Today marks the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, where the Chinese government brutally crushed protestors.
The image of ‘Tank Man’ standing athwart the People’s Liberation Army seemed like an historical moment for that nation. The Chinese people who stood up that day were disappeared.
These protests are often mistaken for a nascent pro-democracy movement, but the Chinese people weren’t risking their lives to become one of a billion votes. They wanted freedom.
However ‘totalitarianism with Chinese characteristics’ has spread since then. In Hong Kong, an artist wears a white shirt – tank man’s shirt was white – and signs the numbers ‘8964’ for June 4, 1989 and is promptly arrested.
Want to know what totalitarianism looks like in action?
Hong Kong police arrest artist Sanmu Chen for appearing to sign the numbers “8964” in the air on the eve of the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre.
He made a finger motion and wore a white shirt like the… pic.twitter.com/slR1quKv0r
— Drew Pavlou (@DrewPavlou) June 4, 2024
Sadly, Hong Kong has turned to the mainland and squeezed the freedoms of its own people – jailing dissidents for speaking out about their city’s future with retroactive application of ‘national security’ laws that China committed would never be applied retroactively.
Five years ago when Hong Kongers could still protest they turned out to the airport and broke out in song. “Do You hear the people sing,” by the way, is banned in China.
More than thousand HKers sing Les Miserables' 'Do you hear the people sing?' at HK international airport with their calls for free election and democracy. Here is the Ground Zero in the war against authoritarian rule. That's the reason for us never surrender. pic.twitter.com/1MkTp4BkVg
— Joshua Wong 黃之鋒 (@joshuawongcf) August 10, 2019
My formative years saw David Hasselhoff singing “Looking for Freedom” atop the Berlin Wall (1989) and Scorpions singing “Winds of Change” (1991) as the Soviet Union prepared to fall.
It was an optimistic time filled with hope for the future of people around the world who would be able to write their own destinies as they saw fit, and a time when it seemed the U.S. itself might even be inspired by it.
Frank Fukuyama wrote about “The End of History” first as an article (1989) and then a book (1992) speculating that we had reached a point of victory for humanity where liberal democracy had triumphed for good.
It’s always difficult to judge in the moment – regimes look stable until they aren’t, a phenomenon Timur Kuran explained in Private Truths, Public Lies. People appear to support a regime out of fear of revealing their true beliefs, but when the tides turn and it becomes safe as part of a group to express opposition even true supporters act as though they opposed the regime all the time to gain advantage in the shifting world and it suddenly topples.
Perhaps AI and Large Language Models represent the next best hope for an end to repression in China. If China wants to compete in this space, they’ll have difficulty doing it behind the Great Firewall. Their tools won’t be as strong as the ones from the West, with access to more knowledge to train on. Is there a stable equilibrium where their AIs can train on unrestricted content, but answers from the AI remain restricted? What about when everyone has AI chatbots on their phones, rather than central servers?
Or will the Chinese state continue to subjugate its people in perpetuity?
If only Cathay Pacific had a Fifth Freedom route, I would like to fly this classy airline.
China CCP is all about brainwashing and enforcement . Same as Hamas . They are all the same .
Orwell had it correct .
Same as Fauci.
I remember flying Air France during The Plague years, to one a of the few open Intercontinental destinations, while Fauci and friends locked all old people into isolation wards to die. I looked around CDG Airport, and saw no wheelchairs, and no persons over the age of thirty, like a scene out of the movie Logan’s Run. It was dystopian.
I was the oldest person flying. The next oldest person was but half my age.
I admire china.
When they take back Taiwan, I’ll support then like I support Russia taking back their Ukraine.
AndyS: ccp troll, or the one honest leftist?
It was a pro-democracy protest. But the CCP wants economic progress for its favorites without being subject to democratic accountability.
I noticed no mention in the blog piece about China’s actions against the Uyghurs and Tibetans.
Those in power and with positions of privilege for too long are too often loathe to give up power to the unrelated and thus lash out as a result when the status quo dynamic is challenged.
@GUWonder
Tibet had literal child slavery and sacrifice till china came in and civilized them. The Uyghurs are another group of savages that need china to civilize them as well. I see nothing wrong with what china is doing. They are doing the right thing same as the Spanish did to the South American child killers hundreds of years ago. Some cultures and civilizations deserve to be erased.
Mantis: He’s spouting the republican right wing line.
They love dictators. They’ve got an orange sleepy one ready to go…..
I can see bigtee has swallowed the kool-aid.
Didn’t know Faucis power extended to running airports in Paris…..
All you fools hoping the Republicans overthrow US Democracy will be targets of the new orange dictator.
All these billionaires thinking they can “control” him LOL.
He’s so greedy he will sieze all their money.
The billionaires in Germany thought they too could “control” Hitler. Didn’t work out so well for them…..
JorgeGeorge is correct. Politicians who are statesmen master the art of collecting money and favors without feeling obliged. And thugs in political power also feel no obligation to those who helped them along to get into and grab power. And we know the Orange Guy to be willing to throw anyone and everyone under the bus except maybe his own daughter whom he said was “his type” to “date”.
How is this article related to aviation?
You’re absolutely correct, Gary, that the totalitarian repression China imposed on people within its borders, and then on the Uighurs and Tibet, it now imposes on the people of Hong Kong. China is well on its way to killing the glorious HK goose that laid the golden egg for China, and Xi simply doesn’t care — all he cares about is having total and unchallenged control over all human activity within China’s borders and reach. Same mind-set as Putin’s. No human sacrifice, and no sacrifice of human rights, is too great in the pursuit of that objective. It’s all fully acceptable collateral damage.
Hong Kong, for 30 years, was my favorite place on the planet. I’d travel there, whether on business or for pleasure, every chance I got, even if it was out of the way, and at least every other year. My last trip there was in 2019, and I don’t expect to return. I won’t support what the PRC has imposed on Hong Kong (completely in violation of the “one country two systems” policy — that was originated by Deng Xiaoping and embedded in the agreement the PRC signed providing for the return of control from the United Kingdom to the PRC). And I won’t subject myself, associates, or family members to the risk of arbitrary punitive treatment authorities there now cavalierly dish out — and kangaroo courts under Beijing’s thumb uphold — to anyone they think might possibly pose a threat to the state’s total control or even those they deem to be “rocking the boat” sufficiently to make those HK authorities look bad to Xi and his cronies because it demonstrates they haven’t achieved the total control he demands.
It’s a political and human rights tragedy. Thanks for using your blog to remember Tiananmen and highlight what’s happening in HK. It’s not possible to immediately halt the PRC’s repression in the territory it controls, but one thing the PRC cannot do is prevent those outside that territory who know the facts from recounting the truth and calling out the PRC and its leadership for what they are and what they’ve done and are doing. Shame!
@Josh – it is related to a significant destination
@GUWonder – “I noticed no mention in the blog piece about China’s actions against the Uyghurs and Tibetans.”
I have certainly written about these eg
https://viewfromthewing.com/report-hilton-will-build-hotel-on-bulldozed-uyghur-mosque-in-china/
https://viewfromthewing.com/marriott-refuses-service-to-uyghurs-to-flatter-china/
https://viewfromthewing.com/marriott-demonstrates-china-rules-us/
https://viewfromthewing.com/travel-companies-running-scared-whats-websites-china/
@JorgeGeorge Paez
People like you are why democracy failed in the US.
Isn’t it ironic that all the China Communist Party trolls on this blog are quoting the EXACT Joe Biden / Democrat Party line! Sounds like collusion AND insurrection! If Biden does not go to jail for 40 years, American democracy will die! Waiting for WaPo and NYT to take a stand here to ‘defend democracy’ and condemn the attack on democracy Dems. Waiting….waiting…
I will not fly any airline that requires a stop in China. No reason to take even a very small risk of being detained in HKG, PVG or elsewhere because Xi and his minions have a temper tantrum. Just ask those poor Canadians who were arrested after Canada detained a Huawai executive (or the dissident that was hauled off a Ryanair plane after a forced landing in Belarus).
With my formative years during the cold war, I never thought I would say it but the chicoms are light years worse than the Soviet Union. Stalin and the KGB could only dream of having the AI tools and social credit system that China uses to conduct genocide against minorities and to repress its entire population. Zero respect for Lebron, Disney and all the US corporations that bow down before Xi.
Kudos to Gary for reminding us of those who stood bravely in the face of chicom tanks, and those peaceful protestors who were later massacred by the red army.
Gary, thank you for posting this.
Coincidently, this Thursday is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, a major milestone in the world’s democracies* battle to kick totalitarianism’s ass. Too bad so many Americans today would fight for the other side.
* – Plus the USSR.
The thing is, we need to stop telling other countries what to do. We may have strong feelings about certain things, but we simply can’t impose our culture, customs, and will upon everyone else in the world, all the time. It’s an internal matter for those countries to solve, just like it is for the US to solve our domestic problems.
American imperialism is dead. And I wish more power to China and Russia who are fighting to counter-weigh the wokesters and the hegemony of the western elites.
I love how Marco’s comment literally tows the CCP talking points, yet fails to realize a lot of those comments literally boomerang back at it.
“stop telling other countries what to do” – so what was it about China bribing officials of many different countries for influence? Stay out of “internal matter” of other countries and pull your trash talking diplomats out.
Got to love how the CCP shows friendship to other countries by bribing officials to accept enormous amounts of debt and take their harbors and lands when payments become too burdensome. African Union’s headquarter building built by China turns out to be full of Chinese bugs, any surprise?
I’m sure Chinese propagandists will certainly return with what-about-ism but at the end of the day WE live in a free society where you and I can openly speak our minds, including criticize our own officials and government without fear of being “disappeared.”
Until you Chinese trolls can openly discuss shortfalls of your own comrades and dear party, go back and eat all the BS propaganda the CCP has been feeding you. Go read George Orwell’s 1984 if you dare, just don’t blame us if you get disappeared.
@BigTee – Cathay Pacific has plenty of fifth freedom routes: BKK-SIN, TPE-NGO, TPE-NRT, TPE-KIX
With few exceptions, this comments section looks like a retard convention. Next thing you know you all will pretend to be rocket scientists complaining that we could have colonized Jupiter decades ago.
It’s unfortunate none of you Neanderthals actually knew who your mother and father were because if you had they definitely would have taught you to MYOB. Don’t like what the Chines government does? Then stay the hell out of China. I mean it’s not like you have an IQ > 4 that would enable you to understand China’s unique circumstances.
Why aren’t you whining about Canada? Canadian truckers decided to strike — which every American has the right to do — and the Canadian government promptly took all the money out of everybody’s bank account. They froze accounts of truckers who did nothing more than simply plaster their trucks with signs critical of the government. Pretty hypocritical you weren’t all whining about that.
Was there a particular reason you declined to publish my post, other than the fact it directly proved you wrong?
Josh,
Did the post have a website link in it? Those are sent into a queue for review, and sometimes our dear Señor Leff is a bit busier than usual to get around to clear the backlog immediately. Give the fellow some time, as he has other work and a family to consider too. The blog can’t be the priority all the time. 😀
Marco,
It’s humanity’s business when people are being treated inhumanely anywhere. The “mind your own business, this is an internal matter” is a lame game.
Truckers in Canada have better protected rights than Chinese truckers. Canada is nowhere close to being as dictatorial and unaccountable as China.