China’s May 4 and June 4 Tiananmen protests: Communist Party only sees patriotism where it suits
- China on Saturday marks 100 years since the May Fourth Movement. Love for the nation was also at the core of 1989’s student protests, but officials have been trying their best to obscure that legacy
China held an elaborate televised ceremony on Tuesday to celebrate the centenary of student protests in 1919 known as the May Fourth Movement, which helped transform the country and pave the way for the birth of the Communist Party.
But the government will disregard the 30th anniversary of another student demonstration in 1989 that preceded its bloody crackdown on June 4. The latter protest may be less seminal in China’s modern history, but its core spirit should not be obscured.
“History has profoundly demonstrated that patriotism has flowed in the blood of the Chinese nation since ancient times,” Xi said.
A century ago on Saturday, the mass student demonstration erupted after a decision by the Western powers to hand over the colonial possessions of a defeated Germany in Shandong province to Japan. Major nations met in France to draw up a treaty to divvy up the spoils from the first world war, but China’s interests were completely ignored despite it being on the winning side.
Hong Kong Tiananmen memorial museum reopens in Mong Kok after almost three-year hiatus
The revelation that the Chinese government had acquiesced to the decision further inflamed the protests, with the students calling it a national humiliation.
In the following weeks, the protests spread across the country as workers and merchants joined, forcing the government to sack a number of pro-Japan officials. China refused to sign the treaty, but the tough stance was largely for show as Japan still effectively came to control the former German territory.
As Chinese intellectuals attacked traditional Confucian values and embraced Western ideas, their political activism eventually led to the birth of the Communist Party in 1921, with some protest leaders going on to become party founders.
From Mao to Tiananmen, Hu Yaobang is an icon of China’s reform – and a reminder of how little has changed
The leadership has since sought with zeal to exalt the movement as a pivotal event for the spread of communism in the country.
Before the centenary celebration, Xi chaired a meeting of the Politburo, the party’s centre of power, to discuss ways to enhance study into the movement’s history and significance. The president seeks to better integrate the spirit of May 4 into the party’s narrative that only it can lead the country’s youth to his goal of national rejuvenation.
When thousands of students flocked to the streets of Beijing 30 years ago, the similarities of their activism with May 4 were very much apparent.
Voices from Tiananmen: Eyewitnesses look back to the spring of 1989
The youngsters demanded further economic reforms as well as government transparency and accountability. It was a time of profound economic and social change, characterised by widespread discontent over inflation and corruption.
But both the students and their political elites shared many common ideas for how to move the country forward in 1989.
Most of the participants have since moved on with their lives, and the censorship has meant young people born in the 1990s and 2000s are largely ignorant of the event.
But attempts to vindicate the 1989 protesters have never stopped, particularly in Hong Kong and overseas Chinese communities.
Given Xi’s efforts to tighten the party’s control across all levels of society, and the fact that former party leaders who came to power because of June 4 are still alive, it is difficult to see any public rehabilitation occurring in the foreseeable future.
Chinese leaders are fond of an idiom that says we should use history as a mirror while facing the future.
With history clearly in view, it appears the patriotism displayed by the students 30 years ago was no less sincere than that of 100 years ago. ■
Wang Xiangwei is the former editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post. He is now based in Beijing as editorial adviser to the paper
