Chapter 15: Tiananmen
1 Jonathan Spence notes that 1989 represented a
convergence of several politically charged anniversaries: it was
“the two hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution, the
seventieth anniversary of the May Fourth movement, the fortieth
birthday of the People’s Republic itself, and the passage of ten
years since formal diplomatic relations with the United States had
been reinstituted.” Spence, The Search for
Modern China (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999),
696.
2 Andrew J. Nathan, “Preface to the Paperback
Edition: The Tiananmen Papers—An Editor’s Reflections,” in Zhang
Liang, Andrew Nathan, and Perry Link, eds., The Tiananmen Papers (New York: Public Affairs,
2001), viii.
3 Richard Baum, Burying Mao:
Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1994), 254.
4 Nathan, Introduction to The
Tiananmen Papers, “The Documents and Their Significance,”
lv.
5 An example of one such attempt to implement
conditionality was the Clinton administration’s policy of
conditioning China’s Most Favored Nation trade status on changes in
its human rights record, to be discussed more fully in Chapter 17,
“A Roller Coaster Ride Toward Another Reconciliation: The Jiang
Zemin Era.”
6 David M. Lampton, Same Bed,
Different Dreams: Managing U.S.-China Relations, 1989–2000
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 305.
7 George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft,
A World Transformed (New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1998), 89–90.
8 Ibid., 97–98.
9 Congress and the White House shared a concern
that visiting students who had publicly protested in the United
States would be subject to punishment on their return to China. The
President had signaled that applications for visa extensions would
be treated favorably, while Congress sought to grant the extensions
without requiring an application.
10 Bush and Scowcroft, A World
Transformed, 100.
11 Ibid., 101.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., 102.
14 Ibid.
15 Lampton, Same Bed,
Different Dreams, 302.
16 Bush and Scowcroft, A World
Transformed, 105–6. Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen
disputes this account in his memoirs, averring that the plane was
never in any danger. Qian Qichen, Ten Episodes
in China’s Diplomacy (New York: HarperCollins, 2005),
133.
17 Bush and Scowcroft, A World
Transformed, 106.
18 Ibid.
19 Qian, Ten Episodes in
China’s Diplomacy, 134.
20 Bush and Scowcroft, A World
Transformed, 109.
21 Ibid., 107.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid., 107–8.
24 Ibid., 107–9.
25 Ibid., 110.
26 Deng had made clear that he intended to retire
very shortly. He did, in fact, do so in 1992, though he continued
to be regarded as an influential arbiter of policy.
27 The five principles of peaceful coexistence were
negotiated by India and China in 1954. They concerned coexistence
and mutual noninterference between countries with different
ideological orientations.
28 Deng made a similar point to Richard Nixon
during the latter’s October 1989 private visit to Beijing: “Please
tell President Bush let’s end the past, the United States ought to
take the initiative, and only the United States can take the
initiative. The United States is able to take the initiative. . . .
China is unable to initiate. This is because the stronger is
America, the weaker is China, the injured is China. If you want
China to beg, it cannot be done. If it drags on a hundred years,
the Chinese people can’t beg [you] to end sanctions [against
China]. . . . Whatever Chinese leader makes a mistake in this
respect would surely fall, the Chinese people will not forgive
him.” As quoted in Lampton, Same Bed,
Different Dreams, 29.
29 Some in the White House maintained that it was
unnecessarily provocative to invite Fang Lizhi to attend a
presidential banquet with the same Chinese authorities he was
criticizing. They blamed the American Embassy in Beijing for
failing to forewarn them of the impending controversy. In including
Fang on the list of potential invitees, the American ambassador in
Beijing, Winston Lord, had in fact flagged him as an outspoken
dissident whose inclusion might provoke Chinese government
consternation, but who nonetheless merited an
invitation.
30 “Cable, From: U.S. Embassy Beijing, To:
Department of State, Wash DC, SITREP No. 49, June 12, 0500 Local
(June 11, 1989),” in Jeffrey T. Richardson and Michael L. Evans,
eds., Tiananmen Square, 1989: The Declassified
History, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book
no. 16 (June 1, 1999), Document 26.
31 Bush and Scowcroft, A World
Transformed, 99.
32 U.S. Embassy Beijing Cable, “China and the
U.S.—A Protracted Engagement,” July 11, 1989, SECRET, in Michael L.
Evans, ed., The U.S. Tiananmen Papers: New
Documents Reveal U.S. Perceptions of 1989 Chinese Political
Crisis, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book
(June 4, 2001), Document 11.
33 Bush and Scowcroft, A World
Transformed, 101–2.
34 Deng’s reference was to Winston
Lord.
35 Qian, Ten Episodes in
China’s Diplomacy, 140.
36 Bush and Scowcroft, A World
Transformed, 174.
37 Ibid., 176–77.
38 Fang and his wife would ultimately depart China
for the U.K. on an American military transport plane. They
subsequently relocated to the United States, where Fang became a
professor of physics at the University of Arizona.
39 Richard Evans, Deng
Xiaoping and the Making of Modern China (London: Hamish
Hamilton, 1993), 304 (quoting Zheng
Ming, Hong Kong, May 1, 1990).
40 “Deng Initiates New Policy ‘Guiding Principle,’”
FBIS-CHI-91-215; see also United States Department of Defense,
Office of the Secretary of Defense, “Military Power of the People’s
Republic of China: A Report to Congress Pursuant to the National
Defense Authorization Act Fiscal Year 2000” (2007), 7, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/070523-china-military-powerfinal.pdf.
41 “Deng Initiates New Policy ‘Guiding Principle,’”
FBIS-CHI-91-215.