The anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre has once again become the subject of scrutiny China’s treatment of dissent and the state of America’s relations with Beijing, which some argue have become loose and illiberal, as human rights violations continue within its borders.
“Twenty-five years ago, the Chinese Communist Party killed hundreds — possibly thousands — of innocent, unarmed civilians who were peacefully seeking democratic reform,” Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News Digital.
“We cannot allow the spirits of those killed in Tiananmen Square to die,” McCaul said. “We cannot allow dictators to rewrite history. Today, we honor their memory and condemn the horrific human rights abuses committed by the CCP.”
Student protests in 1989 lasted a week and a brutal government crackdown resulted in many deaths, but the exact number is still unclear. The crackdown was widely condemned by Western countries, and Hong Kong served as a haven for people wanted by Chinese authorities.
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China’s amazing rehabilitation took only a few years. By 1992 most of the country’s foreign relations had been restored and the then leader Deng Xiaoping He used his remaining influence to initiate economic reforms, leading to a strong era of growth.
“After the Tiananmen Square massacre, the George H.W. Bush administration attempted to re-establish contact and friendly relations with the Chinese regime,” Gordon Chang, a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute and China expert, told Fox News Digital.
In this June 5, 1989 file photo, a man stands alone in front of a line of tanks moving east on Chang’an Boulevard in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Hong Kong’s second ban on an annual vigil for victims of the bloody suppression of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square protest movement on June 4, 1989, and the closure of a museum dedicated to the event could be another sign that the ruling Communist Party is extending its efforts to erase the event from the collective consciousness from the mainland to Hong Kong. (AP Photo/Jeff Widener)
“That was a grave mistake for a number of reasons, but we have seen an evolution in engagement policy since then, and it is only during the Trump administration that the United States has taken a different and, I think, better approach,” Chang said.
“Instead of prioritizing the interests of the United States, Trump put the interests of the communist regime ahead of the interests of the United States, but unfortunately, right now we are back to pre-Trump China policy, which is working neither for the United States nor the free world,” he said.
Every year, however, the Tiananmen Square massacre is immortalised with a famous photograph of a man, bag in hand – whose identity is still unknown – refusing to move out of the way of tanks trying to pass through the square.
The Chinese government has never apologised for the massacre and has consistently rejected calls for an investigation into its harsh response – and in the meantime, China has entangled itself further in global politics.
“It’s been more than three decades since the CCP massacred activists in Tiananmen Square, and it’s clear that the status quo of pumping U.S. dollars into China has backfired,” Florida Republican Rep. Michael Waltz told Fox News Digital.
“China has not become more democratic,” Waltz said. “Rather, American involvement has literally funded a more capable, more repressive adversary that seeks to defeat the West.”
“under Reign of Chairman Xi“The CCP’s horrific behavior has gotten worse, with its ongoing genocide against the Uighurs, provocations in the South China Sea, spreading COVID-19, and a massive espionage campaign against the United States. It’s time to hold them accountable,” he said.
As a final act of protest at the end of their unsuccessful hunger strike, the students erected a statue called the Goddess of Democracy in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. In the spring of 1989, students and citizens held massive pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing, which culminated in the government declaring martial law and violent clashes between protesters and the People’s Liberation Army. (Photo: Jacques Langevin/Sigma/Sigma via Getty Images)
According to Matt McInnis, a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, the evolution of China’s domestic policies and international relations have reshaped global norms, which has only helped China achieve its goals.
“(The U.S.) viewed China as a potential rival through the 1990s and 2000s and into the early 2010s, but ultimately it was a country we could work with, and through economic integration we hoped to liberalize or normalize China’s foreign and domestic policies,” McInnis told Fox News Digital.
“I think that has changed significantly since Xi Jinping became president in 2013,” he argued. “Since then, there has been a gradual recognition among most American leaders and foreign policy elites that China is not ready to liberalize, and that it is intent on achieving its long-term goals of becoming the most influential power in the world at least by 2049, if not sooner.”
A photo of the Tiananmen Square shootings in 1989, showing Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Getty Images)
“This has been a difficult process for U.S. foreign policy leaders and policymakers, as it changes many of the paradigms we have developed since the Cold War and despite the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.”
McInnis vividly recalls the tremendous shock that prevailed among the American public after Tiananmen Square, as many Americans had to reconcile with a newly allied foreign ally—an ally that President Nixon Had struggled to commit such a horrific massacre.
“Frankly, there was a lot of anger about what had happened, and there was an effort by the then Bush Sr. administration to normalize relations with China,” McInnis recalled.
“Of course, it never happened in the same way as it did in the 1980s, but at the same time, there was still this expectation that China was very important. We had to find a way to work (with them), and ultimately we developed what was probably essentially a self-defeating policy with China in which we would try to get as close as possible to helping shape China’s rise,” he said.
“I think it took some time for this policy to be implemented after 1989, but still in many ways there was no fundamental change from the situation before 1989,” he said.
James Anderson, who served as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense during the Trump administration, told Fox News Digital about the shock and distress Americans felt following the massacre, calling the event “tragic and upsetting” for the American public — but lamented that the US may have purposely forgotten the impact it had.
Paramilitary soldiers stand guard at Tiananmen Square, where a portrait of the late Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong is held, on the 50th anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution in Beijing, China May 16, 2016. ( Reuters/Kim Kyung-hoon)
“What happened was this idea of ‘constructive engagement,’ which was a Clinton administration term that had its roots in the 1990s, regardless of what happened in Tiananmen Square,” Anderson said.
“The underlying belief was really based on three kinds of main options … whereby the United States would engage with China politically, diplomatically and economically, and the three beliefs were that this would help China grow and further improve its economy,” Anderson explained.
“The second assumption was that the continued growth of the Chinese economy and reform would lead to political liberalization,” he added. “And then the third assumption was that the Internet … would potentially lead to greater openness in China — freedom of thought and everything else.”
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“The problem is that all three of these assumptions have proven to be flawed and, frankly, completely wrong,” he stressed. “China has continued to grow economically, but its reform efforts have stalled. This is socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
The memory of the Tiananmen Square massacre is fresh in the minds of policymakers as they confront another human rights tragedy in China over its treatment of the Uighur population, including camps that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials claim are for “education” but which others, including the U.S. State Department, have alleged may be genocide.
President Biden (right) and Chinese President Xi Jinping walk together after a meeting during Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Week in Woodside, California, November 15, 2023. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
The US Mission to the United Nations released a press statement in 2022 Secretary of State Antony Blinken It cited a UN report on possible human rights abuses by China, saying the report “deepens and confirms our grave concern about the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the Uighurs by Chinese government authorities.”
Anderson said the U.S. has repeatedly tried to express concern about China’s alleged human rights abuses, but acknowledged that such concerns “are always overshadowed by the belief that engaging with China will be good for them (and) good for us.”
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“Recently … those ideas have been discredited,” he said. “It’s important to truly understand the nature of the CCP because it’s very visible in how they treat their people and their minorities, and … it’s important because, historically, how nations treat their citizens often foreshadows how they will treat their neighbors, and we’ve seen China become stronger, richer and more aggressive in the South China Sea and beyond.”
