As Xiao Qiang, executive director of Human Rights in China, stood on stage during the 1997 Tibetan Freedom Concert, he addressed the issue of Tibet in terms of Chinese democracy, "Tibet cannot be free until China is free". Mr. Xiao was talking about the limited freedom that the people of China have as a result of the repressive Communist regime. The struggle for human rights is shared by both Chinese citizens as well as Tibetans because the Chinese Communist government does not discriminate when it comes to oppressive rule.
HOW THE MOVEMENT STARTED
The Chinese Democracy Movement has been prevalent for sometime now, but began to show its face in the late 1970's after Mao Zedong's death in 1976. His death seemed to open a window and create surge of confidence for pro-democracy activists. "Democracy Walls" appeared in the cities, these walls were plastered with posters demanding basic human rights and democracy. Underground magazines began circulating throughout the country, detailing horrific accounts of suffering during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), where Mao cracked down on free expression in order to transform Chinese society and have them kow-tow to him and socialist thought. The momentum and confidence the pro-democracy movement gained in the late 1970's propelled the movement to take shape and show itself to the rest of the world.
In the years that followed, the Chinese government attempted to extinguish the pro-democracy movement by banning the magazines and arresting those behind the Democracy Walls, but it wasn't until 1989 that the world turned its attention towards a movement that was battling one of the most tyrannical governments in existence. In the spring of 1989, the democracy movement began to climax, with large-scale protests happening nearly every week. Hunger strikes were also in effect while the Chinese government seemed to be waiting in the wings, anticipating a time to destroy the movement entirely. The factor that made the movement so strong was that the bulk of the participants were Chinese students. The students had been initiating dialogue in their schools, questioning both China's past as well as her future. The university students knew and studied the governments of other countries around the world and directly saw the dissatisfaction of their parents' generation and the restlessness of their own. But by no means was the democracy movement limited to students alone, "An important aspect of the Democracy Movement was the cross-generational interaction between the young college students who led the student protests-the heart of the movement-and the intellectuals one or two generations their senior"(Han Minzhu, Cries for Democracy, p.120). It was a movement that attempted to amend history and secure a generation's future. Five days earlier the students raised a statue of the Goddess of Democracy (her likeness was not unsimilar to the US's own Statue of Liberty). Tiananmen Square seemed to be the hub of the pro-democracy activity, with Mao's mausoleum steadfast on the southern edge, the protests continued.
On June 4th 1989 the democracy movement went head on with the People's Liberation Army (the largest, most brutal army around, not only a military power but an economic force) in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. The protests had been relatively peaceful, the students intents were not to stir violence, for they believed that China had already seen too much in the past, "Our struggle is one of peaceful protest, and the highest principle of peace is sacrifice"(Chai Ling, June 8, 1989. Cries for Democracy, 362). Although this may have been the case, thousands of troops and tanks occupied Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3rd and morning of the 4th. The bloodied bodies of protesters lay in the square, displaying that the unarmed students were no match against the brute force of their targets of protest. The student movement appeared to be silenced as the protesters mass-exited the square to sacrifice no more life. The fatalities of Tiananmen Square symbolized a new dawn for the movement. Although the students and pro-democracy leaders knew that another attempt to protest publicly meant bloodshed, they knew that the world was now aware of the Chinese Democracy Movement and how important the cause was to those who lost their lives for it. In a speech Shen Tong (a prominent leader of the Tiananmen Square protests) delivered at the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta, Georgia, he expressed the most important thing he learned from the June Massacre, "We know that the one thing necessary to achieve real democracy and human rights in China was peace. China could suffer no more violence. Peaceful revolution was the only answer". Deng Xiaoping's view on the massacre was nearly parallel to the protesters, he believed the bloodshed was integral to suppress the "rebellious cliques and the dregs of society, who want to topple the country and overthrow our party". In a speech Deng delivered on June 9, 1989 to the martial law cadres and PLA troops he communicated his regret that the dealings had not taken a more drastic measure, "In the course of quelling the rebellion, many of our comrades were injured or even sacrificed their lives. Their weapons were taken away from them. Why was this? It also was because bad people mingle with good, which made it difficult to take the drastic measures we should take".
STRIKE HARD AND THE ONGOING SUPPRESSION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Most of the democracy movement leaders have been forced to flee out of China and have found that they can be more effective without the rights restrictions they were fighting against. Many of the dissidents who have relocated to the US are working full time to continue to battle the oppression that still exists in China as the government thrives. Since the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the Chinese government has perhaps gotten effectively harsher on "splittists" and dissidents. Strike Hard campaigns surface frequently and hearken back to the expurgation of the Cultural Revolution. Human Rights groups have found that the Strike Hard campaigns are implicitly targeting dissidents and its goal seems to be an attempt to restore "social order". In the first ten days of a 1996 campaign, 8,750 offenders were captured by the Public Security Bureau. All of the offenders are to go to trial, but the judges are strongly influenced by the government; in fact, most sentences are determined before the trials begin. The punishments are quite appalling, since so many offenders are sentenced to death, executions are frequent; offenders are to line up, kneeling and are shot in the head. From April to mid-June 1996, 650 such executions were documented.
RESTRICTIONS ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
Much of this news about the actions of the Chinese government has been smuggled out by foreign press and human rights groups. The government still attempts to control information coming into and leaving China. All film, TV, and radio is strictly regulated. This censorship reaches far beyond America's censorship, the information on the Internet, for example, are so harsh that there is a special program that concerns all who are hooked up to the Internet called the "Internet Interim Management Rules". The State Council has to approve all Internet networks that the people can have access to, and individuals who want to be hooked up to the Net have to register with the police. There is no question that registering means that the government will forever keep tabs on these people. The government obviously views media, especially the Internet, as powerful tools. There are also regulations on foreign press, so what we see is probably only a fraction of what is really going down. 1,2. Human Rights Watch/Asia. July 1996, Vol.8, No.7, p.8.
The felon category of dissident stretches over a broad number of crimes. Dissidents are, for the most part, those who seem to pose a threat to the existing government and who execute such tactics as "subversion" and "overthrowing". Wei Jingsheng, China's most prominent pro-democracy activist, and most wanted dissident, was arrested in 1979 as part of the Democracy Wall movement. Wei is often regarded as the father of the Chinese Democracy Movement. Wei was sentenced to 15 years in 1979 for speaking out against the Chinese government and Deng Xiaoping. He was released 6 months early, a shock to family and friends, but it was later found out that this action was done purely to win a bid in the 2000 Olympics.
As soon as Wei was released, he again started up pro-democracy rallying, which got him captured on April 1, 1994, only 7 months after his last release. In December Wei was sentenced to another 14 years in prison; this time for engaging in "conspiracy to subvert the government". During his current sentence, human rights groups as well as his family, have been reporting that Wei's treatment in prison is getting worse. There are reports that prisoners have been told that they will receive merit from prison guards and officials if they beat up Wei. Wei also suffers from heart problems and back-pain and receives no medical care even as he suffers from the treatment of other prisoners.
Harry Wu, founder of the Laogai Research Center, has seen forced prison labor first hand. He has written two books "Laogai: The Chinese Gulag" and "Bitter Winds" about his 19 years in prison labor camps. As a student at the Beijing College of Geology in the late '50s, Wu commented on the Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary and was then reported by his classmates to authorities and was sentenced to life in prison. Wu miraculously was released in 1979, as a result of Deng Xiaoping's attempts to improve foreign relations. As he watched the suffering and death of the people around him, Wu decided to devote his life's work to letting the public know of what goes on in the prison camps. Much of the labor in prison is now focusing on international trade, so if labels read "Made In China" there is a chance that the product was made in one such camp. Wu has snuck back into China a number of times following his release with the aim to capture on film the ongoing atrocities occurring in the prison camps. In 1991, Wu has filmed a special with Ed Bradley for "60 Minutes", where he captured prisoners producing goods that were to be shipped to the USA . In 1994, Wu returned to China once again to document the illegal trade of organs from prisoners who had died or been executed. Wu, again attempted to go back in June 1995, but was caught and while waiting a sentence was charged with such claims as "stealing state secrets" which is punishable by death. Wu was unexpectedly expelled after being sentenced to 15 years in prison in August of 1995. Wu continues his quest to expose the exploitation of prisoners in China.
Almost all Chinese dissidents, who believe in democracy for China, also believe in self-determination for Tibetans. Check out this open letter to the Chinese government written anonymously by a student protestor present at Tiananmen Square on June 4th, 1989.
