Tienanmen: 10 Years Later
Democracy Movement Alive -- But Not in China
Anniversary’s timing especially bad in wake of scandals, bombing
By Perla Ni and Joyce Nishioka

A decade after the democracy rallies that he and other student leaders led ended in a military-led bloodbath, Wang Dan continues his life in academia, juggling his studies with a full speaking calendar. Chai Ling graduated from Harvard Business School two years ago, and Jing Chang also went on to earn an Ivy League MBA. On the other hand, police hauled away Jiang Qisheng two weeks ago. And for the past month, Ren Wanding has been under constant surveillance.

Wang, Chai, and Jing live in the United States, as do hundreds of other democracy proponents; the other two stayed in China, which by late May had put more than 50 dissidents under watch to squelch any commemoration of tomorrow’s anniversary of the government crackdown, which left hundreds, possibly thousands, dead and saw thousands of others sent to jail.

Though the democracy-rights movement lives on, it lives largely overseas, perpetrated by ethnic Chinese who have become permanent residents or citizens of other lands. Thousands of dissidents in exile are estimated to be living in the United States, Canada and Europe.

“All the issues we raised in 1989, such as respect for human rights, freedom of the press, freedom of association -- none of those have made any progress,” said dissident Arthur Liu in an interview last week. “Recently, many dissidents have been detained and arrested. I don’t see any progress in that area.”

Xiao Quang, executive director for the pro-democracy group Human Rights in China, said, “Tiananmen is not complete as a democracy movement.

“Ten years later, the fundamental demands, which are anti-corruption and democracy, still remain the most pressing issues of Chinese society today,” Quang said. “You can also say the Tiananmen massacre completely suppressed any voice for independent change in China. Ten years later, despite profound and rapid economic and social changes, political freedom remains suppressed.”

His group, which includes many dissidents, is in a kind of exile -- its closest office to mainland China is in Hong Kong. Said Quang: “Our tactics have not changed that much, we always pursued a peaceful, grassroots-based public advocacy to promote human rights. The difference is after Tiananmen, there’s no way to do this inside China.”

Though many dissidents hope someday to return to China, for now many are in academia, on the lecture circuit or active with pro-democracy organizations based in the United States. Jing, for example, earned an MBA at Columbia and is now a business consultant in San Francisco. Protest leader Arthur Liu went on to Hastings Law School, earned an MBA from Hayward State and now has his own law firm. He devotes much of his considerable energy toward heading up the Tiananmen Generation Association, which seeks not only to organize and educate participants and supporters of the 1989 protests, but also those of the democracy movement “worldwide as well as in China.”

Liu said that despite the repression, he supports the United States in working with China “to keep the diplomatic relationship,” but added: “At the same time, the U.S. should not forget that many people in China are still persecuted for political and religious beliefs and activities. If they don’t take the lead, who can?”

DIVERSE REACTIONS

Passion for the issue, like any other, tends to be highest among those involved in the 1989 protests and those who can easily imagine themselves having taken part. Yet the focus that the anniversary and other events bring to China also extends to Americans of Chinese descent and Asian Americans in general -- even those who feel as removed from Tiananmen’s tragedy as, say, those of Rwanda or Kosovo.

“I’m afraid I’m ignorant in that area,” said Emalyn Lapus, a project director for Asian American Communities for Education. “A lot of Filipinos may be ignorant of the Tiananmen Square issues. ... From a historical perspective, it is not a date that would come up” among Filipino Americans.

Paul Osaki, who works at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, described Tiananmen Square as more of “an international issue in terms of human rights and civil rights.” He conceded that he didn’t “think the event has a direct impact on the Japanese American community.”

But being ethnically Chinese does not guarantee a great interest or expertise on Chinese political issues -- which are distinct from Chinese American or Asian American ones. Said Dan Quan, a past president of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, “At least among my peers, I don’t see a whole lot of sentiment toward the anniversary event.”

At the same time, even Chinese Americans whose families have lived here for decades acknowledge more than a cursory interest. Quan, a fourth-generation Chinese American who speaks little Chinese, was curious enough to go and see Tiananmen Square for himself some years ago. “It was interesting to be there as an American; it was a vast, huge place,” he recalled. But when he brought up the issue of democracy, he said, “no one spoke about it. I asked what they thought; no one gave me an answer.”

Nor is Tiananmen Square only of interest to ethnic Chinese, given that repression, after all, can transcend both language and ethnicity. Roy Hong, executive director of Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates in Los Angeles, draws parallels between the crackdown in China and a bloody showdown between police and student protesters nine years before in Kwangju, South Korea.

“On the 10th year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, we have a strange perspective,” he said. “In 1980, with U.S. authorization, military dictators murdered 2,000 citizens in the Kwangju uprising. Unfortunately, I feel the U.S., when they want to, utilizes these unfortunate incidences for political advantage and downplays others.

“Any desire on the part of people, students, workers to express their views should not be brutally suppressed. We oppose that.”

Osaki, too, criticized the U.S. government for telling other countries what to do. “I’m not for foreign intervention for civil disputes in a foreign country,” he explained. “Personally, I don’t think the U.S. should be a big brother, coming in and deciding what’s good for the people. That’s done in too many countries.”

Chinese Indonesian John Oei drew parallels between the students at Tiananmen Square and Chinese Indonesians targeted by rioting last year. “For one, they are both pursuing for more freedom from the government. Secondly, there are no solutions yet on the outcome of both demonstrations.”

But Oei also pointed out that Tiananmen Square “was between Chinese and Chinese. In Indonesia, it is always the case whenever there are a demonstration, it is the Chinese that is to be blamed and targeted.”

TODAY’S TENSIONS

Just as Tiananmen Square is not only a Chinese issue, it is not just an Asian American issue. Last month, U.S. lawmakers opened the debate on China’s trade status, which expires this month, with resolutions marking the 10th anniversary of the crackdown. Both the Senate and the House versions express sympathy to the families of those killed 10 years ago.

U.S. displeasure over China’s human rights record was one big reason why Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji failed to secure his country’s entry into the World Trade Organization in April. Another factor was the angry reaction to allegations of widespread Chinese espionage, contained in a then-classified House subcommittee report. Since then, tensions have grown worse, given NATO’s mistaken bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, about a month ago and the release two weeks after that of the Cox Report.

Mei Ling Sze, an anchorwoman for the Cantonese News, said some of her viewers cannot believe that NATO could have unintentionally made such a mistake. “Most people who have been here for a short period of time think that the Americans did it on purpose,” she said.

“The Chinese people love America,” Sze explained. “Many Chinese feel Americans are too perfect to make such a mistake.”

Many Asian Americans worry about a possible backlash in the wake of the espionage scandal, which along with the bombing happened, ironically, during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

“Anti-Asian sentiments and ‘yellow peril’ fears still appear as themes in the media and in politics, as evidenced by front-page news stories of ‘China Bashing’ stemming from campaign finance controversies and the more recent Chinese spy allegations,” said Jon Melegrito, executive director of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations.

“We are particularly concerned that innuendo and rumor will set back the gains our community has made in our determined efforts as Americans of Asian ancestry to help build one America.”

Speaking as part of an ethnic media panel last week, UC Berkeley ethnic studies professor Ling-Chi Wang described U.S. China policy as the “victim of a power struggle between the two parties” in Washington. The fallout, he said, includes a growing sense of distrust toward Chinese Americans. “It’s virtually impossible now for us to walk down the street and not be seen as a thief or as a spy,” he said.

Joel Wong, a Chinese American scientist working at the Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons lab, said that lately there has been a perception that “an Asian is an Asian, no matter of whether they are an American citizen. They think we have our loyalty to the mother country, but they don’t understand we’re American just like everybody else.”

The backlash against Chinese American scientists can be seen from bad jokes at work to comments by senators, said Wong, an industrial hygienist who was born in Hong Kong.

At the labs, employees laughed when a man of Asian descent was introduced to lead a session on security, said Wong and Raymond Ng, a mechanical engineer at the California branch of the Sandia National Laboratory. An Asian woman at Los Alamos was told she could not transfer with her supervisor because of her “characteristics.”

At Livermore, about 45 miles southwest of San Francisco, someone suggested deleting a photograph of an Asian from the lab’s Web page, “because people might suspect that we are spies,” Wong said.

He and Ng eventually took their concern to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. Speaking up was difficult, Wong said, because “our cultural roots say, ‘Well, you just do your work and keep quiet.’ ”

And the suspicion is not only in the labs.

An editorial cartoon by Pat Oliphant, for instance, showed a horde of tiny figures, many with the buck teeth and thick glasses of the most virulent anti-Asian portrayals, scurrying over a sleeping security dog at Los Alamos. In the corner a blurb read, “The Chinese eat dogs y’know.”

Oliphant was out of the country Friday, but Universal Press Syndicate Managing Editor Sue Roush defended his artistic license. She was quoted as telling the Associated Press: “It’s not an ethnic slur; it’s a cartoon about Chinese espionage.”

When Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., talked about the spy scandal, he made reference to “a crafty people,” and a newsmagazine called to ask Livermore lab officials for a “generic” photograph of an Asian employee at work to illustrate a spy story. Lab spokesman Jeff Garberson declined the request.

Asians and Asian Americans don’t act as a homogenous lump, Wong said. And he and his colleagues “don’t condone spying on any level against the U.S. government,” he said.

For his part, Hong expressed surprise and dismay that a country as technologically astute as the United States would make the kinds of blunders that apparently made the espionage possible. “The last time I checked, generally people were spying on each other. Why this incident is such a hot topic? I cannot be but a little skeptical,” he said. Perhaps, he mused, “the U.S. is creating tension because of internal issues.”

Even U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., expressed a similar sentiment, saying: “The scandal is not that China was spying on us. The scandal is here domestically.”

Oei, however, pointed out that things could be far worse. “We may see many protests against the accusation of the Chinese spying, but we do not see the U.S. government openly promoting hate against the United States” as in Indonesia, he said.

COUNTERING THE FALLOUT

For their part, Wong and Ng said their concerns had been taken positively by lab executives. Sandia head C. Paul Robinson pointed out in a newsletter that white Americans such as himself weren’t held responsible for the case of Aldrich Ames, the CIA agent who sold secrets to the Russians. “Can we all please think extra hard about that?” he asked.

By late May, the chief author of the House report detailing alleged Chinese espionage and the House’s only ethnically Chinese lawmaker joined May 27 in urging Americans not to use the case as a reason to discriminate against Chinese and other Asian Americans.

“It is just as anti-American to be racist as it is to commit espionage,” said Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., whose special panel last week issued a report describing several decades of Chinese efforts to obtain and steal U.S. nuclear weapons secrets.

Cox backed a resolution introduced by U.S. Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., stating that it was wrong for Congress and Americans to stereotype people based on the actions of any individual. Members of Congress have reported getting anti-Asian phone calls.

However, Cox said the Beijing government had done its part to inflame tensions between the Chinese and American people with propaganda saying the espionage charges, which it denies, are based on anti-Chinese racism. “It is a horrible thing for the Chinese government to whip up,” he said.

REPRESSING MEMORIES

The Chinese government, which denies the espionage charges, has in the past month tried to manage the sentiments of its citizens through state-run media, which did not carry any mention of the U.S. apology in last month’s bombing and which has remained silent about Tiananmen Square. At the same time, China has moved to corral anyone who might incite anything like 1989’s protests.

Although they remain in control, China’s leaders fear dissidents could use the anniversary to stir up farmers disgruntled by stagnating income and high taxes and workers laid off from failing state industries. Such economic turmoil could increase if U.S.-China trade relations get worse. The fallout, at the least, could wind up delaying negotiations over China’s long-sought entry into the World Trade Organization, a slowdown that open-trade advocates suggest could hurt American companies more than Chinese enterprises.

For his part, Liu, the dissident now living in San Francisco, says he hopes that the United States continues to support China’s economic reforms -- as long as it doesn’t forget about human rights.

“If China is not a democracy -- a country with a rule of law -- their business investments may not be protected,” he said. “It’s important for everybody -- not just government officials, but also U.S. businesspeople who want to explore the Chinese market.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report, as did Christus Rex et Redemptor Mundi, a nonprofit group. Its World Wide Web site can be found at http://www.christusrex.org.