This year was 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.
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. And in Hong Kong it is no longer permissible to speak of the events at Tiananmen.
So Cathay Pacific now finds itself managing a crisis because their inflight entertainment system provided access to an episode of The Family Guy.
Cathay Pacific has pulled a Family Guy episode from its inflight entertainment system which referenced the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. It has apologised to customers and vowed an investigation.
A complaint was raised against the flagship carrier on social media, in light of the city’s national security laws: “We emphasise that the content of the programme does not represent Cathay Pacific’s standpoint,” a spokesperson told HKFP on Thursday, “and have immediately arranged to have the programme removed as soon as possible.”
The US cartoon in question featured a seven-second cutaway joke depicting the protagonist Peter Griffin next to a protester in front of a line of Chinese military tanks. The scene – in the ninth episode of the second season – mirrors the infamous “Tank Man” who was pictured standing in front of tanks during the crackdown.
In fact, Tiananmen is used as a common joke in Family Guy.
Cathay Pacific apologizes, blames a third party that handles their inflight content, and promises that they’ve provided proper “instructions to ensure that the recommended content meets” State Party censor demands “our company standards.”
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,” is even 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
Cathay learned a deep lesson then. China forced out Cathay Pacific’s CEO over his failure to sufficiently crack down on employee expression.
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 that 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 on central servers? Or will the Chinese state continue to subjugate its people in perpetuity?
The Chinese Communist Party will continue to subjugate and prevent dissent as long as they are able to. It’s what they do in Tibet, Hong Kong & Xinjiang.
One can only hope AI & a growing Democracy movement replace the CCP as well as Vladmir Putin in Russia and the Ayatollah’s in Iran.
People yearn to be free. There is a reason China the USSR and Iran are partners in repression.
So, Cathay Pacific, a Hong Kong based airline, is not a mainland Chinese airline… yet… they apparently have to kowtow to the CCP. Censorship of satire is not strength; it’s weakness.
The British should never have given up HK. The American and Australian who founded this airline would be ashamed. The free people of this world should mourn, and act, while they still can.
China is an authoritarian country when it comes to the political freedom to challenge the monopoly political power of the Communist Party in China, but in no real sense is it a totalitarian country and otherwise roughly in line (better in many respects) with the freedoms granted to US citizens, 780 of whom were convicted and about 500 given long prison sentences for participation in the demonstrations in Washington DC on 1/6/20 which was very much less violent and had 100% less murders and arsons than were committed by the Tiananmen Demonstrators.
Moreover, we have no reason to believe that Cathay Pacific was ordered to remove the episode or simply did it to avoid offending Chinese sensibilities as US airlines would do if say an Egyptian show belittled or denied 9/11.
Those who have only learned one side of Tiananmen would be well served by reading the account of Frank Dikotter – no CPC patsy – in his book China after Mao which presents an unvarnished historical account that puts paid to the Western fantasy of entirely peaceful demonstrators and ignored the acts of violence that precipitated the clearing of the Square. One may criticize China’s handling of Tiananmen, but it would have been much uglier had US citizens tried the same and attacked and killed US troops in Washington DC.
Gary – it is their world. Don’t impose your American values on them. That is the problem – people want to make others in their own image. If you don’t like it don’t go or support China in any way. Otherwise shut up – you aren’t changing anything. Personally I’m looking forward to returning to Hong Kong in February and don’t care if my money flows to the mainland or otherwise supports things you don’t. I frankly don’t care.
@1990 – We didn’t have a choice, the lease was up.
Having being to the territory a couple of times I’ve realised I’ll probably never go back (a friend moving and meaning I’ve no free accommodation has nothing to do with this, honest, but he loved HK until things went a bit Pete Tong)
Another reason to avoid Cathay Pacific.
The idea that America is free, and other countries are not, is overblown. First of all if a Chinese person wants to live by American values they can (and many do) immigrate to America. Second of all, America has plenty of censorship, just far more underhanded. Say something offensive to elite liberal values (for example, anti DEI or anti LGBT) and you will summarily lose any respectable source of income or respectable friends. The censorship does not take the form of you being imprisoned, it takes the form of you being ostracized from society.
The Chinese government needs to calm down. Every day, thousands of Chinese citizens travel abroad and have access to the same information the rest of us do. And I am willing to bet that these episodes can be purchased on black market DVDs. Storm in a teacup.
@Eileen, you are correct regarding the United States Federal Government censorship by the Progressives today. This has been factually established. The very good news is that a new Administration is coming, and dismantling the Progressive Censorship will happen very quickly !
Cathay is just another Chinese airline. They’re not really interested in western customers anymore. Food is increasingly almost all Chinese, now has Chinese wine (even air china doesn’t do that) and has a relentless focus on mainland passengers. That’s their business model and it ain’t my place to judge. But it’s not an airline I’d want to fly with anymore. Just as I wouldn’t fly QR because they don’t reflect my values. We all have a choice. Our money is hard earned. Don’t give it people or countries that don’t share your values. Cathay is firmly in the “not my values” camp.
“Today marks the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre”
No, December 4 does not mark the anniversary of any notable event related to Tiananmen Square or the massacre. The penultimate events took place June 3-4, 1989, and the confrontation with “Tank Man” was on June 5.
To AC, what a pathetic viewpoint. I have been to Hong Kong many times before the CCP takeover and now since. It’s the not the same place. The CCP is not a benign entity. If you don’t care that what you do supports them then you need to take a long look at your belief systems. I was in Beijing in January 1989 and visited with many people at Beijing university. Their aspirations and confidence that things might change was inspiring. You attitude is an insult to those who believe in freedom.
@BuiltInYorkshire
When did a ‘lease’ ever stop anyone? The British went soft. Gave up their empire. Sad.
@1990 The great irony of onlookers pining for the good old days before the end of Colonial Hong Kong while simultaneously lamenting the supposed end of democracy as a Special Administrative Region of China, is that Colonial Hong Kong was anything but a democracy under British rule. The British were always free to grant Hong Kong democratic self-rule, and never did it.
@ BuiltInYorkshire
The lease was only up on The New Territories and the upper part of Kowloon. Hong Kong Island and lower Kowloon were British in perpetuity (by treaty). Thatcher, the “Iron Lady”, bent to Deng Xiao Ping and quickly handed it all back. Worse yet, they abandoned the people of Hong Kong, by not giving them British citizenship (the Portuguese did the right thing and gave all of the citizens of Macau Portuguese/EU citizenship when they handed it back).
Funny that it’s mentioned as the 35th anniversary. It is not. The killings occurred in June, the same day that Khomeini died in Iran or at least it was in the same morning newspaper.
@Mak
You’re proposing a logical fallacy as a solution. Voltaire said, we mustn’t allow ‘perfect to be the enemy of good’.
While the British certainly weren’t perfect, the CCP categorically is worse for the free people of Hong Kong who do not want to be censored or indefinitely imprisoned for speaking their mind or extrajudicially killed for opposing Pooh Bear. Why else have most Western companies moved to Singapore and elsewhere? Repressive tactics are not good for business either.
I doubt Xi is going to grow a conscience anytime soon. More likely, he’ll take Taiwan, if the orange man allows it, and it seems his price is a simple ego scratch, or another silly patent for Ivanka. I mourn for the peoples of Hong Kong and Taipei.
Much like in Russia and their territory of Ukraine, china has every right to take back their territory of Taiwan.
My enemies aren’t in Moscow, Beijing or Iran. My enemies are my neighbors, co-workers, people I see on the subway. It’s the people who call themselves, progressives or claim they are “white dudes for Harris”. They are far more of a threat than someone like Putin.
@1900
“While the British certainly weren’t perfect, the CCP categorically is worse for the free people of Hong Kong who do not want to be censored or indefinitely imprisoned for speaking their mind or extrajudicially killed for opposing Pooh Bear. Why else have most Western companies moved to Singapore and elsewhere?”
I think you would be very surprised to learn what the British did to those who spoke out against their rule or in favor of self-rule. In actual fact there was more – not less – political censorship in Hong Kong under the British than there was after it became a SAR of China. Anybody who doubts this should read Michael Ng’s “Political Censorship in British Hong Kong
Freedom of Expression and the Law.” There has never been political liberty in Hong Kong . . . but is still one of the freest places in the world where you can do what you want, produce what you want, buy and sell what you want to whom you want, hire and fire whom you want, with very little interference from the government. Americans and Europeans should be quite envious of the liberty in Hong Kong and Hong Kongers are overwhelmingly happy to trade political freedom for economic freedom that they do not enjoy in their countries. I think the vast majority of rational Americans or British would gladly trade their mostly ephemeral right to vote in a nominal two party system rather than a one party system for Hong Kong’s 14% flat tax and tariff free imports . . . I certainly would.
So “why have companies moved to Singapore and elsewhere?” Certainly it’s not for the freewheeling political expression and democracy in Singapore that you claim is missing in Hong Kong, because that doesn’t exist in Singapore either despite also being an exceptionally free, prosperous, and classically liberal nation with a great quality of life. Companies have moved from Hong Kong to Singapore for the same reason that companies have moved from New York and California to Texas and Florida: lower taxes, less regulation, lower costs and above all less insane Covidianism which has been the real Achilles Heel of Hong Kong which did in fact hurt itself quite badly in isolating the territory in reliance on phantom fears about a transient respiratory virus . . . just like the USA.
@Eileen
Oh you poor snowflake. You have a freedom to speech and everyone else has a freedom to tell you your view is trash.