Dispatch from Beijing
With Jeff J. Brown
Photo taken on the streets surrounding Tiananmen Square, in the aftermath of June 4th, 1989. Two PLA soldiers are seen burned alive, one on the stairs to the left and another also lynched off a bridge, by the CIA’s “peaceful” protestors. (Image by voltaire.net)
The ritualistic, annual Western flogging of the Chinese people takes place today. China Rising Radio Sinoland 160604
The ritualistic, annual Western flogging of the Chinese people takes place today, June 4th. That day, in 1989, after the government let Tiananmen Square, the world’s fourth largest public plaza, be peacefully occupied by hundreds of thousands of citizens for over five weeks, the protest’s CIA-managed leaders, in a last ditch effort to achieve their goals, turned violent. Up until that night, 30,000 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers had been stationed in and around Tiananmen Square, unarmed, or at the most, with billy clubs.
This is the iconic propaganda image most Westerners have in connection with Tienanmen. The true story and its context were entirely manipulated by the Western media to demonize Beijing.
The whole operation was financed, organized, managed and supplied by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in cahoots with other Western embassies and their psyops teams, with the obvious goal of overthrowing the Communist Party of China (CPC). After the premier of China, Li Peng – imagine that – the second most powerful person in China, met with the protest leaders on national TV and radio, and was openly insulted by them, the CIA upped the ante to violence and killing, by providing their agents with gasoline for Molotov cocktails and AK-47s, to murder unarmed PLA soldiers. In 1989 Beijing, gasoline was only available in embassies, for government ministries and for the handful of the public who owned cars, petrol was strictly controlled with ration cards.
On that night of June 4th, while machine guns could be heard outside being fired on defenseless PLA soldiers, then paramount leader Deng Xiaoping gave a somber, but resolute and inspiring speech (whose text can still be found in Chinese on the web). It was given to his fellow Politburo members. He said he did not blame the protestors at all. They all understood these (mostly) kids were being used by the United States to overthrow China’s way of life, and replace it with a puppet, capitalist government, to restart China’s century of humiliation, 1839-1949. He talked about how Baba Beijing had patiently and peacefully waited for five long, sweltering weeks, for the protest to wear itself out. The CPC’s leaders had gone out to the protestors, to talk and hear their complaints and were invited on the national stage, where they were insulted. Deng said the protestors’ complaints were valid, which concerned spiking inflation, corruption and market reforms being pushed too fast (“democracy” was entirely a CIA construct). Now, these misguided kids were being turned into killers by their American handlers, murdering their PLA brethren, and that was the last straw (Deng and many of his colleagues were former soldiers and revolutionaries).
In so many words, Deng said, either we let Uncle Sam turn China into another colonial state, or we do what we have to do to maintain stability, harmony and keep the communist revolution on its current trajectory. He asked for a show of hands. The vote was unanimous. It was a point in time, an unforgettable speech and a collective vote that changed world history, for the better, much better.
Deng Xiao ping: A controversial figure to this day.
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t was that close, the United States overthrowing New China. Imagine the world today, with the People’s Republic being turned into a continent sized Philippines, Libya or Colombia. Baba Beijing did everything in its power to avoid a military intervention. They were prepared to ride it out for the long haul, to keep it peaceful. What other government would let hundreds of thousands of protestors take over its country’s most iconic public square for five weeks, and defend it with unarmed soldiers? But, once this Western psyops turned violent, it left them little choice.
According to official records, about 300 PLA soldiers were killed, along with 400 violent protestors. With video footage showing masses of protestors filing peacefully out of the square, this sounds about right. Those who stayed on were the ones who were armed and dangerous, shooting at soldiers and firebombing the incoming military vehicles. Many of the PLA dead were burned alive.
Countless Western journalists have recanted the lies they published that night, in the heat of the moment and under great pressure from their propaganda ministries. But, they waited 10-20 years to do so, and you really have to dig deep behind the Great Western Firewall, with its masterful censorship, its Orwellian Memory Hole, to find the articles where they fessed up, because their recantations have been thoroughly suppressed.
Yet still, every year this date, we all go through the same tired ritual around the world, about a fictitious “massacre” that never happened. Twenty percent of humanity is duly flogged for having endured the West’s first, nearly successful color revolution. It’s the West’s anti-China propaganda investment that just keeps on paying dividends.
And every year since June 4th, 1989, the Chinese media duly puts out articles and news clips, reminding this one-fifth of the human race that the Tiananmen protests were a conflated attempt by the United States to destroy their way of life and their highly successful socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Three hundred sixty-five days and counting.
PLA soldier hanged, burned and mocked by demonstrators. Such images were largely ignored by the Western press.
Jeff J. Brown—TGP’s Beijing correspondent— is the author of 44 Days (2013), Reflections in Sinoland – Musings and Anecdotes from the Belly of the New Century Beast (summer 2015), and Doctor WriteRead’s Treasure Trove to Great English (2015). He is currently writing an historical fiction, Red Letters – The Diaries of Xi Jinping, due out in 2016. In addition, a new anthology on China, China Rising, Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations, is also scheduled for publication this summer. Jeff is commissioned to write monthly articles for The Saker and The Greanville Post, touching on all things China, and the international political & cultural scene
In China, he has been a speaker at TEDx, the Bookworm Literary Festival, the Capital M Literary Festival, the Hutong, as well as being featured in an 18-part series of interviews on Radio Beijing AM774, with former BBC journalist, Bruce Connolly. He has guest lectured at international schools in Beijing and Tianjin.
Jeff grew up in the heartland of the United States, Oklahoma, and graduated from Oklahoma State University. He went to Brazil while in graduate school at Purdue University, to seek his fortune, which whet his appetite for traveling the globe. This helped inspire him to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia in 1980 and he lived and worked in Africa, the Middle East, China and Europe for the next 21 years. All the while, he mastered Portuguese, Arabic, French and Mandarin, while traveling to over 85 countries. He then returned to America for nine years, whereupon he moved back to China in 2010. He currently lives in Beijing with his wife, where he writes, while being a school teacher in an international school. Jeff is a dual national French-American.
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4 comments
This article is utter bullshit. I lived in China in 1991-2, and taught journalism at Fudan U. in Shanghai, where I knew many of the students who took over that school and acted in support of the protesters in Tienanmen. I’m fluent in Chinese and can tell you these students, and their brothers and sisters in Beijing, many of whom I came to know over the ensuing years when I lived and worked in Hong Kong and also in Xi’an until moving back to the US in 1997, had no links to the CIA, witnessed the murder not so much of students in the square, but of workers in the streets of Beijing by PLA troops brought in from other provinces (the local garrison was not trusted to fire on local Beijing protesters), and were protesting for legitimate grievences and demands for real democracy in line with the Chinese Constitution. It’s sad to read such tripe being pushed by someone blinded by ideology. China in 1989, and today too, is effectively lead by fascists pretending to be communists. The fusion of corporate and military power under today’s Communist Party (already largely completed by 1989) is the working definition of fascism. The spouting of corrupted Marxist rhetoric by China’s Communist leaders should not hide that reality.
With all due respect to Dave Lindorff, we believe it is important to add some context and clarification to his comments on correspondent Jeff Brown’s article. Further, airing this difference of interpretation is absolutely critical at this point in time as the U.S. continues to engage in highly provocative military activities vis a vis China.
First, while we appreciate Mr.Lindorff’s perspective on China, the student movement, and the events in 1989, what he states as indisputable facts are, and have been, debated over the decades. It is not a settled matter as the difference of opinion between Mr. Brown and Mr. Lindorff exemplifies. What no one can reasonably doubt is that the US has used the events at Tienanmen Square for propaganda purposes since the event occurred.
Second, Mr. Lindorff is not the only person who has lived in China and speaks fluent Chinese. Jeff Brown currently lives in China and speaks fluent Chinese. He is not a neophyte, nor is he an ideologue as is implied by Mr. Lindorff’s remarks.
Third, while Mr. Lindorff authoritatively states that the CIA had no hand in influencing the student protest, I am not sure how he can know that as fact. Certainly the CIA has had a hand historically and contemporarily in similar movements across the world. Sincere people seeking change have participated in those movements as well. The participation of people in the demonstrations does not mean anything about the influence, or lack thereof, of a U.S. agency.
Lastly, it is not a settled debate about the current political economy of China. The only thing we can likely say with any surety is that China’s economy is in transition, as is Chinese society itself, and, in our view, moving toward an ever more progressive and democratic position. Further, to make the statement that China today is “effectively lead by fascists pretending to be communists” may or may not be true; but we could equally say that the United States is “effectively led by fascists pretending to be a democracy.”
On other issues Mr. Lindorff argues staunchly against US imperialism, regardless of his seeming support of the U.S. party line on China and Tienanmen. However, it is the consistent propagandizing of Tienanmen Square and China by U.S. corporate media and the government that fuels the debate over what really happened and if the United States had any hand in those terrible events.
Rowan Wolf serves as Managing Editor of The Greanville Post
Dear Mr. Lindorff:
Thank you for taking the time to read/listen to my article/podcast about Tiananmen and responding.
During one of the recent “Umbrella revolution” street demonstrations in Hong Kong, I asked a number of Westerners and Hongkongers if they thought the protestors were being manipulated by outsiders, like NGOs, the CIA and foreign embassies. Every one of them to a “T” emphatically said no. Some of them got moist-eyed and emotional. Some got angry and offended. Yet the evidence of external influence in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang is overwhelming, if one does a modicum of research outside the mainstream Western press.
It is human nature to idealize one’s efforts, struggles and to romanticize the story. Were your student friends in Shanghai directly employed by the CIA? Maybe, maybe not. Would they tell you? Of course not. Were their leaders compromised, even if they didn’t realize it themselves, since they had been infiltrated by Western agents? Very, very plausible. Social movements are almost always compromised and manipulated by devious forces. Just ask Occupy Wall Street, as a most recent case.
For someone who lived and worked in China for a number of years, I am shocked at your lack of understanding of China’s homegrown, millennial democracy, starting with the Heavenly Mandate. Have you ever really sat down, read and reflected on the People’s Constitution of China? Apparently not, because nowhere does it say anything about “pluralistic democracy” or notions thereof. It talks about the people’s democratic dictatorship, democratic centralism and the people owning the means of production. It talks about communism, socialism and defiantly rejects capitalism, as being “decadent”. It was written in 1982, under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping, not in 1950.
You accuse me of being ideological. My role as a journalist, author and writer is to help non-Chinese see China’s past, present and future through the eyes of the Chinese themselves, not via the distorted prism of the Great Western Firewall. The fact that I find China’s millennial governance incredibly successful over such a long period of time, and admire their culture, society, history and people is not ideology. The fact that I admire China’s communist leaders for doing an incredible job of creating better lives and opportunities for their citizens, since 1949, is not ideological. It is simply an informed judgement based on living and working in China for 14 years, starting in 1990, up to now, talking to thousands of Chinese from all walks of life across the country, and doing thousands of hours of research and writing.
If anybody sounds ideological, it is you, Mr. Lindorff. Here is what you wrote in your comment above:
“China in 1989, and today too, is effectively lead by fascists pretending to be communists. The fusion of corporate and military power under today’s Communist Party (already largely completed by 1989) is the working definition of fascism. The spouting of corrupted Marxist rhetoric by China’s Communist leaders should not hide that reality.”
Wow! It would appear that your hatred of the Communist Party of China is profound, visceral and, dare I say, ideological.
Again, Mr. Lindorff, thank you for sharing your opinions with everyone on The Greanville Post. If you are ever back in China, let’s have a cup of tea together. I would enjoy having the chance to meet you.
Best from Beijing, Jeff J. Brown