Thoughts on Tienanmen Square

By JR Hoeft | Thursday, June 4th, 2009 | Policy

This year marks the 20th Anniversary of the Tienanmen Square tragedy. That tragedy, thankfully, has brought some reform to China, but not nearly enough. D.J. McGuire, who, among other things, founded the China e-Lobby, offers up his thoughts:

“The irony here – and one we must remember – is that this year, more than any other except perhaps for 1989 itself, we can truly say that those who were murdered did not die in vain. For whatever the rest of the world thinks of the Tiananmen Square bloodbath, the Chinese Communist Party is more afraid of it than it has ever been.”

McGuiire goes onto explain in his post that the anger over Tienanmen is still simmering, if not ready to boil in the country-side. He makes the case that the Communist Party has used a series of events over the past year to distract Americans and the outside world from remembering…this year, it was allowing Kim Jong Il of North Korea to detonate a nuclear warhead.

However, McGuire thinks that freedom still can come to China, especially as surrounding nations remain anti-Communist:

“The historical symbol of bloody repression hangs everywhere. Invisible but undeniable, it reminds tens of millions of Chinese that there was, once, a different path, and makes laughable every effort by the CCP to make it go away.”

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