government structures,
in the universities, and in the business communities, you
encounter people who were educated in the United States or in
many cases in other countries. These people come back to China
because of nationalism and patriotism, but they bring with them
ideas that were not earlier part of the political dialogue in
China.
Now, I have not met a single Chinese who says the American
political system ought to be taken to China, but what they
notice is the tools that we have available to deal with our
inequities are so much stronger because we have a free press
and an independent judiciary.
So the pressures in China to try to get a judiciary that is
not simply under the thumb of the Party are growing stronger,
and some of that is reflected in the language that I included
in my opening statement where they're beginning to talk about
an independent and impartial judicial process. That's not
accidental when that language gets in there.
Representative Walz. So you think it starts to move. I
would ask Ambassador Lord to follow up.
Ambassador Lord. Let me comment on this.
Representative Walz. Yes.
Ambassador Lord. Let me preface this by again reiterating
my respect for Ambassador Roy. On basic policy toward China, we
agree what we ought to be doing. I tend to put more emphasis on
human rights than he does, but on that, reasonable people can
disagree.
I agree with some of his hopeful trends, including Chinese
exposure to foreign influences. By the way, the Chinese
citizens spend more money abroad than any other country. Their
students abroad are coming back. All these are hopeful trends.
But with due respect to my colleague, I look at the current
scene much differently than he does. I think actions speak
louder than words. This talk about rule of law and checks and
balances--it's just not happening. I would refer you to my
opening statement of what is happening.
So the Chinese can dress it up with some nice language, and
occasionally here and there they do make some nominal changes
in their judicial system. But the fact is, whether it's
censorship, whether it's locking people up, whether it's
treatment of minorities, it's getting worse. In some respects
it's worse than when I was ambassador in the late 1980s.
So I, frankly, don't put much stock in what's in these
documents unless the words are carried out. And they're not
carried out. The rule of law is not there. Freedom of the
press, checks and balances, none of this is happening in any
meaningful way.
Representative Walz. Is this a case of--I often fall into
this trap--thinking in terms of American time compression, that
I want to see change by this afternoon, which I know the irony
of that, being in Congress, is not missing on anyone.
My point, though, is my Chinese students, high school kids,
would make the comment that in 75 years or 100 years I fully
expect these things to happen here. Is it a perception of how
long this is going to take? Is it happening, but it's happening
at a pace that is frustrating to us but is Chinese in nature?
Ambassador Roy. Let me comment on that.
Representative Walz. Okay.
Ambassador Roy. You used the term ``time compression.''
Representative Walz. Yes.
Ambassador Roy. The term that I use is proving that grass
doesn't grow. You can easily prove that grass doesn't grow.
Take a chair, go out into your yard, and sit for several hours
watching the grass. You have confirmation that grass isn't
growing. But you wait a week, and you have confirmation that it
is growing.
Representative Walz. We do that in Minnesota, by the way.
Ambassador Roy. In other words----
Representative Walz. Yes.
Ambassador Roy [continuing]. Ambassador Lord is asking for
changes in a time frame that is unrealistic in terms of the way
other societies have developed. That is why I mentioned that it
takes 40 years of rapid economic development, not 40 weeks or
40 months. So it is too early to expect the types of changes
that Ambassador Lord feels should be taking place in China.
But what I am trying to emphasize is that changes are
taking place. They're thinking about the issues differently.
The word ``democracy'' has become much more important in terms
of the domestic dialogue in China, and they're actually
beginning, in Communist Party elections, to have multiple
candidates for single positions. It's still in a very
restricted frame, but the possibility of change is there.
Ambassador Lord. I have to rejoin on that. A lot of things
can be true at the same time. China is so complex, it's moving
so quickly, it's so big. I agree with some of these hopeful
trends but I stand by my position that during the last few
years China is going backward in key areas.
I'm not saying this will happen overnight, but I do think
there are positive steps, as I said, that are in Chinese self-
interest that could develop more quickly, I would hope.
Some tend to equate democracy with free elections. Now,
there's a big case to be made that you'd better build up civil
society before you have those elections. You have seen what's
been happening around the world. Democracy isn't just
elections--it's freedom of the press, which can get at
corruption, which is a key issue for China. It is the role of
an independent judiciary and fair courts so you're not guilty
until proven innocent.
Moreover, civil society and non-governmental organizations
must be built up, all of which are suffering now. The
censorship is worse than ever. And by the way, watch Hong Kong.
They're going to have some problems there.
So I do agree there are some hopeful trends. I do agree you
can't expect the lawn to sprout overnight. But I do not agree
with the assessment of where they are right now. I think they
are going backward in some areas, as well as going forward in
others. I think in their own self-interest they can move in
some of these areas.
Representative Walz. Thank you.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Congressman Walz.
In the mid-1970s, Zhou Enlai reportedly was asked what he
thought of the French Revolution, and he said it was too early
to tell.
[Laughter].
Representative Walz. That really happened? All right. Yes.
Chairman Brown. Congressman Meadows? Actually, you may have
taken notes but I suggested the line to you.
[Laughter].
Ambassador Roy. Mr. Chairman, I hate to correct the record,
but Zhou Enlai was referring to the student revolution in
France in 1968.
Chairman Brown. Oh, he's trying to ruin a good story here.
[Laughter].
Ambassador Roy. Sorry. Sorry.
Chairman Brown. That record is not correct. Sorry.
Congressman Meadows?
Representative Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank
each of you for your testimony. I must confess, I'm here very
perplexed to see the different dynamics of two very
distinguished and very accomplished diplomats disagreeing on
some of these issues.
I guess, Ambassador Roy, let me start with you. Are you
suggesting that, with another 15 years, that this 40-year
window will magically be met and that we will see human rights
abuses happen? I don't think you're suggesting that.
Ambassador Roy. No, I'm not suggesting that at all. But let
me reverse the question, if you will.
Representative Meadows. I get to ask the questions, you get
to give me answers.
[Laughter].
Ambassador Roy. Okay. Here's my answer: China is growing at
a 7-percent-plus rate.
Representative Meadows. Right.
Ambassador Roy. The standard of living is rising. Chinese
are getting a lot of access to the outside world. A change in
China's leadership will take place in 2022, when a new
generation of people who were born and grew up under conditions
of reform and openness and with ready access to the outside
world will take charge.
Do you expect that new generation of leaders to have the
same attitudes as the leaders who grew up under revolution and
the Maoist policies from 1949 until 1979?
Representative Meadows. One would hope not.
Ambassador Roy. I would go beyond that.
Representative Meadows. Yes.
Ambassador Roy. I would say it defies imagination to think
that people with that different perspective on the world will
address the types of problems generated by change in the way
that their predecessors would have.
So if you look at China's leadership changes, the
generation that was in power when Ambassador Lord was
ambassador there were Soviet educated during the 1950s. The
next generation that came in had no opportunity for education
outside of China because they grew up during the Cultural
Revolution.
We now have the first generation that has had the
opportunity to travel abroad in their formative years, and in
2022 we will get a new set of leaders whose only experience is
of a China that has been largely open to the outside world. So
I'm not saying there's any automatic process in terms of how
China will change: That you wait 40 years, look at your watch,
and they suddenly embrace democracy.
But I am saying that the pressures in China to open up the
political system and to learn from the best features of the
societies that Chinese now have ready access to will alter the
way that China looks at the question of political reform.
Representative Meadows. Fair enough. But let me ask you
this.
Ambassador Lord. Could I comment? I'm sorry to interrupt.
Representative Meadows. Sure.
Ambassador Lord. This is a very important topic. To sum up
our joint positions, I think we both see a lot of hopeful
trends. We both think this is going to lead someday to a much
more open China, and we agree it's going to have to come
primarily from within, from the Chinese people and also out of
their self-interest, as well as from universal values and the
impact of other trends.
Where we disagree, frankly, is the picture of the scene
today, which I think is very gloomy. I think Xi so far, and the
leadership, is tightening up. So even if these long-term trends
work out in a more hopeful way, I just disagree on where we are
today. I think it is a very grim situation. I indicated in my
opening statement why I think so.
Representative Meadows. I have been in hearings, both in
this commission and on Foreign Affairs where we have seen very
disturbing trends. In this commission we've talked about the
freedom of the press and the fact that that is not a common
occurrence necessarily, regardless of where the trend may lead.
It's very troubling because that message of freedom does not
get out if there is not a freedom of the press, or of the
Internet, or bypassing firewalls, et cetera. So that trend is
very troubling.
I have been in Foreign Affairs Committee hearings where
I've had girls who can't see their fathers that brought tears
to my eyes when you start to hear the disturbing human rights
abuses. If the very existence of this commission is one to help
augment, support, and encourage human rights and those values
that we all hold dear, how then--and my question to both of you
is this--do we best incentivize, recognizing that--I think,
Ambassador Lord, you said my friends in China, recognizing that
your Chinese friends.
Ambassador Roy, I think you would say the same thing. How
do we recognize the sovereignty of a country and recognize the
relationship thereof, but also support human rights and where
there is not the violations that we see every day? How do we
best do that with either incentives or punishment that is out
there and available to us? Either one of you can comment.
Ambassador Lord. There are various tools, and I did mention
some in my opening statement, always recognizing the fact that
the regime in China puts its own preservation, the political
party as number one priority. By the way, whenever they talk
about political reform the most they're talking about is reform
within the Party, not a multi-party system.
But I think we can continue through our private efforts and
our public stances. I think we should pursue exchanges, for
example, on the rule of law and the environment, some of these
``safer'' subjects which promote a more pluralistic society. We
should encourage the most Chinese visitors and young future
leaders we can get over here. We have to work on all these
fronts, but recognize ultimately freedom will come from the
kind of forces that both of us have been pointing to, from the
Chinese people themselves, and from the Chinese leaders
eventually realizing it's in their self-interest.
For example, I don't know how long China can go on
censoring in the age of information and yet progress with its
economy. I don't know how long you can have political stability
if people can't go to the courts or they can't go to the free
press and they have to go to the streets. I don't know how
Beijing thinks it's going to get Taiwan to get close to China
when there are these contrasting political systems.
So I think there are forces at work, and not just for
elections, as I said. Someday the Chinese must see that the
rule of law and a free press and independent courts are needed
to promote some of their own concrete interests, economic and
political.
Representative Meadows. And I am out of time. But with the
patience and indulgence of the Chair, I'll let you answer,
Ambassador Roy.
Ambassador Roy. I will answer briefly. Ambassador Lord
makes very important points. I hope you do not think that I am
trying to gild the lily on conditions in China. That is not my
purpose. But I served three-and-a-half years in the Soviet
Union at the height of the Cold War, and for three-and-a-half
years I saw only negative aspects of my country presented to
the Soviet people.
It was a totally distorted picture, and yet most of the
information presented to them was accurate. We do have problems
in the United States, we do have police brutality affecting
ethnic minorities, et cetera.
But this was the only picture presented of the United
States, and it was a completely unbalanced picture. I think it
is wrong to only focus on the fact that China's institutions
and its political system have not yet been modernized. In my
judgment, modern political systems are all based on the concept
that power corrupts and it must be checked and balanced.
So China, in a sense, has a pre-modern political system.
They're trying to modernize the country. The more they succeed
in modernizing the country without modernizing the political
system, the worse the internal contradictions in China are
going to become because modern societies--look around the
world--modern societies, by and large, have political systems
based on the concept of checking and balancing abuses of power
by governments.
So I think that's the trend that is going to happen, but it
takes, unfortunately, in some cases generations to produce
these changes, or let's say decades. I would share Ambassador
Lord's desire that it take place tomorrow or the next day, but
I don't know any societies that develop that way.
Look at U.S. history. How long did it take us to deal with
slavery? We couldn't solve it through the political process. We
had to fight a civil war. Then it took us 100 years to deal
with the problem of the civil rights of our black minority. So
in other words, could foreign intervention have caused us to
shorten that to a decade or two? No. We had to change the
nature of our society, we had to change our attitudes on these
questions.
Look at the issue of votes for women. It took 50 years of
suffragette struggle before we were even prepared to recognize
that women had the right to vote. You don't produce those
changes overnight, and in China the concerns have been
stability, clothing, housing, a full stomach. They now have
those things, and it's not enough for middle classes.
Middle classes are usually property owning. They don't like
political systems that can arbitrarily dispose of their
property without having some say in it. So it's not accidental
that democracies worldwide are based basically on middle
classes. Those middle classes are emerging faster in China than
they have anywhere else in the world in a more compressed
timeframe.
So I simply say, let's watch the odds. But it is important
that China stay open to the outside world because these are the
forces that are causing the middle classes of China to think
differently about the way that China ought to be ruled.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Ambassador Roy, and thank you,
Ambassador Lord, very much for joining us. We all really
appreciate your involvement.
I'd like to call up the second panel. Liane Lee lives in
Cleveland, Ohio, and was part of a delegation from the Hong
Kong Federation of Students who twice traveled to Tiananmen
Square in 1989, providing tents and medical supplies to the
student movement. She witnessed the military crackdown. She was
rescued by local citizens leaving Beijing on an evacuation
flight sent from Hong Kong on June 5, 1989. Ms. Lee, if you
would join us.
Dr. Rowena He is a lecturer at Harvard, where she teaches a
popular seminar on the 1989 Tiananmen movement and its
aftermath. Her research interests focus on political
socialization, citizenship education, human rights, and
democratization in China. She released her book last month
titled, ``Tiananmen Exiles: Voices in the Struggle for
Democracy in China.'' Her writings have appeared in the Wall
Street Journal and the Washington Post. Welcome, Dr. He.
Professor Jeffery Wasserstrom is the Chancellor's Professor
of History at the University of California-Irvine, whose
president is leaving to come to Ohio State University in about
a month, where he also holds a courtesy appointment in the law
school and serves as editor of the Journal of Asian Studies. He
is the author of four books, co-author of six other books.
Thanks to all three of you for joining us.
Ms. Lee, if you would begin your five-minute statement.
Thank you.
STATEMENT OF LIANE LEE, EYEWITNESS TO JUNE 4TH EVENTS AS PART
OF HONG KONG FEDERATION OF STUDENTS DELEGATION
Ms. Lee. Over the years, as an eyewitness of the June 4
crackdown, I have been confronted by many Chinese who chose to
believe the version of history distorted by the Chinese
Government. They accused me of being a liar. Today, persistent
for 25 years, I have to tell what I witnessed. I don't have a
choice, because I was protected to leave the Tiananmen Square.
It was after 10:30 p.m. on June 3, we three Hong Kong
students were in the students headquarter close to the
monument. An urgent broadcast from a student's radio burst in.
A young boy cried ``It is for real; real killings, fellow
students! They shot at us! Opened fire at peaceful people with
machine guns. Held in my hand is the a blood-stained shirt of
my classmate. What are we going to do now? ''
Immediately, some students voluntarily formed a group to
continue to block soldiers. We Hong Kong students decided to
join them. When we arrived at the National History Museum, a
league of soldiers, hundreds of them with machine guns, came
out from the subway. We, about 50 of us, students, workers, and
citizens formed a human wall to confront them calmly and
peacefully.
When time came to midnight, that's in the early morning of
June 4, horrible military signals fired up across the sky.
Within minutes, we heard shootings from far away. Some young
workers started to pick up sticks and rocks to protect
students. But students told them to put down their weapons. One
of them said ``Peaceful protest. No weapons allowed or you
knock me down first.'' An old worker came up with heavy tears
and talked to young workers, ``Listen to the students. We have
to be peaceful.''
After another round of shooting, badly injured people were
carried from behind the building to a first aid station nearby.
One of them, a college student, the back of his neck was shot.
His body was paralyzed. But he was still shouting, ``Don't give
up, don't give up.'' Since the troops in front of us hadn't
taking any action yet, I got some courage and crossed the
warning line to talk to a high ranking officer. I said to him
``I am a Hong Kong student. We are just doing petition here
peacefully. Please do not hurt the students, they are all your
children, the future of China.'' The officer looked at me
coldly like a piece of stone, but tears were welling in his
eyes. I broke down and knelt before him to cry. Then, fellow
Hong Kong students dragged me back to where we were.
It's about one hour past midnight, intensive gun shootings
were approaching, we could hear people screaming somewhere. A
group of people carried more bloodied bodies to the first aid
station. Along with them was a little boy, holding a rock in
his hand, hysterically running toward the soldiers in front of
us. I held him back with all my strength in my arm. He cried
``They killed my brother. I'm going to fight until I die.'' I
wouldn't let go, then he lay his head on my shoulder and cried
like an old man in despair! Then, an loud siren ambulance was
leaving. The boy got loose of my arms, chasing after the
ambulance and crying ``brother, my brother'' and then
disappeared at the end of the street. Later, I was told, this
boy's body, covered with blood, was carried back to the first
aid station.
I felt so sick! I didn't think I was able to sustain myself
any more. So people took me to the first aid station. When I
recovered, an ambulance arrived. People shouted, ``Hong Kong
students get in the ambulance first.'' Of course I refused. ``I
am fine. Please help the injured first,'' I said. Not long
after, another ambulance arrived. Again, people, many of them,
shouted ``Hong Kong students get in the ambulance first.'' I
strongly refused. Then, a female doctor held my hand, looked
into my eyes, and said to me ``My child, please get in the
ambulance, you must leave the Square safely. You must go back
to Hong Kong. We need you to tell the world what happened here.
What our government did to us tonight! ''
Today, I am here to tell the world, not mainly about the
brutal military crackdown, rather, I want you all to remember
the people. They are good people. They believe in the power of
peace, they believe in hope, they believe in the virtue of
human nature, and they even believed in their government.
For those good people I met in the Square, I do really want
to know their name. But I can only remember their noble faces.
Do they have a name? In China, their only name is given by the
Chinese Government! They call them mobs, in the name of China!
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Ms. Lee, very much.
Dr. He?
STATEMENT OF ROWENA HE, LECTURER, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Ms. He. Thanks so much, Liane, for the moving testimony.
``To tell the world what our government did to us'' that night
has been a cross that many of us have been carrying ever since
that night when we were violently silenced. I told Liane's
story every time I took my students to the Tiananmen Archive at
the Harvard Yenching Library. The Archive contains 28 boxes of
artifacts from the 1989 Tiananmen movement, including a pair of
pants stained with blood.
The pants were kept in an old dusty plastic bag. All of
those boxes have been collecting dust for the past quarter
century. They should be kept in a national museum in China,
like the one where Liane was on June 3, 1989, but instead they
are kept in a basement. The pants came with a note, a
handwritten note, explaining that the blood was from a graduate
student of Beijing University who was shot at Muxidi.
My students often asked if the wounded student survived. I
don't know. I only know that the person who smuggled the pants
out ran a great risk hoping that sometime, somewhere, someone
would take this seriously and to get to know the stories behind
the pants so that Chinese people's blood would not be shed in
vain.
On the surface, Tiananmen seems to be remote and irrelevant
to the reality of the ``rising China,'' but every year on its
anniversary, the government clamps down with intense security
and meticulous surveillance. The recent detention of scholars
and rights defenders is just another reminder that Tiananmen
did not end in 1989.
A quarter century later, the Tiananmen Mothers are still
prohibited from openly mourning their family members, exiles
are still turned away when they try to return home to visit a
sick parent or to attend a loved one's funeral, and scholars
working on the topic are regularly denied visas. Even today the
number of deaths and injuries on that fateful night remains
unknown. But we now know that at least 200,000 soldiers
participated in the lethal action. While memory can be
manipulated and voices can be silenced by those in power,
repression of memory and history is accompanied by political,
social, and psychological distortions. Indeed, it is not
possible to understand today's China and its relationship with
the world without understanding the spring of 1989.
In 2011, China's state-sponsored English newspaper China
Daily published a story headlined ``Tiananmen Massacre a
Myth.'' Citing the release of WikiLeaks diplomatic cables
indicating that there was no bloodshed in the square itself,
the article claimed that ``Tiananmen remains the classic
example of the shallowness and bias in most Western media
reporting, and of governmental black information operations
seeking to control those media. China is too important to be a
victim of this nonsense.''
While there is nothing extraordinary here--this has been
the official version from the start. The state-sponsored myth
is poignantly challenged by the victim list collected by
Professor Ding Zilin, representative of the Tiananmen Mothers,
who lost her teenaged son during the massacre. Despite
escalating government repression, Ding has been carrying out a
one-woman campaign to collect information about the victims.
Ding's list clearly documented the deaths of students
killed in Tiananmen Square, among them, Cheng Renxing, a
graduate of the People's University of China. Cheng, age 25,
was shot and killed by the flag pole in Tiananmen Square while
withdrawing with other students in the morning of June 4.
Cheng's father, a farmer from Hubei province, was devastated
and died in 1995. Cheng's mother tried to hang herself at home
but was saved by her 10-year-old grandson, who used his little
body to hold up his grandmother for an hour until the adults
came for rescue.
But whether people were killed in the square itself is not,
in any case, the central question. Maps created based on
information provided by the Tiananmen Mothers, that pinpoint
the locations of documented killings and of hospitals where
victims died, show that state violence was widespread across
central Beijing.
Through Ding's list, we got to know victims such as Xiao
Bo, a Beijing University lecturer, who was killed on his 27th
birthday, leaving behind twin sons who were born just 70 days
before he died.
The victims' list is not arranged alphabetically but by the
date when information about a victim came to light. For
example, according to Ding's account, the authorities told
Xiao's wife to remain silent about her husband's death--
otherwise they would not allow her to stay in their campus
housing. This young mother felt that she could not afford to be
homeless with her babies, so she was invisible until Ding
eventually reached her in 1993 and added her husband as number
008 on the list.
Ding's work has truly been a mission impossible, with no
end in sight--the total of 16 names that she had collected by
1993 had grown to 202 by 2013, and it is still far from
complete. The true number is buried under years of coverup,
deception, suppression, and repression.
The fear created by the massacre is illustrated by a story
told by Professor Cui Weiping, Chinese translator of Vaclav
Havel's work. After the elder son of one family was killed, his
sister had two boyfriends, each of whom broke up with her after
learning about her brother. The sister and the mother decided
that she would not mention her brother again to whomever she
planned to date. Now she is married with a daughter, and her
husband still has no idea about the death or even the existence
of his brother-in-law.
In 2013, a few days before the Tiananmen anniversary, a
Tiananmen father, Ya Weilin, hanged himself in an empty parking
lot in Beijing. I had watched him in the video, he looked sad
but determined. Did he give up hope, or did he think he had
nothing but his own life to remind us about the massacre? We
don't know. But we know that this is not just about then, but
also about now; not just about them, but about us. If we can
watch such a tragic event with folded arms, it reflects who we
are as human beings and world citizens.
When the world's criteria for a great country are
downgraded to one exclusively about GDP [gross domestic
product], when world citizens bow to a regime that enforces
false values because of its wealth, we have abandoned our
values and downgraded our own institutions--we also become
victims of the Tiananmen crackdown.
Tiananmen can remind us of repression, but it also
symbolizes people's power and human spirit. As the desire for
freedom is deeply human and human beings' longing for basic
rights is universal, history will witness the Tiananmen spirit,
as the power of the powerless, again and again. History is on
our side. China has to face its past in order to have a future.
Thank you.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Dr. He, very much.
Professor Wasserstrom?
STATEMENT OF JEFFERY WASSERSTROM, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-
IRVINE
Mr. Wasserstrom. I want to thank the Cochairs and members
of the commission for inviting me to speak, and I hope that I
can show that it is valuable to have a historian's view here
along with those of other kinds of experts and these powerful
eyewitness accounts.
In a 1990 interview with Barbara Walters, Communist Party
Leader Jiang Zemin made a startling comment. Asking about the
previous year's protests and the Beijing massacre that cost so
many people their lives, he said the best term for all of this
was ``much ado about nothing.''
In this sweeping rhetorical gesture he dismissed as
unimportant the massive rallies for change that had swept
through Chinese cities, scores of them, and the suffering of
the workers, students, and others who were shot in Beijing and
also in Chengdu, where a second massacre occurred that is
discussed well in Louisa Lim's important new book, ``The
People's Republic of Amnesia.''
Jiang's comment implied that it was also unimportant that
after the massacres the government jailed activists and
launched an
intensive propaganda campaign to convince a justly skeptical
population that a home-grown, non-violent popular movement had
actually been a ``counter-revolutionary riot spearheaded by
troublemakers backed by foreign powers.''
Jiang's ``much ado about nothing'' comment is deeply
objectionable. It belittles the bravery of those who demanded
an end to corruption and an increase in personal and political
freedoms. It belittles their patriotism as well. This is a
crucial point, as a key theme of the protests was that a
beloved country deserved to be governed by better people.
Jiang's comment also misleadingly implied that China's
leaders were not worried by the protests. They were. This had a
lot to do with history. Via their slogans and writings, 1989's
students put forward a view of the past and its ties to the
present that differed radically from the stories Deng Xiaoping
and his allies told to legitimate their rule. Workers and
others joined students on the streets in massive numbers, in
part because they found this alternative view of history
compelling.
The Party prided itself, for example, on claiming that
corruption was a thing of the pre-1949 past of Chiang Kai-shek,
but 1989's protesters countered that corruption and nepotism
continued to plague China, as many protesters continue to claim
now.
The Party bragged that it embodied the patriotic values of
1919's May 4th Movement, a student-led heroic struggle
celebrated in Chinese schoolbooks much as the Boston Tea Party
is in ours, though there, as here, people fight over who can
claim the mantle of that heroic event.
1989's protesters countered that they, not the government,
had the best right to speak in the name of that hallowed
historic spirit. Whereas Deng and company argued that those
taking to the streets were like the Red Guards and threatened
to send China hurtling back to the chaos of Mao's final years
that no one wanted to return to, the protesters pointed to
things Deng was doing that brought to mind Mao's dangerous
late-in-life actions.
It is also clear that China's current leaders do not really
think 1989 was ``much ado about nothing.'' The Party has long
since abandoned its strategy of talking a lot about 1989 and
trying to distort its meaning, but it still devotes great
energy to imposing on the populace what Lim and others aptly
call a state of amnesia about the year.
Many recent official actions can be best understood as
motivated in part by a desire to minimize the chances of facing
another 1989. For example, without acknowledging doing this, of
course, China's leaders have given today's students certain
things that 1989's predecessors of these students clamored for,
such as more freedom in private life, choosing who they can
date, what kind of music they can listen to, and many other
things that we take for granted. These are not enough. There
are many things that 1989's students wanted that they have not
gotten on the political front, but it is important to remember
small victories even amidst defeat.
The government has also done many things since 1989
relating to protests that are colored by a desire to not have
to deal with 1989 again. The government now deals harshly with
outbursts that show: (A) any degree of organization; (B) link
up people of different social groups; and (C) connect people in
different locales. These were all key features of the 1989
struggle, as well as of Poland's contemporaneous Solidarity
struggle.
When protests with none of these characteristics occur, the
government now is sometimes willing to compromise with
protesters or take moderate steps to end protests. But when
one, two, or especially all three of the factors just mentioned
come into play, the response is swift and can be brutal.
I am happy to answer questions not just about what I've had
time to say, but also about how the grievances behind, and
methods of, today's protests have changed since 1989 and I am
happy also to reflect on some of the issues you've raised with
the two ambassadors.
All I hope to have shown in this brief statement is that
far from being ``much ado about nothing,'' 1989's events were
something much more, and that we can't fully appreciate 1989's
significance or China's complex current situation without
paying attention to that history.
Thank you.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Professor Wasserstrom.
Ms. Lee, thank you for your moving testimony and your
courage and your being an eyewitness to history. How have
witnesses and participants kept alive the memory of the 1989
demonstrations? How have you done that, and others whom I'm
sure you're in touch with in some cases? What does Tiananmen
mean to them 25 years later?
Ms. Lee. It's hard; really, really hard. I do really want
to forget it, but they pushed me into the ambulance and they
told me, you know, to tell the world. So every year in Toronto,
in Hong Kong, everywhere, whenever I was interviewed by
reporters and do the testimony at every event, and I would
force myself to tell what I saw and what I experienced.
Every time I have to dig into the details, remembering it
and imprinted in my mind. Twenty years later, maybe, I do
really believe that--maybe it's already been long enough for me
to be detached from the painful memory--but every time it is
pretty emotional because I couldn't really forget, you know,
the people there. It's not just a political crackdown, it's the
contrast. There's a big contrast between people and the
government. People, they are so peaceful, they are so noble,
and they do believe in the power of peace.
The government, you know, who used heavy weapons to kill
their people--to kill--you know, there were grandpas, grandmas,
fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and kids. Just me--you
know, from what I saw that night, I mentioned several kids.
Yes. Thank you.
Chairman Brown. Thank you. There are few people who many of
us meet who have seen and survived such a brutal event, so your
talking about it is helpful to us and I think to so many with
whom you come into contact. Thank you.
Dr. He and Professor Wasserstrom, this commission sort of
struggles with what we talk about, the light we try to shine on
human rights abuses. We sometimes think, does it undercut the
safety of people whom we talk about sometimes? Does it help the
situation? Does it shine lights on other parts of Chinese
society? Is it a bunch of Americans preaching to another
country and to the people of that other country what they
should do differently? It's perhaps all those things.
Both of you, if you would--I would start with you, Dr. He.
Give us your view in the historical context, what is the most
important way that we should be talking about human rights and
encouraging people with the courage of Ms. Lee to stand up and
combat some of these issues of human rights abuse?
Ms. He. I think very often when we talk about Tiananmen,
people think that's something political, but Tiananmen is not
just about politics. It is also about human beings. The
personal is connected with the political, the social, and the
historical. Let's not talk about abstract ideas--about whether
China should have human rights, whether we want democracy. Just
ask some simple questions: Should the Tiananmen Mothers have
justice for their family members?
The fact that Liane and I are speaking our second language
in this foreign land, telling the world what happened in our
country while those voices about this central event in
contemporary Chinese history are not allowed--it is strictly
taboo in China, is already telling.
What are the implications for China and the world when
history and memory are forbidden, erased, and twisted; when
people who speak truth to power are exiled from their home,
from their land, from their people?
To get back to your question about how that affected the
Chinese society, the moment the government ordered its army to
fire on its people in the name of national pride and economic
development, it sent the message that any principle can be
compromised to ``become rich'' and to accomplish ``the rise of
China.'' Such mentality has become the root of major social and
political problems in post-Tiananmen China.
Deng Xiaoping's clear signals to the Chinese people in the
1990s--make money any way you like but forget about all
unapproved politics, religion, and related matters--grew out of
the crisis of 1989. Deng's policies over the years have led to
a booming economy, higher average living standards, and a more
prominent place for China in the world, but have also
engendered enormous wealth inequality, massive corruption,
growing environmental problems, profound popular cynicism, an
erosion of public trust, massive expenditures on ``stability
maintenance,'' and new signs of belligerence on the
international stage.
Chairman Brown. Thank you.
Dr. Wasserstrom?
Mr. Wasserstrom. I think the more that we can frame the
desire for things that we want to have happen in China around
the ideals that the Chinese revolution was about and that the
Chinese Communist Party itself claims is central, the more
effective it's going to be. To say what we're calling on the
government to do, which is actually what the students in 1989
did, is to live up to their own professed ideals.
The more we can present it that way, the better--and China
now has a long tradition, a 100-year-long tradition, of
debating the place of what we think of as liberal rights within
China. It is not a new thing to call for a free press as a way
to modernize a country, it is not just something that comes
from outside. There are Chinese thinkers from 100 years ago who
are some of the ones, the founders, the Communist Party admired
who can be quoted. This is one of the ways that I think history
matters.
I think in other ways it is also important to be candid in
the way that Ambassador Roy was, to acknowledge the difficulty
of reaching some of these goals--the things we now take for
granted were achieved through struggle and effort within the
United States. They weren't things that were instantly arrived
at. That's not a reason to think that it will necessarily take
a very long time to achieve them in China, but rather to
suggest there's a value in talking about how these things can
be hard to achieve, but that countries can get there.
The Chinese Government now wants to be seen as a full
player in the international arena, and you can see some ways in
which it is modifying its system of rule to fit in there, but
other ways that it's not, and I think there is value in calling
on it to do more in that direction as well.
But also I think one point that Ambassador Lord made is
crucial. There are changes over time, moves in positive and
moves in negative directions. It seems too often that our
position seems to be that as long as China is ruled by a
Communist Party it will be flawed in exactly the same way, when
in fact it does change over time.
We need to be able to have a way of talking about human
rights that acknowledges shifts, so that when there is a
repressive turn, as I agree there has been recently, we can put
special pressure at that moment that doesn't just seem to be a
continual hectoring about things in a steady fashion. So we
need to have a sense of change over time.
I think things were moving in a slow, yet often positive,
direction, a two steps forward/one step back one, until about
2008. Since then, for various reasons, we keep waiting for
periods of tightening to be followed by periods of loosening.
It seems to be that there is this kind of consistent
tightening. We need to have a way of talking about that.
I think the main basis for hopefulness is that there are
some ways in which potential for change can come in--some of
the things that the Chinese Government has done since 1989 to
sort of reposition itself in a position to stay in power has
been to say, just leave us in charge and life will get better
and better in ways other than the political.
When it comes to daily life matters, for a time at least it
seemed that things were getting better, and many people felt
they had more opportunities than their parents had. Many people
in the late 1990s and early 2000s would have probably said in
China, if you asked them ``Do you think your life is better
than that of your parents' and do you think your children's
lives will be better than yours,'' many people would have said,
whatever they felt about political freedoms, that that was
probably a fair assessment of things.
I think that kind of bargain is fraying, in part because of
the increased worries over daily life concerns, food scares,
pollution, and things like that. So I think if change is going
to come from within, one possible way in which change can be--
and to some extent has been--restarted, has been a shift from
protesters saying, without changes we will not become a modern
country to saying we've now become a country that in many ways
is modern; without change though, modernity won't continue to
improve life but in fact is starting to damage some things.
It's not clear that our children will live a better life in
this country we love than we did.
Chairman Brown. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Wasserstrom.
Congressman Walz?
Representative Walz. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you all for
your testimony. I think we're getting at the heart of this
because this historical event, and obviously for Ms. Lee the
personal nature of it, and the Professor, but in the broader
context of what it means for us, what it means going forward. I
think there's been some very great points brought up.
My concern has always been that there are certain seminal
events that, if they are not addressed, will continue to fester
and will not allow some of that to happen. My belief was this
was one of those. I say that being very cautious of being in
the vicinity of it and of an age to kind of second-hand be
there, putting an over-emphasis on it because it was partially
me viewing it.
I'm very careful about that, but I think here watching this
I can hear it, I can still feel it. The thing that troubled me
most was how quickly--and I understand this from the history
perspective--of the fear of the Cultural Revolution and again
the disruptive nature of that.
People were so--I heard from people that shocked me in the
summer of 1989 that the students, while it was horrible, what
happened, and they were not denying it happened, they were
asking too much and brought some of it on themselves. For me,
it was most troubling on that because I watched this and saw
that this was a critical moment. It was pivotal in human
rights.
So my question is, this is not going to be commemorated at
the magnitude it probably should. I would ask the question,
what's going to happen up here in Washington other than in this
room on the 25th anniversary? Do either of you know? Do you
know what's going to happen, or how is this going to be viewed?
Because my belief is--and Professor, you may be able to speak
to this, as well as Ms. Lee. Again, do Americans know the
story? Do Americans know what happened on June 3 and June 4,
1989, in your opinion?
Ms. Lee. So have you seen the candlelight vigils every year
in Hong Kong at Victoria Park?
Representative Walz. Yes.
Ms. Lee. What do you think?
Representative Walz. Well, for me personally, I see it. But
I have to tell you, I taught American high school and college
students. They don't know this story. They don't know what's
happening, they don't know what's there. So my question is, if
this is a historical event, not to be remembered in the context
of it, we don't remember major historical events just for the
sake of remembering them.
The purpose of focusing on high school education, say on
the Holocaust, is to ensure that it doesn't happen again by
predicating what led up to it. So this issue, while talking
about the deaths or whatever, has never been discussed in this
broader nature. So my question is, is it our responsibility to
do more on that? Because I do not deny, and in Hong Kong--but
those protests or those commemorations aren't going to be
widely seen here, and they're certainly not going to be widely
seen, at least openly, in China. People know they're going on.
So my question to you is, what do we need to do? Because it
is about the personal, it is about remembering those names, it
is about remembering the people you saw, it is about
remembering the grandmother. It is important. But in a broader
scale, if we don't get this out there, I don't think we'll ever
heal from it. I don't think it ever goes forward.
Ms. He. Yes, of course. The Chinese society has been
carrying such an open unhealed wound for the past 25 years.
Citizens understand their responsibilities for a country's
future by debating the moral meaning of history. Because public
opinion pertaining to nationalism and democratization is
inseparable from a collective memory of the nation's most
immediate past, Tiananmen as a forbidden memory has profound
impact on the Chinese society today.
Representative Walz. Right.
Ms. He. One thing the regime learned is that they need to
make sure the younger generation does not repeat what the
students did in 1989. I often use the metaphor of locking the
doors and locking the mind. In 1989, the government locked all
the doors of major campuses to prevent students from taking to
the streets. But now, even though the doors are wide open,
students do not take to the streets to push for political
reform.
Representative Walz. What about 30-year-old and younger
Chinese?
Ms. He. You mean----
Representative Walz. Today. A 30-year-old living in----
Ms. He. The immediate effect of the military crackdown was
profound cynicism in Chinese society, compounded with
nationalism and materialism. These ``isms'' are consequences of
the 1989 crackdown. People would say even if you do something
you are not going to change anything. Why bother?
Also, immediately after the military crackdown, after the
mass arrests and purges, the government launched an elaborate
campaign to re-establish its legitimacy. A patriotic education
campaign was initiated.
Another thing is, in the post-1989 period, they implemented
this--education campaign. Textbooks for history and politics
were significantly revised to underscore the patriotic themes
and put great emphasis on China's historical victimhood at the
hands of the West and Japan. But major atrocities caused by the
Communist Party were not mentioned. Nationalism became
increasingly evident in popular discourse.
Democratic mechanism can happen overnight, but it takes a
generation to change people's minds. Without essential elements
such as free speech, a free press, and free access to
information, all of which students demanded in 1989, the
development of the forces of a nascent civil society in China
will continue to face many obstacles.
Representative Walz. None of those things can happen if we
don't talk about them.
Ms. He. There can be citizenship without democracy, but
there cannot be democracy without citizenship participation.
But the regime has been punishing those who are politically
active.
Mr. Wasserstrom. When you asked if Americans know about it,
I think one problem is that sometimes we remember it in a very
reduced form that strips it of some of its power and its
meaning. What is remembered is students in Beijing. There were
protests in scores of Chinese cities, very large crowds.
By the end of the movement there were many people other
than students who had followed the students onto the streets. I
think we forget that there were killings in places other than
Beijing. That's why I brought up the Chengdu massacre.
Also, I think we forget the themes that were involved in
this, including an effort to express patriotism. Now, when we
think of a complete difference, there's been a warping of
nationalism. It isn't that there wasn't patriotism in 1989.
I think the government, even though it uses nationalistic
protests, it tries to get people off the streets quite quickly
because it knows that it's a short step from saying look at how
other countries are behaving to let's talk about how our
country that we love could be better governed. So there are a
lot of things about it that there could be a richer
understanding.
Representative Walz. And patriotism and nationalism were
not synonymous.
Mr. Wasserstrom. Not synonymous, but they're connected.
Representative Walz. Yes. Fair enough.
Mr. Wasserstrom. And there are efforts to try to draw
attention to the events of 1989 beyond this room, including
something called the Tiananmen Initiative that some scholars
have started, one of whom, Steve Levine, was here earlier and
may still be here, that's available online and that is starting
open letters and also just keeping track of events being held
at campuses around the country to try to get to this.
Representative Walz. Good.
Mr. Wasserstrom. But this is a prime example of how we can
use things that the Chinese Government talks about and cares
about significantly itself. There's been a lot of attention
lately, including just now, to call on Japan to come to terms
with historical mistakes. I think to talk about this, let's
come to terms with historical mistakes. Let's have more
discussion in that same spirit, such as the Great Leap and
things such as these.
Chairman Brown. Thank you. Thank you, Professor. Thank you,
Mr. Walz.
Mr. Meadows?
Representative Meadows. I just want to thank each of you
for your testimony. Ms. Lee, thank you for your moving
testimony. Truly, voices like yours will not be drowned out,
not in 25 years, not in 50 years, if we continue to make sure
that the truth is known.
Thank you for putting this in context from a historical
perspective. I think it is critical for all of us to understand
that if we pay attention to the true story of what happened,
the magnitude as you were saying just a few minutes ago of what
happened, that hopefully we will be a free society that will
not repeat those things and that we will welcome our Chinese
brothers and sisters in a spirit of friendship, and really,
freedom.
To that end, I am committed to continuing to work for
Internet freedom, for the ability to make sure that when
firewalls are circumvented, that they stay circumvented where
we can truly have the Chinese people speaking for the Chinese
people and that that is not thwarted. I thank each of you.
There's really no questions.
Mr. Chairman, I will yield back to you. I thank you for
holding this hearing.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Congressman Meadows.
Thanks to all three of you for your passion and your
commitment to justice and your work on human rights,
particularly those of you that suffered doing it and all about
your country.
So thanks to all three of you. Anyone on the commission may
have written questions, if you would get the answers back to us
as quickly as possible. Certainly Congressman Meadows and
Congressman Walz and others can submit anything they want for
the record, too.
The Commission is adjourned. Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 5:20 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Prepared Statements
----------
Prepared Statement of Ambassador Winston Lord
may 20, 2014
Co-Chairmen, Members of the Commission:
I am honored to appear once again before this Committee. I am
inspired by your renewed commemoration of events that will be enshrined
in history. In the words of Lu Xun, ``Lies written in ink cannot
disguise facts written in blood.''
We gather at a melancholy time. The Chinese authorities continue to
distort and erase the Spring of 1989. They continue to withhold answers
from the mothers of the fallen. And they seem more determined than ever
to squash basic freedoms.
In five minutes I can only employ brush strokes to evoke the China
scene and the implications for American policy. Please bear in mind, as
I speak with the candor I use with my Chinese friends, that I have
worked to promote relations with China ever since the Kissinger secret
trip of 1971. I will continue to do so.
My three principal conclusions up front:
The political system in China is unjust and inhumane.
It is getting worse.
American efforts to promote freedom have yielded
slight results but should endure.
The near term prospects are bleak, but in the longer
run change from within will open China.
Certainly the landscape has radically changed since the disastrous
50s and 60s when even the freedom of silence was not allowed. And in
certain important areas China continues to improve. Chinese can compete
for college, choose their work, change their residence and travel. They
can grouse loudly among friends, selectively in social media. Awesome
economic progress has lifted the horizons of hundreds of millions.
But in certain key domains the screws have tightened, especially in
recent years. The weekly salons for officials, academics, artists and
dissidents that my wife and I hosted in the late 80's at our official
residence can no longer take place. The Party persecutes not only a
blind activist but also his relatives. It locks up not only a Nobel
Prize winner but his ill wife. It rounds up not only reformers but
those who defend them. It not only jails the troublesome but forces
them to confess on television. It not only mistreats Tibetans but
punishes governments that host the Dalai Lama. It not only smothers the
domestic internet and media but threatens foreign journalists and spurs
self-censorship from Bloomberg to Hollywood.
U.S. Administrations of both parties have tried through a variety
of means to encourage greater freedom--from selective sanctions to
trade conditions to private dialogues and public shaming. All to scant
avail.
Other players undercut our official efforts. Few governments will
even raise the subject of human rights. In America, contract-hungry
business bosses, visa-anxious scholars, and access-seeking former
government officials ignore, tiptoe around, even rationalize Chinese
suppression.
Should we therefore bury this issue? No.
Certainly it cannot dominate our agenda, which features critical
security, economic and political stakes. We derive enormous benefits
from our economic relations and our bilateral exchanges. On many global
problems we share common concerns and the Chinese can be helpful: The
curses of terrorism and nuclear weapons. Shipping lanes and piracy.
Climate change and clean energy. Health and food safety, drugs and
crime.
On regional issues the Chinese posture varies--helpful on
Afghanistan and Sudan, unhelpful on Syria, mixed on Iran and North
Korea. And Beijing has become downright provocative and dangerous with
its probes in the East China Sea, its bullying in the South China Sea,
and its unilateral declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone.
Indeed in its maritime encroachments it evokes Moscow's policy towards
its neighbors. I can list about ten similarities.
Despite this daunting agenda, we should continue to advocate human
dignity in China. This reflects our values and international norms. It
maintains public and Congressional support for our overall policy. It
heartens Chinese reformers. And it serves concrete national interests:
free societies do not go to war against each other, harbor terrorists,
hide natural and man-made disasters, or spawn refugees.
We should proceed without arrogance. Above all, we should progress
at home. Gridlock and polarization in this city sabotages our
championing of democratic values abroad.
Many avenues exist to nourish liberty. Private dialogue. Public
stances. Exchanges between non-governmental organizations on topics
like civil society, rule of law and the environment. Expand Voice of
America and Radio Free Asia. Increase funding for new technology to
breach the Chinese Firewall. Pursue the UN Commission's indictment of
China's abetting North Korean crimes against humanity. Retaliate
against the harassment of foreign journalists. Support free elections
in Hong Kong.
We should thus persist across a broad front. But change in China
will not result from outside encouragement or pressures. It must come
from the Chinese themselves. We must appeal to China's interests. The
rule of law, freedom of the press, an independent judiciary, a
flourishing civil society and accountable officials would promote all
of China's primary goals--economic progress, political stability,
reconciliation with Taiwan, good relations with America, international
stature and influence.
Members of the Commission, given the dark clouds, it is tempting to
be pessimistic about the future of freedom for one-fifth of humanity. I
do believe, however, that a more open society will emerge, impelled by
universal aspirations, self-interest, a rising middle class, the return
of students and the explosive impact of social media. No one can
predict the pace or the contours of the process. We might as well
consult fortune cookies.
Nevertheless, one day mothers will have answers, Chinese history
books will record heroes not hooligans, and the promise of the Chinese
Spring will finally shape the destinies of a great people and a great
nation.
Thank You.
______
Prepared Statement of Jeffrey Wasserstrom
may 20, 2014
History and China's 1989
In May of 1990, less than a year after television audiences around
the world had been stunned by images of the People's Liberation Army
using brutal force to quell popular protests in China, Barbara Walters
interviewed Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin for the ``20/20'' news
program. When she asked him to comment on the chain of events of the
previous year, including a massacre in the nation's capital that left
at least several hundred workers, students and members of other social
groups dead, Jiang made a stunning statement. He said that ``much ado
about nothing'' was the best description for all that had happened. In
this sweeping rhetorical gesture, he dismissed as unimportant the
Beijing killings--killing that are known in Chinese as the ``June 4th
Massacre,'' since it was early on the morning of that day that the
largest number of unarmed civilians were shot by soldiers.
Jiang's ``much ado about nothing'' statement also suggested that
many other things that happened in 1989 were insignificant. The massive
rallies calling for change, for example, that had been held in cities
across China in April and May, and a second massacre that had occurred
in Chengdu after the Beijing killings--one of many events germane to
these hearings that is handled well in NPR correspondent Louisa Lim's
powerful new book, The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen
Revisited. His comment also implied that he thought it unimportant
that, after the massacres, the government had arrested and sentenced,
in some cases to very long prison terms, many activists accused of
fomenting ``turmoil''--a highly charged negative code word for the
chaos that had beset the country during the Cultural Revolution decade
of 1966 through 1976--and laying the groundwork for what an official
propaganda campaign dubbed a ``counter-revolutionary rebellion'' that
had endangered the nation. His words suggested as well that it was a
small matter that, just before the massacres, the government had
imposed on the nation's capital a state of martial law similar to that
it had imposed on Tibet earlier in 1989 after protests there. And that
it was minor thing that Zhao Ziyang--who had been elevated to the
status of Deng Xiaoping's presumed heir apparent when Hu Yaobang was
removed from that position in 1987, due largely to his having taken a
lenient line on an earlier wave of student protests that began late in
1986 and served as a dress rehearsal of sorts for the popular struggle
of 1989--had been purged and placed under house arrest.
Jiang's phrasing was deeply objectionable on many levels. It
belittled the bravery of all those who gathered at Tiananmen Square and
urban plazas across China in 1989 to call for an end to corruption and
increased personal and political freedoms. It also belittled their
patriotism--a crucial point as key themes of the protests were that a
beloved country deserved to be run by better people and that the
Communist Party should do more to live up to its own professed ideals.
And his statement belittled the suffering of the many protesters and
bystanders slain in Beijing and Chengdu--and that of the family members
of these victims.
As someone who writes and teaches about China's past for a living,
I also see Jiang's comment on the events of the spring of 1989, which
are known collectively in Chinese as the ``June 4th Movement,'' as
problematic in additional ways that have to do with history. Calling
the demonstrations and massacres of 1989 ``much ado about nothing''
distorts their important place in the history of Chinese protest and
repression and keeps us from appreciating the way that struggles of the
past can affect new efforts to transform a society. Using this
terminology also implies, in a seriously misleading way, that China's
leaders were not concerned at the time by the challenge that protesters
posed to their legitimacy and have not been anxious since about the
legacy of 1989.
China's rulers were, in fact, deeply worried twenty-five years ago
by what was happening, particularly by the mass gatherings of first
students and then others as well at Tiananmen Square, a symbolically
significant site where official ceremonies are often held and buildings
and monuments stand that the government relies on to tell stories about
the past that make Communist Party rule seem justified. And there is
ample evidence that they remain worried to this day by 1989's legacy.
Despite all the ways that China has changed, after all, while the Party
has given up its initial strategy of talking a lot about 1989 and
trying to persuade the populace to accept its skewed version of events,
it has for more than two decades now devoted considerable energy to
imposing what Lim and others have aptly called a state of ``amnesia''
about the year on the populace at large. In addition, many other things
that the government has done in recent years are best understood as
shaped in part by a determination to avoid facing a situation like 1989
again.
Historians like me are prone to stress with many phenomena that
paying attention to the past can help place the present into a clearer
perspective, but history is relevant to 1989 in particularly striking
and complex ways. One reason is that protesters and their opponents
both made important uses of historical analogies twenty-five years ago.
Before the battle in which troops of the People's Liberation Army were
deployed, there were crucial battles of words and symbols, in which
both sides often invoked the past. The degree to which students did
better than the government in using historical arguments and symbols in
April and May of 1989 helps explain why the latter made such desperate,
brutal moves that June. Much Western commentary at the time and since
has referred to parallels and connections between Chinese events and
things taking place in or associated with other parts of the world.
Many international factors were important twenty-five years ago, when
inspiring protests were unfolding in Eastern and Central Europe, when
some Chinese protesters expressed admiration for Mikhail Gorbachev
(whose summit trip to Beijing brought foreign camera crews to the
country who would end up covering demonstrations more than meetings
between officials), and when some demonstrators nodded to American
symbols (such as the Statue of Liberty) and slogans (from ``Give Me
Liberty or Give Me Death'' to ``We Shall Overcome''). Ultimately,
though, it is the centrality of debates, arguments and symbols rooted
in China's own past that stand out as especially pertinent.
How exactly did students invoke history? They made two basic
historical claims--and were joined on the streets by workers,
intellectuals, journalists and others in part because these appeals to
history resonated, as did the general criticism the students made of
the economic fruits of reform seeming to benefit disproportionately
officials and their kith and kin. The students insisted that they were
following in the footsteps of the patriotic heroes of 1919's May 4th
Movement, a student-led mass struggle as well known in China as the
Boston Tea Party is in the U.S., and something that, similarly, is
assumed by all sides to be worthy of celebrating, even as there are
battles over who has the best right to claim its mantle. The students
also presented Deng Xiaoping and his allies as behaving in ways that
brought to mind the irrationality of the Cultural Revolution era, which
so many Chinese looked on as a benighted time whose mistakes should
never be repeated.
The Chinese authorities countered these two claims by insisting
that they, not the students, were inheritors of the May 4th tradition
and that the protests threatened to hurtle the country back into a
state of Cultural Revolution-like ``turmoil.'' They had made moves like
that latter one during the protest wave of 1986-1987 that began in
Hefei and peaked in Shanghai (I was an eyewitness observer of those
events, though I was not in China in 1989), and this sort of rhetoric
had helped convince students to return to classes. In 1989, though, the
government's invocations of history largely fell flat. It was far from
insignificant to China's rulers that students were being seen in 1989
as coming closer than they did to embodying cherished national ideals.
A pivotal symbolic moment came when the government's annual efforts to
commemorate the May 4th Movement as part of ``their'' legacy were
upstaged by student actions. On the seventieth anniversary of the 1919
struggle, the most notable gathering was one by students in Tiananmen
Square. Standing near a marble frieze showing patriotic students of the
May 4th generation calling on workers to join them in helping their
country stand up to foreign bullying and domestic misrule, members of
the Tiananmen generation read out a ``New May 4th Manifesto,'' a
rousing document demanding change.
China's leaders cared deeply that the protests were calling into
questions core old and important new stories they liked to tell and
needed to tell to legitimate their rule, from the notion that official
corruption and authoritarianism were problems of the pre-1949 past as
opposed to the present, to the idea that the Communist Party had begun
to move in a dramatically new direction since Mao Zedong's death in
1976. Interestingly, as Wang Chaohua, a leader of the 1989 protests who
went on to earn her doctorate in the United States and is now a
Southern California-based public intellectual, pointed out at a recent
UCLA forum, one thing that added force to the student charge that Deng
Xiaoping and company were replaying Cultural Revolution patterns was a
series of shifts in the top echelons of the Communist Party. A worrying
hallmark of the last years of Mao's rule was that he periodic launched
attacks on those closest to him, including two successive heirs
apparent, Liu Shaoqi and then Lin Biao. Many Chinese viscerally
experienced these attacks because criticism of Liu and Lin was combined
in each case with mass campaigns to promote ideological purity. It
seemed by the early 1980s that, to the relief of many, this combination
of high party politics and public campaigns had ended, but that hope
was undermined in 1987 when Hu Yaobang was stripped of his highest
post, that of General Secretary of the Communist Party (even though
allowed to retain a largely honorific position within the government),
and an ``Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization'' drive was launched.
This pattern was then repeated during 1989, when Hu's successor
Zhao Ziyang, who had been targeted in some early student posters as one
of the many top officials whose family members were benefitting
unfairly from the economic reforms, ended up becoming the second heir
of Deng in a row to fall for taking too ``soft'' a line toward a
protest wave. Once again, though in a way far more devastating than the
drive against ``bourgeois liberalization'' of 1987, this shift in heirs
was linked to a broad campaign, in this case to rid the country of
``counter-revolutionary'' elements, such as 2010 Nobel Peace Prize
recipient Liu Xiaobo and other alleged ``black hands'' behind the
protests.
Turning from historical argument during 1989 to China's more recent
political history, two things are particularly important to note. One
is that, while the June 4th Movement was crushed, the Communist Party,
in seeking to avoid future large scale protests of a similar sort, has,
in a sense, given in to some student demands of the time while refusing
to budge on others. Among the many wishes of 1989's youths was to see
the Party back off from micromanaging their private lives, allowing
them more freedom to do things such as listen to music they liked,
socialize on campuses as they wanted, and read more widely in
international literature. With some important exceptions (such as tight
censorship of foreign publications dealing with hot button issues, from
Tibet and the Dalai Lama to the events of 1989 themselves), later
generations of Chinese students have been able to have private lives of
the sort their predecessors dreamed of. It is easy to check off areas
where the government has not budged, of course, including not only
regarding calls for political liberalization and more democracy, but
also the demand that the authorities admit that 1989's protesters were
patriots acting to improve the country, not hooligans trying to destroy
it. Still, partial victories in amid defeat should be acknowledged.
The second way in which the government's desire to avoid facing
another challenge like that of 1989 matters is it helps us make sense
of officials responses to protests in the 1990s and in the opening
years of the 21st century. International currents certainly matter
here. China's rulers have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how
best to prevent local variants of Poland's Solidarity or Arab Spring
uprisings from taking place. There are also special factors involved in
the harsh ways that the Communist Party has dealt with unrest in Tibet
and Xinjiang. Still, a concern with trying to avoid what top officials
see as mistakes they made in 1989--the main error in their minds, I
think, not the use of force but allowing the struggle to grow as large
as it did before that point--has influenced government responses to
many outbursts. And in a sense, even the fear of Solidarity, Arab
Spring, Color Revolutions and the like, as well as policies toward
Tibet and Xinjiang, are inflected a degree by concern with what
happened in April-June 1989.
I've written extensively about this topic elsewhere, as have
others, but in a nutshell, the government's approach to protest since
1989 has been to take particularly strong lines against outbursts that
show (a) any degree of organization, (b) draw together people of
different social groups, and (c) link people in different parts of the
country. These were all key features of the June 4th Movement. When
protests take place that do not have any of these characteristics, the
government is sometimes willing to deal with them gently, perhaps give
in to some specific demands made by those who take to the streets, and
see them as a way that people can let off steam. Some leaders may be
punished, some concessions given are then taken back, and so on, but a
flexible and measured approach is common. On the other hand, when one,
two or especially all three of the factors just listed come into play,
even something that is totally unlike the 1989 protests in terms of
specifics will be dealt with severely. The classic example here is the
harsh crackdown on Falun Gong after the organization staged a large-
scale sit-in in central Beijing in April 1999. But, more recently, it
also seems fair to say that one of the reasons for the brutal means
used against activists in Tibet and Xinjiang is the government's
concern that protests there quickly connect people of different social
groups and disparate locals within the large regions that have
significant Tibetan or Uighur populations.
Much more could be said not just about the issues raised above, but
also about the kinds of grievances that agitate people in China now and
bring them to the streets in tens of thousands of protests a year, and
about how the concerns expressed in current outbursts at times echo and
at times diverge from those that exercised 1989's demonstrators. And I
would certainly be happy to answer questions about current protests as
well as about 1989 and its legacy during the May 20 CECC Hearing. What
I hope at least to have demonstrated in this short statement is that
the events of April-June 1989 were very far from being ``much ado about
nothing'' and that placing them into historical perspective is not just
of some use but crucial to understanding China's recent past and
China's complicated present.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Sherrod Brown, a U.S. Senator From Ohio;
Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China
may 20, 2014
Today, we remember an event that occurred 25 years ago, but that
continues to resonate in so many ways.
Twenty-five years ago, millions of people across China--not just in
Beijing's Tiananmen Square, but across China--rallied in support of
democracy, human rights, and an end to corruption.
Like many Americans at the time, I was inspired and moved by their
courage and their pursuit of those fundamental freedoms--freedoms that
we hold dear--and at times--take for granted.
I recall the optimism of that moment and how it was crushed when
the troops and the tanks rolled in.
Today, we assess what the last 25 years have meant and what our
policy toward China should be going forward.
In my view, opportunities were missed after Tiananmen.
We missed an opportunity to integrate China into the global
community, while also ensuring that our economic interests were
protected and that China moved in the right direction on political
reform.
Not an easy task, to be sure, but 25 years later, China is still a
fundamentally undemocratic country and one that stubbornly refuses to
play by the international rule of law.
In many respects, China reaped the benefits of open trade with the
rest of the world, while avoiding many of its obligations.
Today, 800 million Chinese people still do not enjoy the basic
right to vote.
Chinese citizens, including those who in recent weeks have bravely
tried to commemorate Tiananmen, are imprisoned--simply for peacefully
exercising their rights to free speech, assembly, and religion. These
include human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang and writer Hu Shigen.
A generation of people--inside and outside China--knows little
about the events that transpired 25 years ago, other than the
government's official line.
Emboldened by growing economic clout that we in many ways
supported, China's Communist leaders are sowing instability through
alarming and increasingly risky attempts to exert its territorial
claims in the region.
And just yesterday we were reminded of the lengths China will go to
gain an unfair advantage for its state-owned enterprises and
industries. The Department of Justice charged five members of China's
People's Liberation Army with hacking into the computers networks of
the United Steelworkers Union and major U.S. companies like U.S. Steel,
Alcoa, and Allegheny Technologies. And this is just the tip of the
iceberg.
In 1989, our trade deficit with China stood at $6 billion.
By 2013, the trade deficit had grown more than 50 times to $318
billion--the highest ever. That trade deficit and China's currency
manipulation has cost Americans millions of jobs.
In the end, we compromised too much and bought into the myth that
China's economic integration after Tiananmen would inevitably bring
about human rights and respect for international rules.
In my view, that's not what happened.
The question now is, how do we fashion a better policy toward
China?
Through this Commission, we have tried to honor the memory of
Tiananmen by making sure China's human rights and rule of law record is
not forgotten in our discussions over China.
Over the past year, we have highlighted many concerns--cybertheft,
threats to democracy in Hong Kong, illegal and unfair trade practices,
denials of visas to foreign journalists, food safety, environmental,
and public health concerns, and a crackdown on human rights activists,
including Ilham Tohti, a peaceful advocate for the Uyghur minority
group.
In the Senate, I have pushed a bipartisan bill to combat China's
currency manipulation.
It is my hope that we have an open and transparent debate about our
China policy--whether it be on trade agreements that relate to China or
on growing Chinese foreign investment in this country.
Our debate must give proper weight, rather than ignore our concerns
over human rights, the rule of law, labor, public health, and the
environment.
Above all, the debate must include all segments of our society,
from our workers and small businesses, to NGOs and human rights groups,
instead of just being led by powerful interest groups such as large
corporations, some of which have a checkered history with China.
It is only in doing so, and continuing to work for improvements on
China's human rights and rule of law record, that we can faithfully
honor the memory of Tiananmen and ensure that the sacrifices were not
made in vain.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Christopher Smith, a U.S. Representative
From New Jersey; Cochairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on
China
may 20, 2014
Twenty-five years ago the world watched as millions of Chinese
gathered, all across China, to peacefully demand political reform and
democratic openness. The hopes and promises of those heady days ended
with needless violence--tears, bloodshed, arrests and exile.
We must continue to honor the sacrifices endured by the pro-
democracy movement, by advocates for independent labor unions, and
those demanding fundamental human rights for all Chinese. Mothers lost
sons, fathers lost daughters, and China lost an idealistic generation
to the tanks that rolled down Tiananmen Square on June 4th, 1989.
Tiananmen Square has come to symbolize the brutal lengths the
Chinese Communist Party will go to remain in power.
We remember Tiananmen annually here in Congress because of its
enduring impact on U.S.-China relations. We remember it also because an
unknown number of people died, were arrested, and exiled for simply
seeking universally-recognized freedoms. And we will continue to
remember Tiananmen until the Chinese people are free to discuss openly
the tragic events of June 3-4, 1989, without censorship, harassment, or
arrest. We in Congress remain committed to the people of China
struggling peacefully for human rights and the rule of law.
The prospects for greater civil and political rights in China seems
as remote today as it did the day after the tanks rolled through the
Square. In 1989 the Chinese government used guns and tanks to suppress
the people's demands for freedom and transparency. In 2014 they use
arrests, discrimination, torture, and censorship to discourage those
who seek basic freedoms and human rights.
The means may change, but the ends remain the same--crush dissent
at all costs because it challenges the authority of the Communist
Party.
This has been one of the worst years, in the recent memory, for the
suppression of human rights activists and civil society. Xi Jinping's
tenure as President, which started with so much promise of new
beginnings, has proven that the old tactics of repression will be used
liberally against dissent.
Top Communist Party leaders regularly unleash bellicose attacks on
``universal values'' and ``Western ideals.'' In the past year, over 220
people have been detained for their defense of human rights.
The more things change in China, the more they stay the same.
While the hopes of the Tiananmen Square demonstrators have not yet
been realized, their demands for freedom of speech, basic human rights,
political reforms and the end of government abuse and corruption,
continue to inspire the Chinese people today. These are universal
desires, not limited by culture or language or history.
There is an impressive and inspiring drive in Chinese civil society
to keep fighting for freedom under very difficult and dangerous
conditions. This drive is the most important asset in promoting human
rights and democratization in the country. If democratic change comes
to China, it will come from within, not because of outside pressure.
U.S. policy, in both the short and long-term, must be, and be seen
to be, supportive of advocates for peaceful change; supportive of the
champions of liberty, and of those Chinese civil society seeking to
promote rights and freedoms for everyone, not only to pad the economic
bottom-line.
Our strategic and moral interests coincide when we seek to promote
human rights and democratic openness in China. A more democratic China,
one that respects human rights, and is governed by the rule of law, is
more likely to be a productive and peaceful partner rather than
strategic and hostile competitor.
This future should also be in China's interests, because the most
prosperous and stable societies are those that protect religious
freedom, the freedom of speech, and the rule of law.
We in Congress remain committed to the people of China struggling
for universal freedoms and we urge the Chinese government to learn from
the past and embrace the greater openness, democracy, and respect for
human rights that its people called for 25 years ago, and continue to
call for today.