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| Photo by Jeff Widener; AP |
The standoff actually occurred the day after the Chinese authorities had used tanks and armored personnel carriers to literally crush a student-led pro-reform protest movement that had occupied Tiananmen Square.
The movement was not spontaneous. Revolutions (and counter-revolutions) rarely are.
Fifty years before, another revolution had culminated at Tiananmen. On the first of October in 1949, one of the most ruthless in a long line of ruthless Chinese tyrants -- Mao Zedong -- stood on the ramparts of the Tiananmen Gate to Beijing's ancient Forbidden City and proclaimed an end to the civil war that had pitted his forces against the pro-western Nationalist Chinese government of Chiang Kai Shek. In the civil war's wake the People's Republic of China (PRC) emerged with Mao's Communist Party at its all-powerful head.
Over the next 25 years, Mao's internal policies and campaigns were responsible for the deaths of as many as 70 million Chinese.
The first thing Mao did was fundamentally transform Chinese society, by executing one million landowners and redistributing the land to farmers. Those who favor the socialist tenet of wealth redistribution in our Republic today, have murderous Mao as their patron saint.
Next, Mao purged his own party of any he deemed "rightists." Led by Mao's future successor -- Deng Xiaoping -- the "Anti-Rightist"campaign resulted in the executions of half million and the social and political isolation of a million more whose power and influence were seen by Mao as a threat to his vision for China.
The "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" campaigns that followed were designed to both "purify" the communist ideology of the PRC and catapult China's economy from its primarily agrarian foundation to an industrial powerhouse. The central government redirected farmers to factories -- crops failed, millions starved to death. Those who would transform our Republic's economy from decentralized capitalism to state-planned socialism have Mao's excellent examples to follow.
At the height of Mao's political correctness campaign, which he called the "Cultural Revolution," his student-led para-military "Red Guards" roamed the cities, attacking any who were deemed politically incorrect or anti-Maoist. Mao used the Red Guards to help wipe the cultural slate clean -- the crazed children were cynically steered by their "educators" to attack and destroy any vestiges of pre-revolutionary China. Statues of famous Chinese ancestors were torn down. Shrines and cemeteries were desecrated. Millions were killed or sent to "re-education" camps that made Hitler's work camps look like Club Med by comparison. George Soros' paramilitary ANTIFA and the self-appointed priesthood of political correctness and social justice on today's American college campuses have the Red Guards as a model.
When Mao Zedong died in 1976, he was eventually succeeded (after an intra-party power struggle) by Deng Xiaoping. Deng, who had led Mao's ideological purification programs, seemingly reversed Maoist course and embarked on a number of economic reforms designed to decentralize market planning and allow capitalist activity in industry. But, Deng refused to allow any discussion of political reform.
Introducing capitalism in a tyrannically socialist society is like raising a tiger cub in an apartment -- the big cat may not be living in a jungle, but it's still a tiger. By the end of the decade, Deng's capitalist tiger cub was a roaring adult, ushering in a rapidly increasing standard of living and a burgeoning urban middle class. Foreign investment -- prohibited under Mao -- exploded under Deng, and with it came increasing exposure to the cultural and political freedoms enjoyed by the non-socialist world. Educational institutions, which had withered under Mao, sprang to life under Deng, and students (many allowed to study abroad for the first time in 30 years) were exposed to radical professors who taught the natural rights of man and democratic ideals still anathema to the PRC's ruling elite.
As Deng Xiaoping and the Chinese politburo kept a tight lid on political dissent, the children chaffed and yearned for freedom. A student-led reform movement blossomed into a full-blown revolt by the beginning of 1989. By the end of May, the world was transfixed as CNN beamed images from Tiananmen Square as tens of thousands of protesters unveiled their 10-foot tall "Goddess of Liberty" modeled on America's Statue of Liberty.
Then the troops moved in.
As many as a thousand unarmed young people were killed on the 4th of June as divisions of the ironically misnamed People's Liberation Army cleared the square. Scores of civilians (many parents of the children in Tiananmen Square) were shot as they streamed toward the square to reinforce the protesters.
By the morning of the 5th of June -- 30 years ago, today -- it was all over but the recriminations.
As a column of tanks attempted to leave the city center, a lone man in a white shirt, armed with nothing but shopping bags, stood in the middle of the broad avenue. First pictures show him standing there well before the tanks roll into the frame. He remains stock still as the single file of 50-ton armored vehicles roll up to him.
He could easily have been another of the hundreds of unarmed civilians hundreds killed in the massacre.
What prevented the lead tank commander from effortlessly running him down?
Was he shocked, disgusted, or traumatized by the events of the night before?
We'll never know.
But, we do know that he was unwilling to add this one more man to the tally. He even tried to steer around the civilian blocking his way. The standing man simply stepped over and blocked the tank's path.
Then, the man climbed up on the tank. The hatch opens and a discussion ensues with the tank commander.
The Colonel can guarantee you that the discussion was not a pleasant one for either man. It almost certainly wasn't about the price of tea.
We'll never know what was said, but the Colonel believes that the standing man was appealing to the tank commander to lead his unit in support of the political reform protests.
Standing man climbed back down off of the tank and resumed his position front and center blocking its path forward down the avenue.
He stood alone.
Thousands of civilians were gathered hundreds of yards away, but not one joined him.
Eventually, two men ran in, grabbed the standing man, and hustled him off and into the crowds. To this day, no reliable information is available to identify the man or verify his fate.
Eleven years after the event -- in November of 2000 -- the Colonel stood in Tiananmen Square. He was on a short vacation tour to Beijing with the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda at his side. Despite her pleading to behave himself, the Colonel couldn't help but ask the young Chinese lady serving as their tour guide / minder,
"So, Li, what happened here in '89?"
The Colonel kids thee not, her response was, "Nothing."
But then, stealing a furtive glance in the direction of the nearest squad of soldier's on the square, she added quietly, "Some criminals occupied the square for a few days and the army came in and moved them out."
The Chinese authorities still tightly control the history of the crushed reform movement. Any media that would show pictures or contain discussions of the truth is heavily censored.
It is politically incorrect to study history in China.
