World-China Forum

Susan Shirk: The Legacy of Tiananmen for Chinese Politics

Ever since 1989, Chinese leaders have been haunted by the fear that their days in power are numbered. The regime was shaken to its roots by six weeks of student protests in more than 130 cities and the divisions within the Communist Party leadership over how to handle them. The regime remained standing only because the military followed Deng Xiaoping's order to use force to disperse the demonstrators.

Today, two decades after the "life-and-death turning point" of Tiananmen, Chinese Communist rule has survived, but its leaders remain anxious about the possibility of another revolutionary challenge. To foreigners, China appears like an emerging superpower, strong economically and influential internationally; but its Communist leaders feel much weaker as they struggle to stay on top of a society roiled by thirty years of market reform and opening to the world.

Although never publicly articulating it, the Chinese Communist Party has devised a formula for survival based on the lessons they drew from the Tiananmen experience. First, prevent large-scale protests. Second, avoid public leadership splits. And third, keep the military loyal to the Party.

The three rules are interconnected. If the leadership group remains cohesive despite the competition that inevitably arises in it, then the Party and the security police can stop the protests from spreading. Unless people receive some signal of "permission" from the top, protests are likely to fizzle out or be extinguished before they grow politically threatening. But if the divisions among the top leaders come into the open as they did in 1989, people will take to the streets with little fear of punishment. Then, if the military splits too, or refuses to use force to defend the Party leaders, the entire regime could collapse. For the past twenty years, with the spectre of another Tiananmen crisis haunting them, China's leaders have worked hard to shore up all three fronts -- social quiescence, elite unity, and military loyalty. (Susan Shirk, Huffington Post)

Peace with China and other surprises

China is definitely a force to be reckoned with -- but not one to be overstated. Even today, it spends less than a quarter of what the United States lavishes on defense. It still lacks even a single aircraft carrier, the essential instrument for projecting offshore power. Preparing for the possibility of war with America is not the same thing as wanting or pursuing it. It may just be an act of prudence. One consequence of being a messianic superpower is that we make some countries fear winding up on our list of targets.

China's buildup doesn't really look suspicious for a nation encircled by historical adversaries -- Russia, India and Vietnam -- as well as two unstable nuclear powers, Pakistan and North Korea. Or for a country just two generations removed from an invasion by Imperial Japan. After all, we spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined, even though our enemies are all half a world away.

Zhang Xiaoming, a professor at Peking University's School of International Studies, told me and other visiting journalists, "China wants to be a status quo power, not a revolutionary power." The country's rulers say the same thing. A white paper published last year declared, "China pursues a national defense policy which is purely defensive in nature." Prudent people will not take such declarations on faith no matter what government makes them. But in this case, there is no visible gap between Beijing's rhetoric and its conduct. So maybe they mean what they say.

For the most part -- not always, but usually -- the Chinese have behaved as though they think a country can best assure its prosperity and security through caution, restraint, multilateral cooperation and a sense of the limits of military might.  No wonder people in Washington are baffled. (Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune)

America still pursues military engagement over a peace strategy

AMERICAN foreign policy has failed in recent years mainly because the United States relied on military force to address problems that demand development assistance and diplomacy. US President Barack Obama has raised hopes for a new strategy, but so far the forces of continuity in US policy are dominating the forces of change. The first rule in assessing a government's real strategy is to follow the money.

America vastly overspends on the military compared with other areas of government. For the coming 2010 fiscal year, Obama's budget calls for US$755 billion in military spending, an amount that exceeds US budget spending in all other areas except so-called "mandatory" spending on Social Security, health care, interest payments on the national debt, and a few other items. Indeed, US military spending exceeds the sum of federal budgetary outlays for education, agriculture, climate change, environmental protection, ocean protection, energy systems, homeland security, low-income housing, national parks and national land management, the judicial system, international development, diplomatic operations, highways, public transport, veterans affairs, space exploration and science, civilian research and development, civil engineering for waterways, dams, bridges, sewerage and waste treatment, community development, and many other areas. When viewed from an international perspective, the US spends roughly the same amount spent by the rest of the world combined. (Jeffrey D. Sachs, Shanghai Daily)