The memories of Tiananmen demonstrations have been well documented, Communist Party of China is trying to erase them
The Communist Party of China (CCP) prioritises political allegiance to itself over the country. As a result, Chinese national pride is now closely linked to the CCP. For instance, Premier Zhao Ziyang was removed just before the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and spent his last 16 years isolated in the party’s headquarters, the period in which he was not allowed to meet people and his sympathisers.
The philosophy of crushing different voices results in the various discourses and narratives of memories and counter-memories. Although the memories of punishment and imprisonment related to the Tiananmen democracy demonstrations have been well documented in international history, there have been deliberate attempts by the CCP to ban the commemoration of the violent suppression.
Until recently, Hong Kong and nearby Macao were the only places where the massacre could be remembered, but bans have been imposed lately there too. The last few decades witnessed the commemorations in Hong Kong and elsewhere by the people and various social groups such as the ‘Tiananmen Mothers,’ raising the questions about the future democratisation and demanding legitimacy for the Chinese citizens’ right to protest.
In the realm of national and international politics, the memories of ruthless suppression by the armed forces shape up the region’s geopolitics. The attempts of the CCP to change the national emotional landscape by setting up new narratives by intellectually and ideologically denying permission to observe memorial services for the June 4 incident need to be analysed from the perspective of crushing democracy.
From the history textbooks to the ban on the candle marches to mark the suppression of democratic rights of the people, Xi is leaving no stone unturned to erase the memories, fears of democratisation and questioning by the younger generation. This has led to the stifling of political dissent.
The CCP has ensured that profound contradictions prevail in the Constitution itself. The right to peaceful protest without resorting to arson and creating difficulties for other people has been widely recognised in almost all democratic countries. In China too, it is recognised as the “right to freedom of expression” and enshrined in Article 35. However, at the same time, Article 33(4) speaks of citizens’ “duties prescribed by the Constitution and the law,” thereby giving a legal loophole to the CCP to formulate laws to erase memories.
Thus, what the world witnesses is the formulation of laws such as the ‘National Security Law’ (2020) for Hong Kong, which has substantially reduced the autonomous powers of Hong Kong. Interestingly, the law also applies to the “non-permanent residents” and people “from outside [Hong Kong]... who are not permanent residents of Hong Kong,” thus giving sweeping powers to the CCP, while violating the system of “one country, two systems,” which was previously agreed upon in 1997.
Document 9 (2013) issued by the CCP prohibited a range of activities such as advocating the Western concept of constitutional democracy, neoliberalism and its idea of journalism, questioning the reforms introduced by the CCP, and undermining the history of CCP and advocating for a ‘new China.’ Additionally, education is actively used as a tool for “socialist material civilisation and spiritual civilization,” which leaves no room for doubt that the political objectives of the CCP are far more superior to the people’s fundamental freedom of speech and expression.
Further, the 4th Plenum of the 18th Central Committee (2014) reiterated that the CCP’s leadership over the socialist legal system prevailed and required the people to submit to the party leadership.
Thus, a ban on dissent or protest assumes a geopolitical significance. The CCP has increased its attempts to restrict public speech on media and the internet, as they have shown less tolerance for public dissent and opposition. Article 306 of the Criminal Law and Article 42 of the Procedure law allows for the criminal charges levied against those lawyers who submit counter-arguments against the state.
Further, the code of practice of the All-China Lawyers Association obligates all the lawyers to be faithful to the party and then the state. Thus, the mass arrests and harsh punishment of human rights lawyers exemplify how the CCP has systematically silenced the voices of dissent. The ‘709 crackdown’ that was initiated in 2015 is notoriously known for arresting various lawyers, apart from the social and the legal activists such as Li Qiaochu and Xu Zhiyong to name a few. Cai Xia, a former Central Party school teacher who equated the CCP to a “political zombie” got a lengthy prison sentence of 18 years.
The CCP’s propensity to stifle voices and use force did not subside even during the critical periods of the Covid pandemic. The international media witnessed the horrifying visuals of the repressive measures adopted for its ‘Zero Covid’ policy. The CCP recently reiterated its resolve to “fight against any speech that distorts, questions
or rejects our country’s Covid-control policy.”
In China and at international platforms, there have been demands for independent investigations into the handling of the outbreak. Of course, as expected, such demands have been categorically rejected by the Chinese authorities.
Nevertheless, the cultural genocide, mass detention, and illegal organ harvesting of the Uyghurs, apart from denying them their constitutional right to protest against the state levied atrocities, have been raised many times in the international media and on various platforms such as the Amnesty International and United Nations.
The Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang too are subject to inhuman and degrading treatment. The minorities, human rights activists, and lawyers have been meted out the most inhuman treatment.
From a critical perspective, the same measures that were used for crushing political dissent are being used by Chinese President Xi Jinping to take over the CCP’s leadership for life by actively using rectification campaigns. In 2021, ‘Xi Jinping thought’ was introduced in the curriculum from the primary school level to the university level.
One of the thoughts emphasises upon “absolute authority of the party over the people,” thereby distorting the fundamental values of armed forces to safeguard the nation. Instead, the PLA is now ensuring the interests of Xi Jinping and the CCP. Ideally, the people worldwide owe their allegiance to the nation or the motherland; not so in the case of China. Deliberate distortions thus mark the formulations of the laws in China.
A pertinent question that has to be asked is how the CCP can erase the memories of the stringent laws and their application, whether of the Tiananmen Square massacre or the Wuhan, Beijing and Shanghai restrictions during Covid-19? Have not the harsh quarantine measures forever embedded in the minds of the Chinese people? Such truths would be told and retold from one
generation to another in the private sphere.
How many more decades can the bubble of authoritarianism survive, as it needs to regularly suffocate the voices of dissent, which becomes a vicious circle? The CCP’s mindset to prioritise loyalty to the party over loyalty to the nation has been largely the cause of its wrongdoings. Building legitimacy through counter-memories does not lead to long-term loyalty; it sometimes can lead to disastrous results instead.
(The writer is an Assistant Professor at Central University of Punjab, Bathinda.The views expressed
are personal.)