Chinalbeit

Now that the day that shall not be named has come and passed, the time is upon us to reflect just what it means, both for Chinese at home and abroad, and for those foreign devils of us both living in China and those of us who have never been (Wing Wang’s Super Deluxe Chinese BBQ and Hamburgers doesn’t count as sovereign Chinese territory).  Of course, the original event occurred twenty years ago, though many people don’t know that the event was actually a culmination of a long process beginning with the death of Mao, continuing through the process of reform and opening, and finally resulting in a crushing defeat at the ends of the very same people who demanded China open up and modernize in the first place.   Chinageeks has an interesting translation up from a Chinese writer detailing some of the events leading up to the culmination at Tiananmen Square, and if you’re really interested, you can check out Chinese Lessons by John Pomfret, who witnessed firsthand both many of the events leading up to and including Tiananmen.  The point is that, at the time, mass student protests were quite common, and the riots at Tiananmen seemed an almost inevitable occurrence.  However, in the twenty years since then, there have not been any riots anywhere near the same scale.  Though there are tens of thousands of “disturbances” every year, they are normally quite small and focused protest.  Farmers demanding more pay or cleaner environments, workers protesting factory closings, migrant workers that haven’t been paid, etc.  Unlike 1989, these types of protests are not ideological at their base.  The people protesting are looking to obtain something concrete: thus it is not useful to compare these demonstrations to the events of 1989.

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