‘Tiananmen Square: The Making of a Protest’ review: History as drama: an eyewitness recounts Tiananmen unrest

A former diplomat argues that the students’ protest was not a democratic revolution but reflected a power struggle which the Chinese Communist Party put down

China in 2018 celebrated 40 years of economic reforms whose impact is unparalleled in modern history. With high export- led growth, per-capita incomes rose by 70 times. Hundreds of millions of the rural poor found employment, and moved into the urban and industrial middle class. Foreign investors poured in a cumulative $2.7 trillion, and reaped handsome rewards. China became a factory to the world. These reforms were initiated and nurtured by their paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, also known as the architect of modern China. Once a lieutenant of Mao Zedong, he was from the first generation of leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). But after Mao’s death in 1976, when Deng took the reins in 1978, he led a radical departure if not outright reversal of Maoist economic ideology, toward a market-based economy with flexible prices. The results are for all to see. But what about political reforms? Were the free market-based reforms a precursor to also establishing a Western-style capitalist democracy in China? This question is moot in hindsight. But during the first decade of reforms, there was much wishful thinking in the West that political change in China was imminent. Waves of pro-democracy movements were already visible in Eastern Europe and the USSR, and echoes in China were anticipated. The first decade of China’s reforms was turbulent, with student protests, dissenting intellectuals, and palpable fissures even within the CCP. This fuelled speculation in the Western press that political reform was coming. According to Vijay Gokhale, former diplomat, and author of Tiananmen Square, the West completely misread the unrest. He says, “It was not a democratic revolution… It was a power struggle.” Deng was committed to economic reforms, but for him the supremacy of the CCP was sacrosanct, and political reform was out of the question. Gokhale highlights this as an essential feature of the Chinese political system. There is unwavering consistency and continuity in this political ideology, from Mao to Deng to Xi Jinping. The Tiananmen episode is now a closed chapter in Chinese history, and even the world forgot about it, since the fall of the Berlin wall just a few months later consumed all the headlines. Within a year of Tiananmen, the West was back to doing business as usual with the Chinese communists, who had laid out the red carpet welcome to their special economic zones.