Chinese police block a site where protesters had gathered in Shanghai on Sunday (AP Photo)
Early in my journalism career, I learned my industry as a reporter in the Times’ foreign office, where we, the new growing journalists, retired for the possibility of helping with great stories. However, one day in June in the summer of 1989, there were more than enough stories for everyone. Three of them shook the world: the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and the coming pressures for reforms and liberal rights, the great exodus of East Germans seeking to escape Hungary to the west and 50 days of protest, riddled with bullets by the army in Tiananmen Square.
More than 3 decades later, I am amazed at the fact that the intertwined threads of those stories are still shaping our global year and this year with renewed vigor.
Once again, Iranians are emerging in protests sparked by restrictions on women’s dress and deaths at the hands of the “morality police. “Europe’s eastern flank is under strain as Ukraine struggles to free itself from Moscow’s control, while the Germans were supposed to do so more than 30 years ago. And China, under the hardening regime of Chairman Xi, the toughest leader since Mao, is plagued by street protests sparked by overly strict covid rules.
But more fundamentally, the latest uprising changes the assumptions of China’s political elite that it alone deserves how the pandemic is contained, or the trade-offs between welfare and economic benefits from imprisoning large numbers of others in their homes. It has reached the point where even others intimidated by collective dictates find that it is too difficult to bear and take immense risks to oppose it.
I know two of the cities where protests have spread the fastest: Shanghai in the bustling Yangtze River Delta and Chengdu in Szechuan province. The fact that the protests have evolved further in highly informed centers would possibly give the impression that only the elite opposes the authoritarian character of the Communist Party leadership.
British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Commonwealth and Development James Cleverly and Ukrainian Foreign Secretary Dmytro Kuleba meet, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine, November 25, 2022. Press Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine/REUTERS brochure
One repression begets another. The other Uighurs are also daring to speak out, with protesters in the regional capital, Urumqi, calling for Mr. Xi’s resignation. They do so knowing full well that they are taking a serious risk, given the cost of repression inflicted on their population at the slightest sign of dissent.
A pragmatic remnant of Covid regulations with faster vaccine rollout to offset the dangers of infection is the logical path for leaders. But if there is one lesson I learned from decades of living and reporting on autocracies, it is that their fragility and control of nature is the persistent error in the ideological apparatus. The suffering of East German leaders may not reach the momentum to upgrade their gerontobureaucracy in the Glasnost era. Iran Berlín. La’s combination of onerous restrictions on clothing, customs and personal beliefs, plus corruption and runaway inflation, is renewing a cycle of protests and violent restrictions.
Police cars are seen next to Wulumuqi Road, called Urumqi in Mandarin, in Shanghai on Nov. 29, 2022, two days after infrequent protests against China’s zero-covid policy following a fatal fire in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region. (Photo) via HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP) (Photo via HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP Getty Images)
Tiananmen explained and animated an era of democratic protest that, despite all the warts and everything we have witnessed in recent years of a formula founded on freedom, cannot be advanced by way of authoritarianism.
To give Boris Johnson rare credit for telling the truth without frills, the former prime minister was right in his recent candid comments in Singapore about China as a “coercive autocracy. “To be sure, his handling of a new wave of opposition will suffer the same momentum. Fate like the past and the replacement story will be long. What is common, however, is that under duress, and despite technological advances that make life even less difficult for state supervisors than in the days of the Stasi and KGB, other people around the world who have a lot to lose continue to stand up for what they believe in against state thugs. from Kyiv to Tehran and Beijing.
I can’t say it better than the poet James Fenton, who reflected on the official erasure of the 1989 Chinese protests in those terms:
Tiananmen
is and clean
and you can’t tell
where were
And you can’t say
When they return.
They will come back
In Tiananmen.
And of course, there and elsewhere, they will.
Sign up to receive newsletters, comment on stories, participate in contests, and attend events.
By clicking Register, you verify that you have entered your knowledge and that you have read and accepted our Terms of Use, Cookies Policy and Privacy Notice.
This site is through reCAPTCHA and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
This site is through reCAPTCHA and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.