[Note: When the Jasmine Revolution broke out in the Middle East, it triggered my own remark. The double meaning was: during the 1989 student movement, a leader was an Islamic youth, but now the CCP has carried out ‘genocide’ in Xinjiang.] At the beginning of the year, Ulkaixi held a global webinar titled ‘Commemorating the 7th Anniversary of Professor Ilham Tohti’s Imprisonment,’ inviting me to participate. Seven years ago, I learned that the CCP had sentenced Ilham to life imprisonment, which was unbelievable. Later, I understood that the CCP’s suppression of Uyghur elite leaders is the most critical moment of ‘extermination,’ and I believe this is also a painful lesson for them to successfully secure international support for the Tibetan people and the Dalai Lama. Opposing dictatorship has no ethnic or ethnic distinction whatsoever; instead, it is destined to be sowed discord by the “state.” Is it that the Han Chinese are still stuck in this quagmire today? 】
Cairo’s Tahrir Square, which became Tiananmen Square twenty years later, astonishing the world and drawing cheers from the Chinese people. The 2011 Middle East revolution swept through Tunisia and spread all the way to Iran. The TV screens were packed with Muslim youth—the overwhelming youth and urbanization of the population were structural factors of this revolution. This grand picture of Islam evokes another Islamic youth in my memory: Ul Khaishi, who charged into the front lines during the Tiananmen Movement.
the spectacular “April 27” parade
The Tiananmen student movement was clearly divided into two phases: the early stage (protest march) and the later stage (sit-in hunger strike). Wu’er Kaixi from Beijing Normal University was considered the early leader, with a baby face, leading several large-scale demonstrations that shook the entire country. Especially on April 27, when hundreds of thousands of students and citizens broke through eighteen layers of military and police defenses. There was a scene on TV: two groups of people confronted each other, and amid the crowd’s roar, the protesters captured their leader Wu’er Kaixi. Like cannonballs, it was hurled toward the grass-green warning line. If this Uyghur youth had been missing in 1989, the Tiananmen student movement would surely have lost many brilliant moments.
Wu’er Kaixi was just one of the student leaders. He had something peculiar about him, something the others didn’t have. What exactly was it? Fearless boldness? The natural charm of a high shout? A straightforward and reckless personality? I can’t quite explain either, but I feel that he is less likely to be hurt by nature than Han youths, so he stirs up trouble among thousands of troops. However, observing the current Chinese discourse of “Egypt-China comparative politics,” such as the first major question: “If a million Chinese people take to the streets, will the military still open fire?” But no one asked, “Do ordinary Chinese people still dare to take to the streets?” —This is the meaning of the “Wu’erkaixi Topic.” Especially after that drama in Cairo, instead of shouting ‘Chen Sheng Wu Guang’ or the ‘Xinhai Revolution,’ why not simply call on Wu Kaixi from nearly twenty years ago?
Western public opinion sincerely praised the courage and wisdom of Egyptian protesters; Time magazine even published their “Revolutionary Handbook” containing eight essential garments and tools. However, twenty years ago, the university students in Beijing were by no means inferior to their demonstration skills. In the autumn of 1989, I fled to Hong Kong and was interviewed privately by Sing Tao Daily reporter Choi Suk-fong. I couldn’t help but talk at length about the ‘April 27’ march, but she never published this interview. Let me quote a passage below:
‘Q: How do you reflect on this student movement and what role did it have?
Answer: On April 27th, I returned to Beijing from Shanghai. As soon as I arrived at the train station at noon, transportation was completely cut off. The Beijing student parade! Suddenly, I felt that students were remarkable, because they raised the banner of the constitution, upheld the banner of supporting the ‘Four Cardinal Principles, Support the Communist Party,’ and organized themselves in a very orderly manner. Since the April 27 march, the intellectual community has seen this movement surpass the last; it has a rational, orderly element governing it and is supported by millions of Beijing citizens.’
most dictators fear the majority
If you analyze how to successfully organize a democratic movement in China, you need to win over as many people as possible to make the dictatorship fearful. In fact, this was already done during the April 27th march! For example, during the 1987 student movement, students put forward very theoretical slogans: ‘Democracy, freedom, oppose dictatorship.’ If ordinary people don’t echo you, they can’t resonate. Plus, they have to shout ‘Down with the Communist Party, overthrow socialism,’ so the people don’t dare stand with you.
So, after the April 27th march appeared, some intellectuals came out to organize, and the media, arts, and theory circles also stood up. They were all inspired, and it was precisely the students’ rational spirit and order that they dared to step forward to force the authorities to compromise, uniting from this foundation.
the official team doesn’t step back, but elderly politics refuse to back down in the ‘April 26 Editorial’—they think retreating means it’s over. This logic was correct for them, because the ‘427’ movement displayed a powerful force of justice. They were no longer facing the ignorant, riotous, and chaotic crowds of the past; They face a crowd that is extremely strategic, very restrained, and extremely difficult to deal with—in fact, this is what any authoritarian government fears most. If it were a mob of mobs, it wasn’t afraid; suppressing them under the pretext of security was enough. But if they back down under these circumstances, the Communist Party may indeed have to take a new path and will no longer be a dictatorship.
we have our own rich heritage
“427” was a major turning point, a true modern democratic movement. If China has a modern democratic movement, it was born from the “April 27” incident and was created by students. As for how the student came out like this, according to Chen Xitong’s report, someone was behind the scenes with the idea. I was in Shanghai at the time, not in Beijing. As far as I knew, it was impossible for anyone to manipulate the students,Because students also have conflicts and differences, forming this consensus and ultimately agreeing to this method shows that the students themselves created it.
Therefore, past judgments about students were wrong, thinking they were an irrational generation, which is wrong! At critical moments, they were extremely rational! From the very beginning, they stunned the entire world, the entire nation. It is said that after watching the video of the April 27 march, Deng Xiaoping repeatedly expressed regret! He kept saying he was tricked, tricked! Whether this is true or not, the Communist Party was at a loss at the time and had no other options.
Watching students carry the constitution, support the Communist Party, and uphold the Four Principles, the police have no choice but to withdraw. So some say students ‘waved the red flag while opposing it,’ and some of us intellectuals also say students are pragmatists, but that’s not true! This is called rationality, because they have grasped what slogans and methods currently exist in China to unite the majority and make dictatorial regimes fearful. This is rationality, a very advanced form of political wisdom.
While we envy Egypt, why don’t we also look back at our own rich inheritance? At the 2007 “Civil Disobedience Symposium” held by Oxford University, Wang Juntao gave a very “political” summary of the “1989 student movement”:
‘From the perspective of civil disobedience, the 1989 Chinese democracy movement was a peak of the civil disobedience movement for peaceful reform of the political system for humanity.’ In 1989, the movement had the highest number of participants, broad social mobilization, and high level of involvement in political and military leadership, making it the best in the world. In Beijing, the level of peace is also the best. Four million-strong marches without bloodshed or conflict. Ten days before the crackdown, Beijing saw the government withdraw the police, and the entire city was almost in anarchy, yet there wasn’t even any crime. On May 19, when the Central Military Commission mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops to storm Beijing in ten directions at night, all the citizens of Beijing were blocked outside Tiananmen Square in just three hours. This is also a miracle in the history of world politics. After reviewing the process in 1989, all participants agreed that the Chinese did the best; Even though we were suppressed.’
predicting the military, which is like a spirit medium
Observing Egypt, Chinese reactions have focused on “shooting,” proving the deterrent effect of the June Fourth massacre—”Kill 200,000, stabilize for twenty years,” said to be Deng Xiaoping’s harsh words (Li Peng’s diary says “prepare to bleed”), a dictator’s measure of how long a dictator can withstand violence. Now, twenty years have passed, and no one knows if they will ‘shoot again.’ The common people don’t know, the nine old men of Zhongnanhai don’t know, and probably even the military itself doesn’t know.
Deng Xiaoping hesitated for fifty days the first time he fired, but on the second time, he didn’t hesitate at all. His intentions had been obvious ever since he appointed Hu Jintao as a previous generation—why? Just because Hu dared to shoot in Lhasa, at that time in 1989, the only person at the provincial military level or above who had the chance to issue a “shooting order” was almost only Hu. To be honest, Deng Xiaoping could only choose one “candidate,” so it was no surprise.
After Deng Xiaoping’s death, Jiang Hu’s authority waned, and the military naturally became arrogant. Since the ‘Lin Biao incident,’ the CCP has no longer had military power, but since the June Fourth massacre, the party has had to rely on guns to survive. The bloody massacre on Chang’an Street turned the Wehrmacht into a mere ‘servant guard.’ Its relationship with the Party or the state system is beyond definition; it is a monster difficult to predict and analyze. The Egyptian army is definitely not ‘American-style’ in terms of equipment, and it falls between Iran’s regular army and the ‘Revolutionary Guard’ armed forces; Moreover, over the past twenty years, the CCP has placed many “of its own children” into the military to hold important positions, sell military ranks, and so on, hoping that “lower-ranking officers” and “poor soldiers” will defect, but this is nothing more than spirit writing or divination. If the day truly comes when ‘the ashes in the pit have not yet cooled and Shandong is in chaos,’ even Hu Jintao wouldn’t dare be sure whether the Imperial Guards would still be effective. “Second shot” is an unsolvable mystery.
No one goes out on the street, so there’s no way to even talk about
it
but there is a solution: the next “Wu’er Kaixi” appears. In Tunisia, Cairo, Algiers, and Tehran, we see thousands of ‘Ul Kaihi’, but what about Beijing and Shanghai? The Middle Eastern revolution once again demonstrates an unbreakable truth: ending a dictatorship means no one is taking to the streets, and there is no way to talk about it.
Lu Xun once said: “If it does not erupt in silence, it will perish in silence.” Although he was later hailed by authoritarian society as the ‘soul of the nation,’ his descendants who thoroughly read his ‘dagger-like’ essays inherited the ‘Ah Q’ spirit he created, meaning even Lu Xun himself ‘died in silence.’ Lu Xun’s words are the most refined interpretation of the word “silence,” even more apt than Gong Zizhen’s earlier line from the late Qing dynasty: “The nine provinces regain vitality through wind and thunder; the silence of ten thousand horses is truly lamentable.” However, when you put these two sentences together to describe China’s ‘silence’ after the ‘Egyptian Revolution,’ it still seems pale.
Political participation is both a right of the people and a choice for them. Choosing ‘not going out on the street’ is also a form of participation, but it’s simply a way of life regulated by Deng Xiaoping’s daughter, Deng Lin, which is also related to Wu’er Kaixi. On the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover, Deng Lin was asked by reporters whether he and his father were responsible for the crackdown. She said, ‘I think this was a decision made by their leader. It shouldn’t be said that one leader was specifically responsible, but I believe it was right, because without this decision, if people like Wu’er Kaixi had been in charge of China’s fate, how could China have reform and opening up?’ Society is chaotic!’
she was right. Because Wu’er Kaixi was driven away, Deng Lin and his group could live comfortably: 91% of mainland Chinese billionaires are children of high-ranking officials (according to Zhao Xiao, professor at University of Science and Technology Beijing). If ordinary Chinese people are willing to endure this, others will have nothing to say.
text and photos in this article are reprinted from Su Xiaokang’s Facebook