Tiananmen Square: 30 Years Later

My article Tiananmen Square: 30 Years Later appeared in Rediff.com



Here is the link...
 
Thirty years after the massacre at Tiananmen Square, coerced collective amnesia envelops the Chinese nation about that horrific event.
Claude Arpi glances back at how the student uprising could have changed the Middle Kingdom forever had the Chinese Communist party not traveled on the route of martial law.

In 2005, I wrote a piece The Day Chinese Glasnost Died for Rediff.com.
Former Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang had just passed away.
Can you believe that fourteen years later, the leadership in Beijing is still afraid of Zhao's ghost.
On January 17, 2013, The South China Morning Post had reported: "More than 100 mourners flocked to a traditional house in a quiet alleyway in Beijing yesterday morning to pay their respects at the home of the late Zhao Ziyang on the eighth anniversary of the ousted party chief's death," explaining “before his death, Zhao had been under house arrest at the courtyard home at No 6 Fuqiang Alley since opposing the use of military force against the Tiananmen Square demonstrators in 1989.”
Bao Tong, Zhao Ziyang’s secretary, who published the former Premier's memoirs, Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang, knew the implications of being close to Zhao: his home telephone was constantly tapped, he was followed everywhere he went and he was banned from approaching 'sensitive' events or places.
The situation in the Middle Kingdom has not improved, it has even worsened; while aiming at becoming the World Economic Power No 1, with a myriad of stealth jet planes, warships (soon three aircraft carriers), with the latest missiles and futuristic gadgets using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to monitor the life of the ‘masses’, China seems unshakable; but the ‘human’ intelligence and humanity symbolized by Zhao, has disappeared entirely from China, to be replaced by a authoritarian system (and even worse for places like Xinjiang).
Six years ago, Bao had explained why Zhao was not popular with the regime; China's former Premier simply treated people as human beings. Bao elaborated, “This doesn't sound very extraordinary …he was instrumental in protecting the autonomy of farming communities, because he saw farmers as people. He was instrumental in protecting the autonomy of enterprises, because he saw entrepreneurs and their workforce as people. He was instrumental in stopping the Party pronouncing on everything, because he didn't see the Party as a judge…”
Today, the Party is above everyone, monitoring and controlling everything.

What happened thirty years ago?
In January 1987, another great Chinese leader, Hu Yaobang was sacked as the Communist Party’s General Secretary; on April 9, 1989, still a member of the Politburo and entitled to attend important meetings, while uttering strong words and speaking of the Communist Party's failures, the respected Hu had a stroke. A week later, he passed away.
Zhao Zhiang, then secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party, made the customary brief assessment of Hu's life: “Comrade Hu was a loyal, tried and tested Communist fighter, a great proletarian revolutionary and politician, an outstanding political worker for the Army.”
It was agreed that Hu would have a national funeral service reserved for the Politburo’s Standing Committee members. But in the afternoon of April 17, 600 students of the Chinese University of Political Science and Law marched into Tiananmen Square with mourning banners and wreaths. They were 10,000 by the evening.
The next day, students and onlookers poured in from Beijing University and other places. Wreaths accumulated in front of the Monument to the Revolutionary Heroes.
The rest is history. It was the beginning of the largest spontaneous student revolution since 1919.
One man played a major role in the Tiananmen events - Zhao Ziyang. Having the same conviction as Hu Yaobang, he saw that the possibility of political reform existed in Communist China. During the following weeks, he constantly tried to negotiate a compromise with the students. This could have changed the Middle Kingdom's fate. It was not to be.
On May 20, the martial law order was signed by Prime Minister Li Peng. Two days later, Zhao Ziyang was sacked and Jiang Zemin was called from Shanghai to replace him.
During the night of June 3, Li Peng ordered the tanks to roll on the Square. Some 3,000 students are said to have lost their lives that night. The Party was saved and the fate of China was sealed (at least for the next few decades).

Thirty Years Later
Today, the momentous events on the Tiananmen Square have been erased from the public memory; nobody wants to remember the June 4 massacre. Cary Huang, a senior columnist with The South China Morning Post, wrote recently: “In 2019, China ushers in a year full of both festive jubilation and political trouble. Its communist leadership places enormous emphasis on the anniversaries of important historical events …China has a lot to celebrate in 2019 but it also has old wounds to heal.”
Huang noted that with its packed 2019 calendar of commemorative events, Beijing may ‘forget’ some of them, “many of which are politically charged or divisive. For a nation moving forward, it’s time to acknowledge the difficult past,” he argued.
It will not happen on June 4; already on March 28, Beijing selectively remembered the date as the 60th anniversary of Serfs Emancipation Day; but what was this emancipation?
March 28, 1959 marked a massacre of the Tibetan population in Lhasa and the Communist Party taking full control over the Tibetan capital; 18 days earlier, the Dalai Lama had fled the Roof of the World to take refuge in India. On March 28, the revered Lama was sacked as chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region and was replaced by a (then) more pliant Panchen Lama.
While these events are forgotten, the May Fourth Movement which took place in 1919 in the Chinese capital has been celebrated with pomp; on that day, students started protesting against the nationalist Government’s weak response to the Treaty of Versailles, allowing Japan to control the territories surrendered by Germany in Shandong.
On the occasion, Xi Jinping affirmed that patriotism was the core spirit of the 1919 event. He added that the May Fourth Movement inspired the ambition and confidence of the Chinese people and the nation to realize national rejuvenation. “It was also a great enlightenment and new cultural movement of disseminating new thought, new culture and new knowledge,” Xi said. But, of course, the students of 1989, did not exist, though they also wanted a better China.
On May 27, The South China Morning Post published an article entitled Generation Amnesia explaining why China’s youth don’t talk about Tiananmen; it looked at how censorship, silence and time have created a gulf between the young people who witnessed the events and those who came after them.
The Hong Kong newspaper quotes several witnesses of the tragic events, including Zhang Shijun, a medic with the People’s Liberation Army’s 54th Army Group, one of the military units engaged in enforcing martial law in Beijing; Zhang preferred that his daughter remains unaware of what happened.
Andrew Nathan, who compiled the Tiananmen Papers says that the Communist Party imposed complete censorship of June 4 because even discussing the possibility of ‘errors and crimes’ would make the party’s will to power seem weak: “Controlling speech sends a message that the party will not allow any opposition, and this message of determination makes people afraid that if they talk about forbidden topics they will be punished,” he said.
The lofty concepts of freedom and liberty have entirely disappeared from today’s China; a Reuters article describes how China's robot censors work overtime for this purpose.
The news agency affirms: “Censors at Chinese internet companies say tools to detect and block content related to the 1989 crackdown have reached unprecedented levels of accuracy, aided by machine learning and voice and image recognition.”
Two employees at Beijing Bytedance Co Ltd, a ‘censoring’ firm, said that censorship of the Tiananmen crackdown, along with other highly sensitive issues including Taiwan and Tibet, is now largely automated: “Posts that allude to dates, images and names associated with the protests are automatically rejected.”
They explained that AI is much more accurate, than the human intelligence.
Reuters commented: “June 4 itself is marked by a cat-and-mouse game as people use more and more obscure references on social media sites, with obvious allusions blocked immediately …even the word ‘today’ has been scrubbed.”
A question remains, how long can liberty and freedom of thought be stifled.
Certainly not for ever.

Can bygones be bygones?

Working for the 'masses'?

China has discreetly started appealing to the Tibetan Diaspora to join again the ‘motherland’.
The move was decided during Central United Front Work Conference held in Beijing from May 18 to 20. It was the 20th time, since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, that such ‘United Front Work Conference’ was held.
China Tibet Online commented: “Many politically savvy think that this shows the strengthening of the united front work (UFW) of the Communist Party of China. Meanwhile, international speculation was drawn by the conference: perhaps the CPC policies for ethnic minorities will be ‘tightened’?”
I think that it may not ‘tightened’, but more dangerously (for the Tibetans), the policies may be ‘loosened with Chinese Characteristics’.
Let me explain why?
During his intervention at the Conference, Xi Jinping spoke of strengthening of the unity of ‘three types of people’.
Who are these 3 types?
Xi named them: overseas students, media representatives, and non-public economy representatives. As already mentioned in this blog, Jack Ma of Alibaba was invited to join the collective efforts to build the Chinese Dream.
The younger generation was particularly targeted by Xi, “as the future focus of the united front work with the aim of achieving and maintaining unity."
China Tibet Online asked a pertinent (for Beijing) question: “do overseas Tibetans count in the ‘three types of people’?”
The website affirms that there are about 170,000 Tibetans living abroad in 33 different countries: “Many Tibetans fled from Tibet with the Dalai Lama in 1959, there are now second - or third - generation of Tibetans living overseas, and some left Tibet after the 1980s.”
Then the website gives their description of the Tibetan Diaspora: “Among the exiled Tibetans, only a handful of ‘high-ranking officials’ Tibetans can obtain the ‘nationality status’ or ‘green cards’ from their host countries, such as several Kalons (cabinet ministers) of the ‘Tibetan government-in-exile’. Most of the overseas Tibetans, especially those living in India and Nepal, are living in poverty and are basically dependent on others.”
The formulation is definitively not as offensive as usual. It does not say the ‘so-called Tibetan government-in-exile’, it just uses ‘ ’.

Let the bygones be bygones
The new Party’s policy seems to be a return to the Deng Xiaoping’s days, when China ‘opened-up’: “In 1978, the Chinese government formulated policies that ‘all patriots belong to one family, and that patriotism can be shown at any time’, as well as ‘freedom to come and go, letting bygones be bygones’ to welcome expatriate Tibetans to come home. Furthermore, Tibet’s economic development and the improvement of people’s living standards have also attracted overseas Tibetans to return home to visit their families and friends, make Buddhist pilgrimage, travel as tourists or do business.”
It is an open invitation to the Tibetan refugees to return, ‘let the bygones, be bygones’.
China Tibet Online says that the number of overseas Tibetans who are truly engaged in ‘Tibet independence’ and separatist activities is very small, though, it admits that the noise they make is big. It concludes that most Tibetans are not interested in ‘politics’.
In these conditions (as seen by Beijing), the United Front Work Conference “reiterated the bottom line that so long as overseas Tibetans are not involved in separatist activities, but safeguarding the unity of the motherland and maintaining unity instead, they are the targets of the united front’s work.”
In other words, the Tibetan refugees belong to one of the three types.
Under the new scheme the Tibetan refugees would be free birds, free to practice their ‘own’ religion, but, there is a ‘but’, it should be with Chinese characteristics.
Take the beginning of Saka Dawa Festival which was celebrated on June 2 this year (15th day of the 4th month). It marks the day of Buddha Sakyamuni's birth, enlightenment and Nirvana.
Zhao Puchu, a former president of the Buddhist Association of China, states that there was only one Buddha Sakyamuni in the world, so there should be only one definite time and date of his birth, enlightenment and nirvana: “However, due to the different calendars that are used in different countries and regions, the Buddhist records of this date vary.”
He proposed that Saka Dawa should be aligned with the Chinese lunar calendar. He explains: “During the development of some big religions as they expanded their geographical scope, they encountered new believers who were rooted in the culture of their individual regions. Thus, as time passed, the original religion gradually combined with the local culture, eventually forming a new sect.”
Zhao concludes: “In China, the question is how to adapt religions to a socialist society with Chinese characteristics.”
Soon, the Tibetan New Year, Losar will have to aligned with the Chinese Spring Festival for the sake of the ‘socialist society with Chinese characteristics’.
During the UWF Conference, Xi Jinping spoke of the legalization of religion work: “Authorities must value the influence of persons in the religious sphere and guild them to better serve for the nation's development, harmony and unification,” he said.
The Chinese President added: “Active efforts should be made to incorporate religions in socialist society,” but “religions in China must be Chinese. The development of religions in China should be independent from foreign influence.”
It means that Tibetan Buddhism, a ‘foreign’ religion which originated in the pains of India, should adapt to its Chinese environment and adopt ‘Chinese characteristics’.

The 17-Point-Agreement
The UWF Conference also passed new Regulations (‘Trial Implementation’) “marking a historical milestone in the development of the United Front”.
China Tibet Online affirmed that the United Front Work had been the key to the peaceful liberation of Tibet. It then brings the “17-Article Agreement which marked peaceful liberation of Tibet.”
After giving an historical background, it says “from Tibet’s peaceful liberation in 1951 until the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959, the ‘17-Article Agreement’ was the binding legal document for the central government and Tibet local government to adhere to.”
The fact that the Chinese publication use ‘was’ is an admission from Beijing that the Agreement is no more 'binding'. Let us remember that it was denounced by the Dalai Lama in April 1959 when he reached Tezpur in Assam.
The article explains that “the CPC insisted on unity of principle and flexibility during the process of the liberation of Tibet, both to safeguard national interests and also to take care of the interests of the people of Tibet.”
It quotes Deng Xiaoping, then Political Commissar of Second Field Army, which entered Chamdo in October 1950: "In Tibet, we walk and eat relying on policies. Policies are life. We must work closely with and rely on the masses… We should unite the majority of the ecclesiastic and secular people who are patriotic under the anti-imperialist patriotic banner."
Then the Party “established and developed the anti-imperialist patriotic political foundation, with members of the upper class as the focus of the United Front Work,” says the China Tibet Online.
After giving this ‘historical’ background, Beijing appeals again for ‘forgiveness’ “For the pro-imperialists of the past, as long as they distance themselves from imperialism, sabotage and resistance, bygones can be bygones, and all can be united.”
It quotes the Tibetan collaborator, Ngabo Ngawang Jigme, who was co-opted in the UFW and would have suggested that in October 1950, Tibet should "Stop the offensive. Both Chinese and Tibetans will benefit from a peaceful settlement."
The Chinese website admits that when the PLA arrived in Chamdo, Ngabo “ordered the withdrawal of Tibetan troops from Chamdo and sent for contact with the PLA.”
Further, Ngabo would have encouraged some 40 monks and lay officials “to write to the Dalai Lama, to urge the Tibetan local [Lhasa] government to speedily send representatives to engage in peace talks with the Central Government based on their knowledge and experience.”
It is how the 17-Point Agreement was signed (‘under duress’ say the Tibetans)
Then, China Tibet Online gives several examples on how the PLA brought ‘relief’ to the masses and “the PLA troops in Tibet were also pioneers of production: repairing roads and bridges, providing free medical care, and helping people with laborious work.”
Well, the truth is that the PLA built roads for itself, to defend the borders; in other words, to be ready to take on Indian troops.
How the Diaspora will respond to the new ‘offer’ of the UFW Conference is an interesting question to follow.
Let us see if the bygones can be bygones once again.

The Dalai Lama is an insignificant character, Deng

Gyalo Thondup and Deng Xiaoping in 1979

In my book The Negotiations that never were, I mentioned the encounter between Deng Xiaoping, China's new Paramount Leader and Gyalo Thondup, the Dalai Lama's elder brother in March 1979.
Excerpts of the book are posted below. 
We have now another side of the coin.
The US Department of State has recently released Volume XIII of the Foreign Relations of the United States (Carter Administration - 1977-80).
What is surprising is that there are very few mentions about Tibet (was not President Carter a great 'friend' of the Dalai Lama?)
One discussion is however worth citing. It took place during Walter Mondale, the US Vice-President's visit to China in August 1979. 
On August 27, 1979, Mondale met  Deng Xiaoping (then China's Vice-Premier of the State Council). 
Mondale was accompanied by Leonard Woodcock, U.S. Ambassador to China; David Aaron, Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs; Richard Holbrooke, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and Denis Clift, Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs while Deng Xiaoping had Huang Hua, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Zhang Wenchin, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chai Zemin, China's Ambassador to the US, on his side.
During the course of the conversation Deng broached the topic of Dalai Lama.
He stated:

As for the matter of the Dalai Lama, that is a small matter. We made clear our position. It is not a very important question because the Dalai Lama is an insignificant character.

Vice President Mondale: You have awfully good housing waiting for him. Could Woodcock [the US Ambasssdor] live there? (Laughter)

Vice Premier Deng: If he wants to come back, he could still live in that house. Of course, it is an illusion on his part. The idea of wanting to have a state of Tibet. Not long ago he visited the Soviet Union, and we have confirmed information that he went there on orders of the Indian Government. Some of his important officials [the first fact-finding delegation] have recently come back and have gone to Tibet to see officials and conditions there.

Though the discussion shifted on Cambodia and Vietnam, Vice President Mondale later brought back the question of the Dalai Lama:

Concerning the Dalai Lama’s visit to the United States, he was received only as a religious leader and not as a political leader. He will not be treated as a political leader. And our position, whenever asked, is that Tibet is part of China. 

Deng's remark raises a serious question, was the Chinese leader sincere when, a few month earlier, he told Gyalo Thondup: “The door is opened for negotiations as long as we don’t speak about independence. Everything else is negotiable”.
Difficult to say!

Excerpts of The Negotiations that never were:
The first encounters
In November 1978, Gyalo Thondup met with Li Ju-sheng who was designated as ‘Xinhua Director No. 2’ in Hong Kong. They had several encounters which lasted 5 or 6 weeks. Li certainly relayed his conversations to the leadership in Beijing. It seems that the objective from the Chinese side was to build confidence to prepare an eventual visit of Thondup to China where he would meet officials.
At the beginning, Gyalo Thondup did not know that Li Ju-sheng was close to Deng Xiaoping (who was acquainted with his intelligence work in Indonesia in the 1960s). Deng had personally sent Li to Hong Kong and given him this designation (Director No 2) . After a few meetings, Li recommended to Deng that Thondup be invited to discuss the situation in Tibet.
The Dalai Lama recalled in his memoirs that around the same time:

Thirty-four prisoners, mostly elderly members of my own administration, were publicly released with great ceremony in Lhasa. These men were purportedly the last of the 'rebel leaders'. Chinese newspapers stated that, after being taken on a month-long tour of the 'New Tibet', they were to be assisted in finding jobs and even in going abroad if that was what they desired.”
The Dalai Lama was informed of the meetings between Gyalo Thondup and the Chinese emissary. He commented:
The arrival of the [Tibetan] New Year brought no let-up in this spate of extraordinary developments. On 1 February 1979, coincidentally the day that the People's Republic of China was formally recognised by the US, the Panchen Lama, in his first public appearance for fourteen years, added his voice to those calling for the Dalai Lama and his fellow exiles to return. 'If the Dalai Lama is genuinely interested in the happiness and welfare of the Tibetan masses, he need have no doubts about it, he said. I can guarantee that the present standard of living of the Tibetan people in Tibet is many times better than that of the old society’ .

A week later, this invitation was repeated by Radio Lhasa. The nomination of a special welcoming committee to receive Tibetans from abroad was announced.
The Dalai Lama continued:

This was followed just a week later by the unexpected arrival of Gyalo Thondup in Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh) where I was attending a religious conference. To my surprise, he announced that he had heard through some old and trusted friends of his in Hong Kong (where he now lives) that Xinhua, the New China News Agency, which constitutes China's official legation to the British colony, wanted to make contact with him. Following this, he had met a personal emissary of Deng Xiaoping, who explained that the Chinese leader wanted to open communications with the Dalai Lama. As a mark of his goodwill, Deng wanted to invite Gyalo Thondup to Peking for talks. My brother had refused as he wanted to seek my opinion first.
This was totally unexpected, and I did not reply immediately. The developments of the past two years all looked very promising However, as the ancient Indian saying goes, 'When you have once been bitten by a snake, you become cautious even of a rope.' And unfortunately, all my experience of the Chinese leadership suggested that it was untrustworthy. Not only did the authorities in question lie, but worse, when these lies were exposed they were not the least bit ashamed. The Cultural Revolution had been a 'tremendous success' whilst it was going on; now it was a failure — but there was no sense of humility in this admission. Nor was there anything to suggest that these people ever kept their promises. Despite the concrete undertaking of clause thirteen of the Seventeen-Point Agreement that the Chinese would 'not arbitrarily take a needle or thread' from the Tibetans, they had ransacked the whole country. On top of this, through countless atrocities, they had shown a total disrespect for human rights. It seemed that to the Chinese mind, perhaps because of the huge size of their own population, human life is considered to be a cheap commodity — and Tibetan lives to be of still less value. I therefore felt it necessary to exercise extreme caution.
On the other hand, my basic belief is that human problems can only be solved through human contact. So there could be no harm in hearing what the Chinese had to say. Hopefully we could simultaneously explain our own views. We certainly had nothing to hide. Also, if the authorities in Peking were in earnest, we might even be able to send some fact-finding missions to discover for ourselves the real situation.
With these considerations in mind, and knowing that our cause was 100 per cent just and in accordance with the wishes of the entire population of Tibet, I told my brother he was free to go. After he had seen the Chinese leaders, we would consider the next step .

The road was cleared for the first direct contacts between the Dalai Lama’s brother and the new leadership in Beijing.

The Deng-Thondup meeting
The meeting between the supreme leader of the People’s Republic of China and the Dalai Lama’s brother took place in Beijing on March 12, 1979. Immediately, Deng blamed the Gang of Four for the difficult situation in Tibet. It was then the standard excuse for all that had gone wrong in China (and in Tibet) since the mid-sixties. But Deng said that he was keen to improve the lot of the Tibetan population. He told Thondup that he would like to invite the refugees in India and abroad to return to Tibet, “It is better to see once than to hear a hundred times”.
It was during this encounter with Gyalo Thondup that Deng Xiaoping said: “The door is opened for negotiations as long as we don’t speak about independence. Everything else is negotiable”. 
Around that time, the Dalai Lama proposed to Beijing (via the Chinese Embassy in India) that a fact-finding mission from Dharamsala should be permitted to visit Tibet with a view to discovering the real situation there and reporting. Gyalo Thondup had been requested to work out the details.
It is in these circumstances that three delegations were sent by the Dalai Lama in 1979 and 1980 to visit their native land after a gap of 20 years and much suffering.

Will history repeats itself?

Five years ago, I wrote this text for Rediff.com.
The most striking aspect in the Tiananmen incident (and the subsequent massacre of the students on the Square) was the crucial role played by the so-called Elders and particularly Deng Xiaoping, who at that time had no official position in the Party or the Government.
You may think that the situation is different now and that things have changed. It is however not certain that the Chinese are today able to rule the Middle Kingdom in a more constitutional way.
In 1975, the CIA internally circulated a secret document entitled, "The Art of China Watching". The document declassified in 1994, is about the techniques used by professional China-watchers to decrypt China.
A para, 'The Pecking Order' explains:

Another favorite tool of the analytical trade is the scrutiny of leadership appearances. The order in which Chinese leaders are listed can be a reliable gauge of their relative standing in the leadership. The Chinese have often circumvented this system by listing their leaders in the Chinese equivalent of alphabetical order. On major holidays, the Chinese used to hold mass rallies in Peking, with the entire leadership standing before the assembled crowds. Who stood next to whom was another clue to the importance of individual leaders, but in recent years the rallies have been abandoned. Instead, several small groups of leaders appear in different parks in Peking, thus avoiding a public display of the entire pecking order.
When several important officials fail to appear over an extended period of time, it often means that a leadership meeting is in session. When at the same time the top officials in many of China's 29 provinces do not appear at home, the betting is that Peking has called in leaders from the provinces for a large meeting. 

Yesterday, The South China Morning Post (SMCP) reported that the name of former president Jiang Zemin has been officially placed behind those of members of the CCP's Politburo Standing Committee. 
China Central Television said that at the funeral service for General Yang Baibing  (brother of the former President, and one of the main actor on the Tiananmen Square in 1989), who died at the age of 93 in Beijing, the wreath placed in Jiang's name came behind that of President Hu Jintao , party general secretary Xi Jinping and the other members of the Politburo Standing Committee. 
Observers are nevertheless of the opinion that Jiang may continue to play an important role behind the scene. The SMCP believes that the 86 years old Jiang "played a key role in the framing of the new leadership line-up for the party's 18th national congress, succeeding in getting allies including Zhang Dejiang , Yu Zhengsheng and Zhang Gaoli on to the Politburo Standing Committee."
Has Jiang now fully retired?
Beijing-based independent political analyst Chen Ziming told the SMPC that: "Jiang can still exert his power, even if he has no ranking in the top leadership", while Hong Kong-based Johnny Lau Yui-siu told the Hong Kong newspaper that the ranking did not necessarily mean that Jiang would play no role in Chinese politics from now on: "On the contrary, I think that his political influence will extend for quite a while at least."
One thing is sure, no reform will come through as long as the old man control (or remotely control) scores of senior officials in the Party.
And there will always be the danger of new wounds (such as the Tiananmen incident) in China's history. 

The Wound of History
Rediff.com
June 4, 2008

Blindfolding us, you expect us to see no more
Plugging our ears, you want us to hear no more
Yet, the truth is in our heart
The pain is in the chest
How much longer do we have to endure
How much longer do we have to be kept silent?
If tears can wash away all dusts...
If blood can be exchanged for freedom...
Let tomorrow remember today's outcry
Let the whole world see the wound of history!

June 4, 1989 will forever remain a wound in the history of modern China.
On that fateful night, hundreds, if not thousands were killed. Nineteen years later, the Chinese government maintains that no one died on the Square itself (only on the adjacent avenues) and it has still not released the list of those killed.
A few days after the event, Yuan Mu, the then spokesman of the State Council, declared that only 23 students had died, along with some ‘ruffians’.
A year later, Beijing tried to make their version more plausible. The Time Magazine quoted the official report of the upheaval: “Chen Xitong, Beijing's hard-line mayor, claimed that 200 civilians were killed and more than 3,000 were wounded.” But Chen insisted that casualties were mainly soldiers and policemen.
The Time continued: “[Chen’s] figures for civilians are almost universally dismissed as outrageous underestimates. On the day of the crackdown, Chinese Red Cross sources told reporters that 2,600 people died and 10,000 were injured, although the organization later denied it.”
Nicholas D. Kristof, the New York Times correspondent wrote: "The true number of deaths will probably never be known, and it is possible that thousands of people were killed without leaving evidence behind.”
One can immediately draw a parallel between the massacre of Tiananmen and the riots in Tibet in March/April this year. Soon after the events, when someone asked me: “How many people were killed?” I replied “We will never know!” Nearly three months after the March 14 incident in Lhasa, the Chinese authorities still claim that 13 people, mostly Chinese were killed, while the Tibetan Government-in-exile alleges that in Lhasa alone, nearly 100 Tibetans lost their lives. The analogy does not stop here. As in June 1989, according to Beijing the casualties in Lhasa were mainly policemen and paramilitary staff (People’s Armed Police) while according to the Dalai Lama’s Administration, it was mostly Tibetans who were shot at.
In both cases, the Chinese troops quickly removed the bodies and cleaned up and the consequences for the surviving participants in both cases were ruthless. One young Tibetan who managed to escape to India after the March events recounts: “[one day]‭ around‭ ‬one‭ ‬hundred soldiers entered my house,‭ ‬broke down five doors,‭ ‬checked everything and threw it all on the floor and hit everyone present there.‭ ‬It was like a robbery or burglary.‭ ‬There were a lot of firearms and they were very rough with us.‭ ‬I was arrested.‭ ‬They took me with them,‭ ‬with my thumbs tied behind my back,‭ ‬very tightly,‭ ‬resulting in the whole area being numb for the last two or three months‭‬.‭ ‬They treated us very harshly.‭ ‬Talking to each other,‭ ‬they said,‭ "‬This is our chance‭"‬,‭ ‬and they beat us.”
The Tiananmen Square episode was prompted by the death of former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Secretary General Hu Yaobang who had resigned from his position on January 16, 1987 (after some minor students’ unrest). At that time, the People's Daily had expressed some sympathy with the students while affirming that "the limits of official toleration were being approached". A US Embassy official had noted "political stability has always been a critical consideration in China. There can be no doubt that the authorities will crack down, and crack down hard, if stability seems to be being called into question."
It is what happened in June 1989, hardly 2 years later. In the case of Tibet, Zhang Qingli, the Party Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region declared that the punishment will follow the principles of "quick approval, quick arrest, quick trial, quick execution". The above testimony is a proof that it was not mere words.
As often in China, an external event (the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15, 1989) was the excuse which triggered the demonstrations against lack of democracy and corruption in the Middle Kingdom. During the first days, the Party was not directly targeted, but an Editorial of the People’s Daily on April 26 which termed the student movement as ‘turmoil’ (a highly pejorative word used during the Cultural Revolution) enflamed the students; their number on the Square began swelling. This Editorial quoted Deng Xiaoping who, though he had no government position was still taking all important decisions. Deng accused some "extremely small segments of opportunists" of plotting ‘turmoil’.
Interestingly, the Tiananmen Papers, the most remarkable collection of documents on the events of 1989 and the inner functioning of the CCP, show the crucial role of 8 Elders led by Deng Xiaoping. Though outside the Party structure, it is they who decided the course of the event.
During the following weeks, one of the main demands of the students was the withdrawal of the April 26 Editorial. (Incidentally, Premier Wen Jiabao also spoke of ‘turmoil’ in his press conference soon after the Lhasa incidents in March 2008).
What was the true motivation of the student movement on the Square in 1989? This question deeply divided the Chinese leadership who began to rally behind either Zhao Ziyang, the then General Secretary of the CCP or Li Peng. In his introduction to the Tiananmen Papers, Editor Andrew Nathan analyzed: “Zhao Ziyang’s instincts were to loosen up politically in order to invigorate the economy, accepting a consequent loss of control but maintaining authority through a more consultative style of leadership. Li Peng’s instinct was to focus on stability and keep political control”.
It is probable that these two tendencies are still prevalent among the top hierarchy today. But in June 1989, the latter hard-line prevailed, demonstrating at that time that tough decisions only could save China from going the Soviet Union’s way.
Gorbachev’s visit to China is usually considered as the turning point in the history of the events of the Square. The Soviet leader as proponent of the perestroika (or restructuring of the State) was a role model for the students; further the Sino-Soviet friendship was important to the leadership in Beijing. The details of the visit were discussed at the highest level of the Party. The transcript of a discussion held on May 11 between Deng and his ‘assistant’ Yang Shangkun (President of the PCR) put Gorbachev’s trip in perspective. “Deng Xiaoping: When Gorbachev’s’ here, we have to have order at Tiananmen. Our international image depends on it. What do we look like if the Square’s is a mess?
Yang Shangkun: “Tiananmen is our national face. Especially when Gorbachev’s here, we just can’t let it turn into a stinking mess. I’ll make sure that they [the top leadership] are clear on this”.
To save the face has always been crucial for China. This explains Beijing’s anger after the recent unrest in Tibet and the subsequent large media coverage of the riots. Beijing loose face before the Olympics.
On May 13, 1989, two days before Gorbachev’s arrival, the students started a hunger strike. Deng made it clear to his protégé Zhao Ziyang that this should be stopped; the welcoming function for the Soviet leader on the Square was to be held in a dignified manner.
Unfortunately, Zhao was not able to fulfill the Old Emperor’s wish; Gorbachev’s visit to the Square had to be cancelled.
During the following days and weeks, the consequences quickly followed: martial law was imposed; Zhao Ziyang was sacked; Li Peng was given the task to implement the decision of the Elders; Jiang Zemin was selected to replace Zhao (“he’s got it just right politically, has strong Party loyalty and can see the big picture” remarked Deng). The built-up of events culminated during the night of June 3-4 when the tanks of the 27th Army rolled on the Square. We know the rest.
Though Deng managed to keep the economic reforms on track, the West announced that it would boycott China until democracy was introduced. But business is business, two high US Officials, Scowcroft and Eagleburger returned to Beijing in December 1989 to "explore the possibility of developing a ‘road map’ toward better relations."
So goes the world, but nineteen year-old wound remains wide open, especially after the Tibet events. In fact, it is doubtful if the ‘negotiations’ between the Dalai Lama and Beijing can ever succeed as long as the ‘stability’ hard-line, today led by Hu Jintao prevails in the party. 

Xi's Two Southern Tours

Xi Jinping has taken over the Chairmanship of the Central Military Commission.
China watchers have started looking at signs indicating in which direction the wind will blow. 
While the new CCP General Secretary's Southern Tour attracted a lot of attention in the Chinese and foreign media, his 'military tour' was more discreet.  
About the economic 'Southern Tour', analyst Willy Lam wrote in the China Brief of the Jamestown Foundation:

General Secretary Xi Jinping has lost no time in reassuring the world that his Chinese Communist Party (CCP) administration will not only persevere with reforms championed by late patriarch Deng Xiaoping but also 'initiate new paths'. Shenzhen, the special economic zone (SEZ) that is synonymous with the country’s 34-year-old era of reform and the open door, was the first city that Xi inspected after becoming party chief and Chairman of the Central Military Commission on November 15. While China’s intellectuals generally have responded positively to Xi’s early commitment to economic reform, many doubt whether anything substantial will be accomplished in the more controversial field of political liberalization.

Lam rightly pointed out that: "The Shenzhen SEZ is not only the brainchild of Deng but also that of Xi’s father Xi Zhongxun (1913–2002), the late Vice-Premier who was Guangdong governor and Party Secretary from 1978 to 1981. A close ally of reformist General Secretary Hu Yaobang’s (1915–1989)... At one stroke, Xi has laid claim to being the successor of the CCP’s reformist wing that was once headed by luminaries such as Deng Xiaoping, Hu Yaobang and Xi Zhongxun."
Let us remember that after his rehabilitation in 1978, Xi Zhongxun was responsible for proposing and implementing China's first Special Economic Zone in Shenzhen. This experiment then symbolized the new direction of Communist China. Xi Jr. probably wants to walk in his father's footsteps.
Xi Zhongxun once told Deng Xiaoping "We need to reform China and implement this economic zone even if it means that we have to pave a bloody road ahead and I am to be responsible for it."
His biographers say that Old Xi is “remembered for his friendship to his colleagues, his tolerance to diverse cultures and religions, his idealism of an open market socialist country and his integrity in his beliefs”.
It is perhaps because Xi Junior 'ate bitterness' during the difficult years, particularly when his father was out of power that he wanted to pay homage to Xi Zhongxun during his first official trip outside Beijing. 
The second leg of his visit was reported by Xinhua.

Xi’s 'military' Southern Visit
China is still in a period of transition (at least till the People’s National Congress in March). It is probably why Xi made a special gesture to visit the Guangzhou Military Region (MR) soon after he had taken over as CMC Chairman. 
Meeting and interacting with officers and jawans was a way to get the PLA on his side.
During his tour, he assertively asked the officers “to adopt real combat criteria in military training and intensify such awareness among soldiers.”
Xi reaffirmed the PLA's core task of improving “its abilities to wage regional wars in the Information Age.”
While visiting a PLA unit, he stated: "Bear in mind that it is the soul of the military to obey the command of the Party without compromise, it is the top priority for the military to be able to combat and win battles.”
Nothing revolutionary, Hu Jintao would have said the same thing.
There is no question of 'changes' or 'reforms' as during the 'economic' leg of his trip.
Aboard the Haikou, a PLA Navy destroyer, he had dinner with sailors and officers. He spoke about discipline: “The PLA should unconditionally implement the principles to govern the military lawfully and austerely, train the troops through strict discipline, always focus on grassroots units and further improve fighting capabilities.”
Xi urged the PLA to uphold “the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, take Deng Xiaoping Theory, the ‘Three Represents’ and the Scientific Outlook on Development as a guide”.
It was a direct homage to his 3 predecessors, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.

Xi affirmed his firm belief that China is on the way to a 'great rejuvenation' and the role of the ‘heroic’ PLA is to carry forward China’s cause: “forge ahead into the future and effectively implement the historic mission”.
How will this translate for China’s neighbours is too early to say. 
Xi was accompanied by two of his CMC’s colleagues General Fan Changlong and General Wu Shengli, the PLAN Commander (Naval Chief).
At the same time, The New York Times asserted: ‘China Steps Up Pressure on Japan in Island Dispute’. Its correspondent reported: “A modest-looking twin-propeller Chinese aircraft loaded with radar and other surveillance equipment swooped low over the waters close to disputed islands in the East China Sea on Thursday, the latest move by China to increase the pressure on Japan over who owns the uninhabited island chain.  By itself, the less than 30-minute flight by the nine-year-old plane into what Japan considers its airspace did not amount to much. Japanese F-15 jets were sent in response, but the Chinese plane had left by the time they got to the area.
But the Chinese sortie was part of a steady escalation in the air, on the sea and in public statements by China against Japan, a strategy that analysts say was fixed upon three months ago to take back the islands known as Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan. The strategy, they say, is being overseen by the new leader, Xi Jinping.”
An assertive CMC Chairman does not augur too well for the rest of Asia.

Is War inevitable?

This article on the site China-defense-mashup says that a war  between Vietnam and China is inevitable. 
The stake is the oil of the South China Sea.
The reserve are anywhere between 105 to 213 billion barrels of liquid gold deposited in the region—well-exceeding 80 percent of the entire Saudi kingdoms' reserves, according to Chinese estimates, says the author of the article.
One remembers that in 1979, China decided to invade Vietnam  and ultimately got 'a bloody nose' (some 20,000 Chinese PLA soldiers died).
Strangely, the Sino-Vietnamese War started a month after the beginning of China's 'opening'.  
On December 18, 1978 , Deng Xiaoping climbed the rostrum for the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to declare an open policy.
This decision was to change the face of China forever.
But the question comes: why to start a War against its arch Communist enemy Vietnam at that particular time? 
This has never been elucidated. 
And why to attack Vietnam when Indian Foreign Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was on official tour in China (the first of a senior Indian official after 1962 Sino-Indian War). 
I quote here from Vajpatee Statement in the Rajya Sabha on February 20: 

May I recall to the House that after the reports of the massive attack by the Chinese troops across the Sino-Vietnamese border, the Prime Minister had, on February 18, issued a statement of our reactions to these developments? The Statement expressed our profound shock and distress at the outbreak of hostilities which could endanger international peace and security. It also made an earnest plea for the immediate restoration of peace and, as a first step towards cessation of hostilities, underlined the urgent need for the withdrawal of Chinese forces from the Vietnamese territory.

I myself heard of these developments late in the evening of February 17, when I was 29 in Hangchow, through a news agency report and the international radio network. As I was not near any of our diplomatic missions, I tried to gather as much firm information as possible. When reports confirmed these grave developments, I decided immediately to cancel the remaining programme of my stay in China and sought the help of the Chinese authorities to get to Hongkong and to return to India the same day.

Our serious concern at these developments was conveyed to the Chinese authorities in Peking through the Chinese Ambassador to India, who was accompanying our party on the tour in China early on February 18 before we left Hangchow.

The situation in Indo-China has been tense and inflamed for the last few months. This had caused set back to the process, which at one time looked hopeful of co-operative relations being developed in the South East Asian region. Being already a serious focus of tension, the situation in Indo-China figured at some length in my discussions with the Chinese leaders in Peking. The Chinese side, in explaining their viewpoint, had mentioned that there were provocations and threats along their border with Vietnam.

From my side, I had even then expressed our concern at the possibility of deterioration of the situation and its dangerous consequences. I sought to impress on the Chinese leaders that any escalation would be serious and urged that the problem should be solved peacefully through negotiations. I added that the aggravation of tensions in an already complex situation could be a setback to stability in South-East Asia and endanger international relations in general.

According to the Vietnam official statement conveyed to the Ambassadors of various countries in Hanoi on February 17, China had used troops, tanks, long range artillery and war planes for the attack along the entire length of the border. They had occupied border posts along the border in the Vietnamese provinces of Long Son, Hoang Lien Son, Lai Chau, and Quang Ninh.

In any case, as stated by the Prime Minister, we are distressed and shocked at these developments. The present aggravation of the situation is and must be a matter of grave concern to the entire international community. This escalation, with massive armed incursion across the Sino-Vietnamese frontier, must be arrested and reversed as soon as possible, lest there should be further widening of the conflict and danger to world peace.

Vajpayee concluded: 

I should like to add that India has long admired Vietnam for its heroic struggle against the heaviest possible odds for its national independence which culminated eventually in victory against imperialism and intervention. We had responded as generously as to any country and as quickly as any nonaligned nation, to take a hand in the gigantic task of economic rehabilitation and national reconstruction which faced the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. We remain as committed as ever to develop friendly relations with Vietnam.

We want to eventually see peace and stability made secure so that nations in their independence can resume economic cooperation in the region. India had no ulterior interest in South East Asia, but as in the case of the Indian sub-continent, we would like to see the chapter of outside competitive involvement come to an end.

Today, a War can certainly be avoided; if all parties decides so; in any case, it is far from certain that China would win so easily. 
Another interesting 'coincidence', Deng Xiaoping had called Gyalo Thondup to Beijing in February to find out a way to sort out the Tibetan issue. 
When I asked Gyalo Thondu: "When you met Deng Xiaoping in 1979, did you know that Vajpayee was there about the same time? It was the first visit of an Indian minister after 1962 war?", the Dalai Lama's brother remembered: 

Yes, Mr Vajpayee visited China and at the same time, a war between Vietnam and China started and the Indian Foreign Minister cut his trip short. I was supposed to proceed to China with the permission of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and because Mr Deng Xiaoping had asked me. Some of my friends in Hong Kong told me: “Don’t go, China and Vietnam are fighting a war. It would be very dangerous.” I told my friend: “No matter how much danger, I will not cancel my trip because I already promised Mr Deng Xiaoping. I had the permission of His Holiness and I had told Mr Deng Xiaoping that I was coming, so I went”.

I waited for him because he was not in Beijing. He had gone to Guangzhou to be operated and he directed the war from there. So, I had to wait in Beijing for one month. I had a very good time, I visited all the places, though I am quite familiar with Beijing in 1946/47 I was there for a long time.

Since this fateful month, no progress has been recorded in the relations between the Dalai Lama and the leaders of China.
The "Open Policy' was economic only.


Why A War Between China And Vietnam Is Inevitable
August 2, 2011
China-defense-mashup
Now Much to China's dismay, the South China Sea dispute has become an open-house party: the US is invited by many to host the show, and even China's arch rival India will tag along. The biggest allure for the party is oil, anywhere between 105 to 213 billion barrels of liquid gold deposited in the region—well-exceeding 80 percent of the entire Saudi kingdoms' reserves, according to Chinese estimates.

1.The Inevitable
The regional mess proves Beijing's policy of "shelving disputes and developing jointly" is a total failure. In Territorial Disputes, sovereignty is a fiat currency solely backed by the economic and military might. Otherwise it's simply bluff. Diplomacy and Economic ties alone will never win China the south China sea.
To solve the territorial dispute, Sino-Vietnamese war seems inevitable. It's also the most cost-effective way for China to sort out the mess once and for all. The only thing that matters right now is the timing and how the US will factor in this event. We are going to look into the dynamics how this volcano is going to erupt:
The fragile Vietnamese economy hugely depends on the South China Sea oil production, which accounts for 30% of its GDP. Vietnamese economy will collapse if it loses its oil assets in the region. Vietnam is in dire straits: The inflation is running rampant while the consumer price index rose 20.82 percent in June from a year ago, the fastest pace since November 2008; The bank system is teetering with bad loans amid tight monetary conditions and busting economic bubbles; the widening trade deficit has eroded the country's foreign-exchange reserves—estimated at $12.2 billion at the end of 2010, down 53% from the peak of $25.8 billion reached February 2008, which will deter foreign investment, worsen liquidity and increase systemic insolvency. All this will seriously aggravate social unrest and threaten the communist regime. Therefore, Stoking tension with China will be a good way for Hanoi to direct national grievance away from its domestic mismanagement and vindicate its legitimacy of rule with patriotism and even war. To Hanoi, the South China Sea is worth shedding blood for.
Now let's look at this from Washington's perspective: the diminishing American economic influence in Asia-pacific will force the US to sustain its engagement with the region in alternative capacities, for example, maintaining military power balance. China now serves as the hub for the region's global supply chain, gobble up components, commodities and capital goods and is coming into its own as a vital pillar of support for the region's economies, particularly at a time Western demand is lagging. "According to ASEAN statistics, China's trade with ASEAN has jumped six-fold since 2000 to US$193 billion in 2009, surpassing that of the US. China's share of Southeast Asia's total commerce has increased to 11.3 percent from 4 percent in that time, whereas the US's portion of trade with the bloc fell to 10.6 percent from 15 percent. During that time, ASEAN's trade plus with China widened by five times to US$21.6 billion. The bloc reported a US$21.2 billion trade surplus with the US in 2009, down 12 percent from 2000." China is also a very important source of investment and the largest source of foreign tourists in the region. Meanwhile, Asia today is the region with the highest increase in defense spending in the world, and that combined with China's skirmishes over territory disputes with Japan, Vietnam and Philippine, etc. present the US Military–industrial complex with a grave challenge and perfect opportunity. The South China Sea dispute offers the US a golden opportunity to come back to Asia, talk about friendship, energy deals and arms sales.
Now let's look into the stakes for Beijing: the energy-intensive nature of Chinese Economy will underwrite the assertiveness of China's south China sea stance and naval force buildup. " China's oil reserves have shrunk almost 40 percent since 2001 as the economy expanded 10.5 percent a year on average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg." "Currently China depends on foreign imports for over fifty percent of the oil it consumes, and half of this imported oil is from the Middle East." However, the Arab Spring and stand off between the US and Iran have intensified the volatility of the region to the extent that China must diversity its energy supply. China's rapid economic development, expanding middle class population, motorization, and urbanization will aggravate its thirst for energy even further: IEA has predicted that China's dependence on foreign energy will increase to over 60-70 percent of its total consumption in 2015. The fragile state of its energy security will leave China with few options but securing its oil supply more and more from the South China Sea. Failure to do so will not only threaten China's status as World Factory but also its future survival. Furthermore, any concession on the sovereignty will seriously undermine CCP's legitimacy of rule while it faces serious calls for democracy and freedom of speech. It is well known that China suffered a lot of humiliation, territory loss and slaughters in past wars with foreign countries. Nationalist sentiments are abundant for the government or the anti-government to tap into when necessary. CCP can't afford to lose such a powerful initiative when it can tip the balance of. power.
All these variables will play out until we smell the blood and gun powder rippling across the South China sea.

2.The Conclusion
Yes, It's true that Vietnam has tried really hard recently to make the South China Sea dispute an open-house party as crowded as possible. It's crying out loud for the US's interference, flirting with India against China and ganging up with the rest of ASEAN to beef up the offensive. Even so, no matter how fancily Hanoi plays the game, the deciding factor is still the substance of American support.
To Washington, it is of course very important to contain China's burgeoning influence. However, it won't be in the US's strategic interest to include as many players as possible and exclude China from its coordinated alliance, because nobody knows for certain how far the US can come near Asia in 50 years, but it is certain that China will be a huge player in Asia for a thousand years. Without China's cooperation, the US will sooner rather than later lose its strategic relevance in Asia. Let's have no doubt about that
Moreover, Vietnam shouldn't expect too much of the US. Washington at best can act as a buffer, deterrent and arms dealer between waring parties. It won't directly engage China in the war in the foreseeable future, because the US dominates China with its superior naval and air force and the only way for China to level the playing field is to apply nuclear weapons. The nuclear nature of Sino-American warfare will make both the world no.1. and no.2 economy the fallen giants. The world can be effectively dominated by the Sino-American alliance if the two countries establish the mutual trust to cooperate. Nevertheless, if that window of opportunity passes in a war, the US and China will both be destroyed and at best become the also-runs just like Russian, Germany and France.
Washington's most urgent task is to tackle the fiscal deficit, trade deficit and unemployment. As the US's biggest trading partner and financier, China will play the biggest role in American renaissance. As the world's biggest creditor for dollar liabilities, China will be pivotal to sustain the dollar's status as world reserve currency. The pillar of the US superpower lies on the dollar's world reserve currency status, because the operation cost of a superpower can't be sustained by fiscal policy, which is often comprised by partisan politics while most emergent. That's when you can count on the monetary relief of the fed. Without dollar's world currency status, such relief won't exist. In such a scenario, the importance of China is self-enforcing.
So Vietnam will be left to its own devices in the war cause the US's priority lies somewhere else. It's good to see the last two outstanding communist regimes fight against each other. In the end whoever owns the South China Sea will need the superior expertise and technology of American oil companies. It's good to be America when there's no losing scenario.
For China, it is very important to defeat Vietnam. It will serve as a wake-up call to Philippine among other contenders and remind them of the false hope for unrealistic American engagement. Furthermore, unlike Philippine, Vietnam shares land borders with China. So China's attack against Vietnam won't be restricted by sea. It also can utilize its superior land force to invade Vietnam. Chinese army has plenty of ground warfare experience against Vietnam in previous two wars. It can destroy Vietnamese infrastructures and facilities to sustain the war and economic growth, and bring about the regime change or a civil war in Vietnam. That's the only cost-effective objectives for the army but not the costly occupation. Leave the chaotic Vietnam to Vietnamese themselves. A dissolved Vietnam will need another 50 years to muster enough strength to strike China.
Once the dust settles, China and the US can jointly exploit the rich oil and gas resources in the South China Sea. ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell will be all over Spratly Islands.

3.The Winner & Loser Scenario
Some people say China will lost the war. But it doesn't really matter.
It doesn't need to win a war to win.
I call this a limited invasion: destroy Vietnamese infrastructures and facilities to sustain the war and economic growth, and bring about the regime change or a civil war in Vietnam.
Vietnam's communist regime is standing on the edge while the economy is melting down and people are thinking of unrest and democracy.
China should never consider occupation as an objective. Once the damage is inflicted enough to deprive Vietnam of the ability to sustain a war with China and bring about Vietnam's economic collapse and domestic chaos, the PPL should withdraw. The Vietnamese communist regime will fall on its own sword and too busy with internal turmoil to wage a war against China.
I also call this a Scalpel Invasion. Once the objective is achieved, the army should retreat like Scalpel needs not to stay in the body after the operation is performed.
This will be the difference between the Chinese and American Vietnam war.
The mentality of modern war should be changed. A loser in the war can still be a winner in the overall game. Sometime it shouldn't be about simply inflicting military damage and casualties. It could be about destroying the enemy's economic growth, energy supply and production, food supply and production, and water supply. The ensuing famine, chaos and economic collapse will decapitate the adversary ruling structure, causing political and social earthquake, and even civil war and many other internal turmoils. The repercussion of such strategy far outstrips the performance any conventional war ideology can deliver, especially in the upcoming Chinese Vietnam War. It's good enough to render the enemy paralysed in the economic, societal and governmental meltdown. This is what I call limited surgical warfare with permanent damage.
The "win or lose" should not be about military honor. It is only about the bigger game.

4.The Irony, American Interest and where to bet your money
If the war does break out, the money will flee Asia, not to embattled Europe but to the US. Without increasing interest rate, the US will enjoy abundance of capital inflow as a safe haven. The Treasury will drop the Yield and still sell like a breeze. The gold price will shoot through the roof. However, the oil price will be confusing and go both ways because the global production will scale back when the world manufacturing powerhouses in Asia are swallowed by war and chaos. Those companies whose profits and growth hugely depend on Asia will jump the shark. However, the good news is many factories will be relocated to the US, which will greatly improve the employment in the US. Not to mention the US can sell billions of dollars worth of weapons to waring parties in the meantime. It's a good day to be America by simply watching Asia burn.
As a lecturer in Economics at the Beijing Royal School, Dee Woo first gained international attention by writing a personal letter to Barack Obama in October 2010, attempting to dissuade the US from initiating a trade war with China. As a result, he was featured in much of the Mainland Chinese media, as well as in Hong Kong, Singapore, Macao, Malaysia, Canada and the US, including by the Wall Street Journal. He has gone on to publish numerous commentaries in many influential newspaper and magazines in Mainland China, Singapore, Taiwan and the US, and is a regular columnist for Forbes China and CIO&CEO. He can be reached at http://about.me/deewoo and http://twitter.com/dee8woo
Article printed from China Military Power Mashup: http://www.china-defense-mashup.com
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'Two Faces' of Deng Xiaoping

Why to attack Vietnam during Vajpayee's visit?



Yesterday, I wrote about the two sides of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. Later, I came across this article published by Radio Free Asia which shows this not-too-well known aspect of Old Deng. It explains many things, particularly the failure of the negotiations between the Dalai Lama and the Communist leadership in Beijing in the early 1980's.



Radio Free Asia
December 29, 2008
Deng Xiaoping saw himself as a man set apart from the common herd, and his only aim was to save the Chinese Communist Party, according to a former top official.
In the third part of a series commemorating 30 years of economic reforms in China, Bao Tong, former aide to ousted late premier Zhao Ziyang, attacks the image of Deng Xiaoping as the architect of China's economic reform era, saying he had no interest in a market economy, nor in the Chinese people:
In October 1984, a group of university students spontaneously unfurled a banner that read "Hello Xiaoping" and marched in an ebullient mood towards Tiananmen Square. This was an expression of the public mood. Five years later, countless students coralled in their dormitory buildings smashed "little bottles" (xiaoping) in an expression of their indescribable anger and grief. This, too, was an expression of the public mood. Both expressions gave voice to the two-faced nature of Deng Xiaoping.
Deng's two-sidedness was like a pendulum. One minute he wanted reforms, the next he was resolutely upholding the four basic principles of socialism. One minute he wanted to escape from a political dead end, the next he had returned to it.
Deng was like that. You could criticize him for logical inconsistency, but you couldn't say he said one thing and did another. Both his words and his deeds were in earnest. He was a genuine supporter of reforms, and yet also a staunch protector of the very things we were supposed to be reforming.
Ouster of Hua Guofeng
Deng's consistency lay in his two-sidedness. When Hua Guofeng was being attacked for the "Two Whatevers" [promising to follow whatever policies Mao Zedong had laid out and whatever instructions he gave], he joined in. A few months later, to fill the vacuum, he came up with his very own "Four Whatevers," in the form of his reiterated support for the four basic principles [of socialism].
He criticized Hua Guofeng for allowing "too much concentration of power," but soon after he had designated himself as the "core" of the Party leadership. He admitted that the Cultural Revolution was a disaster without parallel in history, but at the same time advocated "holding high the banner of Mao Zedong Thought, today and in the future." He styled himself a "son of the people," but at the same time he sent the army to effect a bloody suppression of students and citizens [in 1989].
If he had been in primary school, his teacher would have suggested he spend a little time studying logic. If he had been an ordinary person, he would have been the subject of ridicule or of patient explanations. But because he was a leader of the Communist Party who commanded dignity and respect, he was above the worldly concerns of the common herd, able to dismiss the general public: He was above both debate and the demands of logic.
Bound up with Party
People are often bemused by his lack of consistency. But Deng's own sense of himself was in good shape. He thought he was doing fine, because he was set apart from other people. After Mao died, China was in great danger, and people were calling for someone to save the country. Actually, people were saying all sorts of different things—some were calling for someone to save the people, others for someone to save the Party.
At the time when Deng made that brief utterance "Not introducing reforms will take us down a blind alley," he wasn't trying to convince the people. That was hardly necessary. No, Deng was aiming to educate some of those within the Party who resisted reforms and who didn't really have a grasp of what was going on, saying: "If you don't reform, the people will dump the Party, and we will be finished as a political force."
So you could say that the essential thing about Deng was that he believed strongly in saving the Party. He was the embodiment of the Party; he carried its spirit. Louis XIV said "L'etat, c'est moi." Well, Deng was the Party. His identity, his fate, his personal fortunes, his vision, his sense of mission, and his emotional life were to be found not with the far-off and rather blurry Chinese people, but in the highest organs of Party leadership.
As for the people, it didn't matter whether it was political struggle or productivity that was the order of the day: As far as they knew, the Party ruled everything.
Cat and mouse
Once you grasp the logic of saving the Party, it is possible to get a basic understanding of Deng Xiaoping's logic. Everything he did was done to save the Party. Saving the Party required boosting productivity. So to catch the "mouse" of saving the Party, we needed the "cat" of the market economy.
It was for this reason that Deng Xiaoping supported economic reforms with all his might. He deserves to be credited as a supporter of economic reforms, even though he didn't care much for economics and didn't understand the market; and he was their most powerful supporter. However, his goal was still to save the Party, and for that reason he was a fierce protector of Party power and status. Just 18 months after the inception of economic reforms, he was quick to stamp out any small green shoots of "liberalism" in a thorough attack, lest they take root and flourish in a change in climate and strike at the heart of the Party.
He knew very well that the only system that would prevent a recurrence of the Cultural Revolution was a democratic one; but he resolutely opposed the separation of powers in order to preserve the Party's monopoly on power. He would occasionally speak some high-flown talk of democracy, but that was just to keep up his image as a man of the people, to win the affection of the people on behalf of the Party. But the charade was never to become a reality. Behind his apparent double-sidedness was a single-mindedness that was pure Party spirit, a clear guiding principle that ran through the apparent confusion.
Anti-liberalism campaign
But what about the rest of us?
We, you, me, the students, even Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, are all ordinary people. To fit in with Deng's doublethink, Zhao Ziyang came up with "two basic points" to reiterate the Deng Xiaoping line. Initially, Deng seemed to agree, saying it was a good summary. Zhao told me later he thought summarizing it to two points was better than one, because it avoided one-sidedness.
As I recall, Zhao never once used the four principles to restrict reform and opening up. On the contrary, he often used reform and opening up to dilute, weaken, and restrict the four principles. No sooner would Deng use one "basic principle" to stamp out signs of liberalism, than Zhao would remind everyone in the Party without delay that Deng also had another basic principle, that of "reform and opening up," which had "building a modern China" at its core!
At times, before 1988, this proved to have a vigorous effect, especially in the dangerous times that followed Deng's toppling of Hu Yaobang from power, when the Anti-Bourgeois Liberalism campaign spearheaded by Deng Liqun and that crowd looked set to overwhelm the country. Not only did it enable that political campaign to die of natural causes, it also sped up the progress of reforms and opening up at every level of command, and gave rise to a document called "Tentative Plans for Reforms to the Political System," which had gained a consensus at the 13th Party Congress, and whose real aim was the dilution of Party leadership in all things.
Political reforms never an option
While the new slogan, "One core, two basic principles," won Deng's support and solved the contradiction inherent in the "two basic principles," it didn't change the basic nature of Deng: Deng, who had lived and worked in France, but who never absorbed the principles of human rights and who had a terror of democratic politics.
His rising career led him to fixate upon one particular relationship out of all human relationships, that between the bureaucracy and the military. Looking back today, I think his "two basic principles" can be summarized like this: 1. We absolutely must carry out economic reforms. 2. We absolutely must not carry out political reforms. His "one core" should be expressed as: Always uphold the Party's right to rule. His whole aim in supporting economic reforms was to breathe new life into a dying Party, not to weaken it.
A lot of observers seem to think that free economic competition will naturally bring democratic politics in its train, that economic reforms will not just call for but will inevitably push forward political reform. But Deng Xiaoping made his calculations on a different abacus. He planned to strengthen the Party's political power through developing the economy.
The price of economic reforms was the sacrifice of any hope for future political reform. I believe that this was Deng's bottom line, and to cross it was to walk the path of liberalism and the road to chaos; it was no less than treason. This made it inevitable that he would fall out with Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang eventually, and this should therefore come as no surprise.
Original essay in Chinese by Bao Tong, aired in six parts on RFA's Mandarin service. Director: Jennifer Chou. Translated and produced for the Web by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
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