http://www.nationalreview.com/node/436162/print Learning the Lesson of Tiananmen Square — and Reminding China
You do not change authoritarian regimes by enriching them while leaving their crimes against their own people unmentioned.
By Ted Cruz — June 3, 2016
Twenty-seven years ago, thousands of brave protesters gathered in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to demand political liberalization in the People’s Republic of China. The PRC’s brutal response was clear evidence that interaction with capitalist economies would not automatically result in political reform. The Communist Party, all too happy to reap the financial benefits the West offered, nonetheless refused to relinquish its authoritarian power.
The situation came to a head in the spring of 1989 when, mourning the death of reformer Hu Yaobang, the Chinese people tried to take matters into their own hands. Their demands were simple: a commitment to democracy, freedom of the press, accountability for government officials — the sorts of liberties we take for granted all too often in America.
At first the PRC reacted with caution, no doubt mindful of the simultaneous breakdown of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its satellites in Eastern Europe and recalling the strong support that Soviet dissidents had received from the Reagan administration. But there was no similar outpouring in support for Tiananmen Square — no American leadership demanding that the walls oppressing the Chinese people be torn down. Emboldened, the PRC signaled that reprisals were coming, labeling the protesters dangerous subversives. The campaign against them culminated in the terrible massacre of June 3–4, 1989.
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