Ge Yang Passed Away

Ge Yang has passed away this morning at a hospital in Flushing, New York. She was ninety-three years old.

Ge Yang, whose real name was Shu Peihua (树佩华), joined the Chinese Communist Party in her teenager years and had a remarkable career as a journalist during the revolutionary years. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, she served as the head of the Shanghai branch of the official Xinhua Press. Later, she was the editor-in-chief of the liberal magazine New Observer (新观察). During the anti-Rightists campaign and Cultural Revolution, she was relegated to perform manual labor for twenty one years.

On April 22, 1989, Ge Yang attended Hu Yaobang's funeral inside the Great Hall of People when thousands of students protested outside. She was deeply moved by the scene and wrote a poem:

One land is split
By a wall of brute force.
On one side lies an iceberg, chilling those who dwell there.
And on the other a warm-water sea.
Here lies Yaobang's body,
And there his soul.
From there we all came;
If there is no "there" there wouldn't be any "here."

Ge Yang left China in that May for a conference in America. Like many other intellectuals in that conference, she chose to remain in the USA as an exile after the massacre. She was interviewed for the documentary Gate of Heavenly Peace. She had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease and other health problems in recent years.

Ding Zilin on Zhao Ziyang's Anniversary

January 17 this year is the fourth anniversary of Zhao Ziyang's passing. Ding Zilin, the founder of Tiananmen Mothers visited Zhao Ziyang's former home by herself and wrote about the experience.

Every year since Zhao Ziyang's passing, Tiananmen Mothers have organized group visits to his home, where a permanent memorial resides. Due to heavy police interference and harrassment, they decided to do it separately this year. Ding Zilin brought six red roses and four white roses, a symbol for Tiananmen Mothers, along with four white lilies for the anniversary. She was followed all the way but was allowed to enter the memorial and chat with Zhao Ziyang's relatives. Her flowers bore the signature of "Tiananmen Mothers" and was placed at the center of the memorial.

Signing in the visitor's log, Ding Zilin wrote, "Mr. Ziyang, you have left us four years, but you are still with us, for the same demands, the same destiny."

Tiananmen Mothers Gather for the New Year

Since 1991, the Tiananmen Mothers, a loose group of parents and relatives of victims of the Tiananmen Massacre, have gathered for a dinner during New Year. The participants, which included only those in Beijing, have grown from three families back then to forty-two this year. In the twenty-year time span, eighteen of them have passed away without seeing justice for their loved ones.

Ahead of the twentieth anniversary of the massacre, the party was described as having less tears but more encouraging words and spirits this time.

Here Comes 2009

Twenty years ago, the year 1989 came with a slew of conspicuous anniversaries which inspired Professor Fang Lizhi's open letter to Deng Xiaoping and the later student movement. The same anniversaries fall into this calendar year, with another twenty years added to them:

• the 90th anniversary of the famed May Fourth Movement
  
• the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China
• the 220th anniversary of the French Revolution

Of course, another significant one has to be added this time around:

• the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Student Movement and Tiananmen Massacre.

There has not been much chatter about the French Revolution or May Fourth Movement this time around, although the anniversary of the 1989 seems to be in many people's mind. On Internet forums inside China, cleverly designed posts appear here and there trying to reminding audiences of the anniversary without explicitly running into automated censorship. They are usually followed by knowing comments.

The budding "movement" of Charter of 08 seems to have stalled with its main leader Liu Xiaobo still detained. Liu Xiaobo's wife was recently allowed to meet him briefly at a "neutral location" and told that Liu Xiaobo was not formally arrested. All other participants who had been detained or called in for questioning one way or another has been released. It looks like the government is being cautious in how to nevigate through this sensitive Spring-Summer season of political minefiled wihtout major incidents.

The economy is not helpful either. Hampered by the global recession, the manufactary sector in South China, long the engined of China's "peaceful rising", is in collapse. Unemployment is rising fast and spontaneous mass protests are becoming a common occurances in small cities. Twenty years ago, it was the rampant inflation and corruption that had helped feuling the popular support to student movement.

Meanwhile, the government is preparing for a major celebration of the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic, in which the mighty military will once again march through Tiananmen Square. The last time a celeration of this kind was done is way back in 1984, which was a joyous occasion for Deng Xiaoping. Partyly due to Tiananmen Massacre, it has been staged for a quarter of century.

May we live in interesting times.

Winston Lord Recalls His Days in China

In anticipation of the coming thirty-year anniversary of the normalization of relationship between China and the United States, the National Committee on United States - China Relations hosted a panel discussion, Once Upon a Time in Beijing, attended by five former U. S. Ambassadors to China, on December 9, 2008. The program was broadcast on C-SPAN and available on YouTube.

Near the beginning, at about the 11:45 mark, Ambassador Winston Lord, who was in China between 1985 and 1989, recalled one of his highlight/lowlight moment:

It was in June of 1988, a year before the Tiananmen, meeting with Chinese students, hundreds of them in what came to be known as the Democracy Salon and see their passion and their eagerness. It was a highlight, but also a lowlight. I have to elaborate this because a few days later Deng Xiaoping sent me a personal message to not to meet Chinese students.

The "Democracy Salon" he referred to here was the one organized by Liu Gang and had been in weekly session by that point. It was held at a grass lawn in Peking University and regularly attracted dozens to hundres of students.

Winston Lord's visit to the Salon drew a big audience that day. Later in the day, a graduate student was killed in an apparent isolated violence off-campus. A small-scale student movement broke out for the occasion and Liu Gang, by the time no longer a student, was banned from the campus. The initial outdoor "Democracy Salon" was therefore interrupted but later resurrected by Wang Dan in his dormitory building.

In this panel discussion, Winston Lord proceeded to describe the incident when Fang Lizhi was forbid to attend a banquet hosted by visiting President George H. W. Bush as another lowlight of his time in Beijing.

Much later in the program, at about 1:07:30 mark, Winston Lord's successor James Lily gave an interesting account on the manuvers involved in getting Fang Lizhi out of China after he had taken refuge in the American embassy following the Tiananmen massacre.


Recollections of 1989

World Wide Call for Liu Xiaobo's Freedom

New York Times reports that more than 160 prominent writers, scholars, and human rights advocates, including three Nobel laureates, had signed an open letter asking for the release of Liu Xiaobo.

The paper also indicates that Liu Xiaobo is now the only signatory of the Charter of 08 who is still in detention. All others who were detained and questioned have since been released.

Three Decades of Reform

It was thirty years ago this month when Deng Xiaoping kicked off his reform era on the landmark Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Congress of the Communist Party. The anniversary is marked with a grandiose conference in Beijing today. In his keynote speech, President Hu Jintao predictably vowed not to turn back the reform and not to copy the Western-style democracy either.

But the official People's Daily appeared to have other ideas. It headlined Hu Jintao's speech as an "eulogy" for the reform.

The Associated Press compiled a chronology of China's reform era:

1978: Economic, social and cultural reforms launched under Deng Xiaoping, two years after the death of Mao Zedong. GDP per capita is 381 yuan.

1979: U.S. and China establish diplomatic relations. One-child policy introduced.

1980: First special economic zone established in Shenzhen.

1982: Population surpasses 1 billion.

1986: Deng promotes "open-door" policy to encourage foreign investment.

1988: Spiraling inflation and corruption prompt limits on foreign investment and monetary flows.

1989: Students protest in Tiananmen Square to demand economic, political and social change. Hundreds believed killed in ensuing crackdown.

1990: Communist China's first stock exchange opens in Shanghai.

1992: Deng makes southern China tour to relaunch economic reforms in face of criticism from conservatives.

1994: China connects to the Internet.

1996: Chinese currency becomes convertible.

1997: Deng dies. Jiang Zemin takes over. China regains control of Hong Kong.

1998: China injects $500 billion into its faltering banking sector.

1999: Government outlaws Falun Gong.

2001: China joins the World Trade Organization.

2002: Entrepreneurs allowed to join the Communist Party.

2003: Hu Jintao replaces Jiang as president. SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) breaks out in China and eventually kills nearly 800 worldwide. China's first manned spacecraft orbits the earth.

2004: The United Nations estimates 1 million Chinese are infected with HIV.

2005: China becomes the world's fourth-largest economy. The government stops pegging the currency to the U.S. dollar.

2006: Three Gorges Dam and railway to Tibet are completed. China's foreign exchange reserves reach $1 trillion, becoming world's largest.

2007: China tops the world with 210 million Internet users. GDP per capita reaches 18,900 yuan ($2,760).

2008: Sichuan earthquake kills 70,000 people. Beijing hosts Olympic Games.