Posted on 06/04/2006 4:43:51 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
THE US today urged China to account for thousands killed, arrested and missing in the Tiananmen Square crackdown on democratic protesters 17 years ago, saying a reevaluation is "long overdue".
"Seventeen years ago, beginning on the night of June 3 and continuing June 4, 1989, the Chinese government brutally suppressed peaceful demonstrations by its own citizens who were supporting political reform and democracy," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.
"The US urges China to provide a full accounting of the thousands who were killed, detained, or went missing and of the government's role in the massacre."
Mr McCormack called it "in China's own interest" to clear the record of the violent crackdown on the six-week-long protests.
"We also urge China to address the ongoing violations of the rights of victims and their families and to make public the list of those still in prison. The US has encouraged China to move toward the kind of political reform called for by many of those involved in the Tiananmen Square movement."
Considerin that this comes on the heels of Russia's blasting our human rights record, I have a feeling this is a case of "Hey, you think we are bad? Look at THEM!"
Somethings going on here...
This is long overdue and inadequate, but its more than has been said at this level in awhile.
I wonder if the Chinese Communist Party has done something new that pushed the administration over the edge? Chinese in official circles get EXTREMELY offended if you suggest that they are not a democracy right now (they will explain to you that they are a different sort of democracy than the United States, however).
Even among pro-democracy university students from Beijing, there is often an attitude that while the crackdown on the Square was an attrocity, foreigners ought not comment on it.
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but this statement appears to be strategically motivated.
No need to delve into this. It could distract us from the current all-out frenzy to show that the United States Marines are the worst criminals in history.
Looks like somebody finally noticed that the Chi-Comms are implementing free market economic reforms while maintaining a hard-line dictatorship. That's fascism, not communism- and that particular political & economic combination is what lifted Germany from a bankrupt shell to a world power in a few short years.
One of the things that crippled the old Soviet Union was the lack of anything resembling an economy. If the Chi-Comms get their fiscal house in order (as it seems they've done) we're in deep doo-doo.
I first thought it said a revolution is long overdue, before I re-read it.
Do not demonize China. I would rather think that the degree of "the brutality and contempt for human beings" in China is withing the "norm" or better. China is a Confucionist society and Communism was imported from West.
Keep shopping at mal-mart folks, the chicoms need the money.
Communism - understood not in the terms of red banners but as a way of life [see the works of the late Alexander Zinoviev for more details] was not imported from anywhere, but is immanent to human species wherever the humans with their self-preservation instinct formed social groups. It is the limitations on it - aka civilization which had to be invented and/or imported. And it so happened that the Chinese civilization has formed pretty weak limitations on the primordial "communality". There is no need to "demonize" them - in many other places it is still worse.
This is too "sophisticated". Marxism was invented in Germany/Western Europe by XIX century philosophers and revolutionaries. If Commies has won in Spain, Germany or England the results would be no better.
If Alexander Zinoviev talks about "primordial communality" he might be trying to pin the blame on Russians (who had the traditional institution of "mir" which was a village with some comunal aspects). No, Marxism came from the West.
The West is responsible for the brutality of China's government. Sure, yeah.
It doesn't matter where the term "communism" originated. The West certainly did not force Mao's band of thugs from taking over the country and using "communism" as their fig leaf.
By the way, you must have never studied Marxism if you think the Chinese government practises anything remotely close to communist theory as it was developed in Germany/Western Europe.
Not only they were a small group but they were in large part recruited from non-Russian minorities and had to use mass terror to stay in power.
I did study it, first as a mandatory subject in Communist Poland, then I read on my own several works by Marx, Engels, Lenin and others. Also I took philosophy as a second major.
Radical wing of Marxists were Marxists quite independently of the local culture whether in Spain or Germany or Italy or France or Russia or in Cambodia or in Cuba or in Albania.
When they get the chance they tried to eradicate local culture and traditions. Only at the later stage as they weakened in their revolutionary fervor they made some accommodations.
Almost all government are brutal at one moment or another. Do you think that Civil War in USA or removal of Indian tribes were not brutal?
All governments are brutal, I am 100% in agreement with that. I'm certainly not saying that the West is not responsible for its own excesses. Just that it is NOT responsible for what the Chinese government does now, whatever they call themselves. Chinese society is the result of Chinese history, they would be killing people even if they weren't "communists", just in the name of something else.
And how does one group "eradicate the local culture" in all those diverse countries?
IMO, what is called communism took very different forms in all the places you mentioned(all bad, though).
"Ei-bogu, Ivan Ivanovich, s vami govorit' nuzhno, gorokhu naevshis'" [Gogol]. When the difference between formal communists [party members] and those who live as if they are communists [like our Clintons, and millions of others] without any party or ideological affiliation dawns on you, then, and only then, will this discussion with you start making sense. Zinoviev, and I after him, is dealing almost exclusively with the latter group. You prefer to focus on the former.
The key element of the culture is religion or ideology which answer the fundamental questions about the society and purpose of life. Communism in its early fervent phase competes with religion - whether with Confucionism in China (cultural revolution) or Orthodox Church in Russia.
Poland was a special case as Catholic Church is very strong in Poland and Communists could not find enough committed supporters, (they could find them in Bohemia/Czechoslovakia and East Germany).
Communists tried to remake the culture in three ways, first by indoctrination ie propagating the principles of Marxism, second by remaking of political and economic structure of society, third by prosecution and suppressing of opposing beliefs.
The market based secular democracy is not so well defined as a world-view so it can coexist to some extent with traditional religious but the conflict is visible.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.