What are the true lessons from Tiananmen Square? Why does nonviolent resistance offer the best chance of challenging the CCP? Hu Ping, a leading Chinese dissident, reflects on the mistakes that were made and what it will take to succeed next time.
Reflections from a Chinese Dissident
August 2024
Thirty-five years ago, the best chance at democratization in China in decades faded quickly when the powerful Tiananmen Square prodemocracy movement was brutally suppressed. We must learn from that piece of history if later efforts are to succeed. Have we? How should we interpret the broadly similar crushing of civil resistance in Hong Kong? How can we improve our techniques of nonviolent resistance? Hu Ping is a leading overseas Chinese dissident, who first rose to prominence when he posted his essay “On Freedom of Speech” at Democracy Wall in Beijing in 1978. Hu spoke to Rui Zhaohuai, the editor of the China Journal of Democracy, on the proper lessons people should draw from the suppression of the prodemocracy movements in Tiananmen Square and Hong Kong.
Rui Zhaohuai: What were the successful aspects of the 1989 prodemocracy movement? What, if anything, did it achieve? And what were its mistakes, either tactical or strategic? Do you think that now, 35 years later, useful lessons from the 1989 experience have been learned?
Hu Ping: The 1989 movement was a great democratic movement. First, because it had democracy at its heart. There have been other mass movements in recent times, both in China and elsewhere, but many of those have had nationalism or religion as their causes. Some have opposed sitting governments, but none were aimed specifically at freedom and democracy as the 1989 movement was. Second, the number of participants and the length of time they remained in the streets were unprecedented in Chinese history — and extremely rare in world history. Third, it is truly astonishing that such a large movement could adhere so well to nonviolence.
During the events, Chinese people both at home and abroad displayed remarkable passion, sincerity, and unity. When the massacre came, they showed not only solidarity but profound indignation and sorrow. Such a public display of solidarity had no precedent in China. In this movement we saw purity, high-mindedness, and emotional depth that had to be based in real spiritual fortitude. I don’t think any observer, regardless of how he or she now sees the movement, would deny the significance of that moment in history. That high point showed that the Chinese people are more than timid chickens; in the face of dire threat they can be as fearless as eagles. We should not lose confidence in our nation.
But the 1989 movement did fail, and we must ask why. In my view, the main strategic error was not to quit when the movement was ahead.
Rui: Please expand on that. At what point, when things were going fairly well, do you think the protesters should have gone home? Training courses in civil disobedience sometimes use the term “declaring a phased victory.” Is that the same as “quitting when ahead”?
Hu: Yes, essentially. The 1989 movement should not have conceived itself as a one-time, all-or-nothing effort. Democracy cannot be achieved overnight. A movement needs to use small victories to build toward a larger one. It needs to set certain goals at certain stages and achieve phased victories. The late Gene Sharp, a leading theorist of nonviolence, once conducted a study of China’s 1989 democracy movement. One of his conclusions was that if the protesters had negotiated with the moderates among the top leaders, and had withdrawn at an appropriate time, they could have claimed victory and spread the message of victory throughout the country. That would illustrate what I mean by “quitting when ahead.” Another expert on nonviolent resistance, the Serbian activist Srdja Popovic, in his book Blueprint for Revolution, a study specifically in how to defeat dictators through nonviolent means, regards “quit while ahead” as an important strategic principle. Popovic writes that nonviolent resisters need to know when and how to declare victory, even if it means retreating when things still seem to be going well. On China’s 1989 movement in particular, he holds that the powerful idealism of the students kept them from pocketing advances they had already achieved.
Some people say that there never was a moment in spring 1989 at which the students were “ahead.” It is true that they never outweighed the government, but there were several points at which their progress had brought them well ahead of where they had been before. It was a remarkable success that the authorities were willing to sit down for “dialogue” with students who were leaders of independent student organizations, and there were other junctures at which the students could have withdrawn and walked away with advances: On May 16, Yan Mingfu went to the square to have a dialogue with the students, and on May 17, Zhao Ziyang issued a written speech that treated the student movement with respect. If the students had stopped at one of these points, the outcome would have been very different.
Rui: But many participants in the movement did not (and do not) agree with you on these points. They were opposed to retreat at those points you mention. And there are many other people who think no one could have controlled such a large mass of protesters even if a decision had been made.
Hu: It is not true that the protesters at the time were dead set against withdrawal. In fact, there were several points at which they nearly withdrew. What happened was a case of “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.” And on the difficulty of giving orders to large numbers of people, of course I know the difference between a crowd of protesters and an army; to ask a mass movement to observe strict discipline is a challenge — but not impossible. A year before the 1989 events, I wrote an article asking why democratic movements in China always end in failure. My answer was that if they didn’t fail, they wouldn’t end.
In general, two conditions are required if a nonviolent mass movement is to succeed. First, adherence to nonviolence needs to be strict. Second, people must know when to stop. The 1989 movement in China succeeded on point one, indeed went far beyond the minimum. Taking Beijing as an example, hundreds of thousands — eventually millions — of people joined marches and rallies for over fifty days without any incidents of vandalism or looting. Thieves even declared that they would put a moratorium on theft. Looking back on it now, the spirit of the time seems unbelievable, even miraculous. By comparison, getting students to leave the square should have been much easier. In short, the 1989 movement did better at something extremely difficult than it did at something that was not so difficult. I hope we can do better next time.
Rui: You have also used the phrase “quit while ahead” in analyzing the 2019 protests against the extradition bill in Hong Kong. But some friends in Hong Kong disagree with your criticism. At what point do you think the anti–extradition-bill protests should have stopped? And what do you think of the radical protesters, called “the valiant,” who pressed on? What did “valiant” mean? Violent?
Hu: Yes, let’s look at those protests against that extradition bill: On June 15 of that year, Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam announced an indefinite suspension of the offensive legislation. That, clearly, was a “good enough” achievement for the protesters. They should have pocketed their achievement and stopped there. The violent actions of “the valiant” were a mistake. In the end, they unraveled the achievements of the anti-extradition protests.
The people of Hong Kong have a longstanding tradition of nonviolent resistance, but in June of that year, violence did appear. It is important to note that the violence was not guerrilla warfare or aimed at violent revolution; it was relatively low level, and for the most part it targeted objects, not people. It struck at government symbols like the exterior walls of Legislative Council buildings and Mass Transit Railway (MTR) facilities. Protesters also attacked pro-Beijing shops. Some, when provoked, threw bricks and Molotov cocktails at police.
The violent ones gained prominence in the protests largely because of a misunderstanding. On June 9, the Hong Kong populace held a huge march of more than a million people to protest the extradition legislation, but CEO Carrie Lam declared the next day that she would go ahead with “amendments” that would strengthen the bill. Andrew Leung, president of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, announced that the council would deliberate on the matter on June 12. In the early morning of that day, a large number of Hong Kong people, mainly young, surrounded the council building and clashed with advancing police officers. The protesters threw bricks while the police used rubber bullets and tear gas. The commotion made legislative proceedings impossible; three days later, on June 15, Carrie Lam announced that she would suspend her aggressive amendments.
From these events many people in Hong Kong concluded (as Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a French professor teaching in Hong Kong, put it) that “the family-friendly march a week ago was not enough to send a message” and that “without a bit of violence and political pressure on the authorities, you don’t get a thing.” As a result, the stature of “the valiant” rose in the eyes of the public — even among people who had been advocating nonviolence. That, however, was a serious mistake. It had been the peaceful march of June 9, not the violence of June 12, that had led the Hong Kong government to make concessions. Similarly it was the march, not the violence, that drew sympathy from the international community and put pressure on the governments in Hong Kong and Beijing.
Rui: Tell us more about the reaction of the international community, and how it put pressure on those two governments.
Hu: The day after the great march of June 9, the U.S. State Department declared that:
The peaceful demonstration by hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers yesterday clearly shows the public’s opposition to the proposed amendments. The United States shares the concern of many in Hong Kong that the lack of procedural protections in the proposed amendments could undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy. . . . We are also concerned that the amendments could damage Hong Kong’s business environment and subject our citizens residing in or visiting Hong Kong to China’s capricious judicial system.
Two days later, on June 11, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi offered high praise for the millions of Hong Kong people who had demonstrated peacefully; she noted that the extradition bill might trigger American reassessment of Hong Kong’s autonomous status. On June 12, President Donald Trump praised the protesters, saying theirs was “as big a demonstration as I’ve ever seen.” The German government announced that if an extradition agreement was signed between Hong Kong and mainland China, Germany might suspend its own extradition agreement with Hong Kong.
Beijing itself acknowledged that its concessions had to do with international pressure. On June 16, HK01, a news medium controlled by the city’s pro-Beijing camp, reported that officials from the Central People’s Government had explained to Hong Kong authorities why the law’s amendments needed to be tabled for now. The intent of the amendments was correct, but “foreign forces” had issued a total of 67 statements attempting to intervene and to smear; accordingly a postponement was necessary.
It is clear, then, that the concessions made by the Hong Kong government and Beijing were a result of peaceful resistance by Hong Kong people and strong international support; they were not fruits of the violent actions of June 12. It is unfortunate that many in Hong Kong did not perceive this at the time. An increasing number concluded that only violence was effective. Protesters put forth “five demands, not one less,” and radicals felt encouraged to escalate. On July 1, some smashed through glass doors at the Legislative Council building and briefly occupied it. This event prompted Carrie Lam, who had been silent for half a month since announcing an indefinite suspension of amendments, to issue a demand to “stop violence and restore order.” The resulting crackdown did long-term damage.
The lesson to be learned is that “valiant struggle,” no matter how justified from a moral point of view, has side effects that the oppressor can exploit to worsen matters.
Rui: Say more about how these side effects turn into problems.
Hu: The day after the violent storming of the Legislative Council building on July 1, Kurt Tong, a former Consul General of the United States in Hong Kong, said that the United States, like many others, was disappointed at the violence and destruction at the Legislative Council building. Officials at the British Foreign Office made similar remarks. But such words fell on deaf ears among the Hong Kong valiant. Many stuck to the belief that only violence works. The slogan “It’s you [the Hong Kong government] who taught us that peaceful protest is useless” grew in popularity.
On July 24, the American scholar Larry Diamond said in a New York Times interview that Hong Kong people should declare a victory and prepare for negotiations over longer-term goals. He expressed great concern about the increasing radicalization of the movement, especially how some protesters had abandoned nonviolent strategies in favor of violence against property. He observed that while Hong Kong is not mainland China, its authorities still have the ability to suppress with force. Once Beijing decides to take strong measures to control the situation, “nobody in the West is going to ride in on horseback to save the Hong Kong democrats. We don’t have that power and we don’t have the standing to do it.” Professor Yasuhiro Matsuda of Tokyo University said that politics is an art of compromise and that Hong Kong people should take what they can get. Unmet demands could be temporarily put on hold and revisited, nonviolently, at a future time. Both Diamond and Matsuda referred to lessons learned from the failure of Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. Richard C. Bush, a former chair of the American Institute in Taiwan, also recommended that the people of Hong Kong accept what they can get and sit down for dialogue to solve problems.
In Hong Kong itself, senior prodemocracy leaders such as Martin Lee, Jimmy Lai, and Chu Yiu-ming spoke against the use of violence. They worried that it could trigger harsh repression. Billionaire Li Ka-shing published advertisements in newspapers warning “the best intentions can lead to the worst outcomes.”
Some people argued at the time that the democratic camp should welcome all comers. The violent and the nonviolent both should go ahead, not criticizing each other. Brothers climbing the same mountain should “not cut ties.” Some advocated “decentralization” and a movement “as shapeless as water.” These ideas were infectious for a time. People took pride in having invented new protest strategies.
But I believe these pretty thoughts were all mistaken.
Rui: Tell us why.
Hu: The practical result of “decentralization” is that outsiders judge the whole by its most radical part. The views and tactics of a conspicuous minority trump those of a mainstream. “Don’t cut ties” makes sense only when the opposition maintains a clear distinction between suppressing violent behavior and not suppressing rational, nonviolent protest. But can we imagine that the Hong Kong and Beijing governments would be that careful with protesters? Once they crack down, the hammer falls on everyone.
As a threat to their oppressors, the Hong Kong radicals invented the phrase lam chau (literally “fry in an embrace”) that meant “if we go down, we take you down with us.” Street violence, destruction of public facilities, creation of traffic jams, and disruption of government operations eventually forced the authorities to choose between two options: appease the protesters or suppress them definitively. The radicals believed that brutal suppression by the authorities would lead Western countries to apply strong countermeasures that would inflict significant losses on the Chinese government and perhaps even trigger a crisis in CCP rule in all of China.
The lam chau strategy was fundamentally flawed. It was obvious that when matters reached a crisis in the eyes of the authorities, they would choose suppression, not appeasement. A crackdown might lead to international sanctions, but none that the authorities could not bear, and repression could end the democracy movement once and for all. In lam chau terms, only one party in the embrace would perish. And that, indeed, is what eventually happened. Beijing intervened and passed a national-security law for Hong Kong, amended Hong Kong’s election rules, deprived its democrats of the right to stand for election, and passed “Article 23” that criminalizes anything the authorities choose to see as “sedition.” Hong Kong has completely fallen. Hong Kong’s democracy movement has turned from victory to defeat. The lessons for us are of two kinds: when to settle for “phased victory,” and why to avoid violence.
Rui: Friends in Hong Kong have argued that there was no way, in any case, that such a large movement could “quit while ahead.”
Hu: Yes, and that is unfortunate. Both in Beijing in 1989 and in Hong Kong in 2019 people did not know when to take victories and go home, and in both cases, too, people cited the difficulty of controlling mass movements as reason enough not to try. Overseas sympathizers, who perhaps could make a difference by offering advice, usually fail as well. They just blindly cheer for the good guys without reflecting. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand could have had them in mind when he observed “they have forgotten nothing but have learned nothing.”
Rui: How, in specific terms, would you state the lessons that we should learn from the quelling of the popular protests in Beijing and Hong Kong?
Hu: There are several, but I will mention just one or two. Hardy Merriman, president of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, has identified “three key elements” for success in nonviolent resistance: unity, planning, and discipline. Street demonstrations need to have strategic plans and an ability to maintain nonviolent discipline — which means preventing some participants from turning violent. In Hong Kong, the impulses to “let brothers climb the mountain, each in his own way,” to “decentralize . . . like water,” and not to “cut ties with the valiant” all breeched these three principles of unity, planning, and nonviolence. Another lesson might be to avoid sit-ins at symbolic locations. Gene Sharp has written that “occupying a symbolic location is ultimately dangerous for protesters as they are easily removed by opponents.” When protesters gathered at Tiananmen Square in Beijing or in the heart of Hong Kong during “Occupy Central” in 2014, they invested their ideals in places where the ideals could seem to fail if the protesters were physically removed. Occupations of a symbolic place should go forward only if plans for a dignified exit have been made in advance.
* * *
Rui: I want to return to the case of mainland China and ask about the experience of the resistance movement, mistakes and all, in the nearly half century since Mao died. Nearly everyone agrees that lessons should be learned, but there is little consensus about what the lessons are.
Hu: In the era of “scar literature” after Mao died (1977–80), a euphoria over new freedoms of expression covered most of China. Topics about the disasters of the Mao years, forbidden for years, now suddenly could be mentioned. But on politically sensitive questions, controls remained tight. For example, during the trial of democracy advocate Wei Jingsheng in 1979, both his self-defense statement in court and his lawyer’s statement on his behalf were kept confidential. They saw the light of day only because a young man who worked for a television station secretly recorded them, had them transcribed, and printed them leaflets that he and friends distributed in the streets. (Their favor to history was rewarded with prison sentences.) In the era of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao (2002–12), courtrooms became considerably more open. Statements by activists who were on trial now could spread quickly on internet platforms.
But there was a new problem. Political intimidation had grown strong enough that it was hard for people to form groups. For example, on the eve of June 4 in 2000, Jiang Xulin, a graduate student in philosophy at Peking University, posted notices in prominent places on campus urging people to commemorate the eleventh anniversary of the massacre. In those days students could debate liberalism online, and they did know what June Fourth was, but no one responded to Jiang Xulin’s call. (University authorities did not take severe measures against Jiang, and he eventually secured a teaching post at East China Normal University in Shanghai.) His case shows that in those days there was indeed space for expression and there were indeed a brave few willing to step forward; what was lacking was response and participation from the public. Numbers are necessary in order to have impacts. According to a slogan that arose during a prodemocracy rising in Indonesia in spring 1998: “If ten people protest on the streets, the government will ignore you; if a hundred people protest on the streets, the government will arrest you; if one hundred thousand people protest on the streets, the government will negotiate with you.”
Since 2012, with the arrival of Xi Jinping as supreme leader and with new high-tech surveillance technology in his hands, repression has grown even stronger. The authorities are seizing every opportunity to patch their vulnerabilities and press on. Still, their control cannot be flawless; there still are crevices within which an opposition can survive. The appearance of the White Paper Movement shows as much. The key issue that remains is that the number of participants is low. We need to build confidence in nonviolent resistance.
Rui: What about the controversy over violent versus nonviolent resistance? How long has that been around in China’s opposition movement?
Hu: It’s been debated for about thirty years. It began by telephone and word of mouth even before the rise of the internet around the year 2000. After the June Fourth massacre, some democracy activists, both inside China and outside, formed parties that aimed at overthrowing the CCP by whatever means (that is, not ruling out violent means). Some groups proposed triggering mutiny within the military. Zhang Xiguo, a Taiwanese professor of engineering who was teaching in the United States (and was a famous science-fiction writer on the side) posted an advertisement in the World Journal announcing a “reward of one hundred thousand U.S. dollars for capture of Deng Xiaoping, Li Peng, or Yang Shangkun, dead or alive.” In 1998, Wang Bingzhang published a pamphlet titled The Path to China’s Democratic Revolution in which he discussed peaceful and legal tactics but also said a lot about armed uprisings, military coups, and kidnapping and assassination operations.
In the end, though, none of the plans for violent change produced anything. It was not for lack of wanting to. For many reasons, it was just not feasible.
Rui: Some argue that there have indeed been instances of violent resistance over the last three decades, for example by Yang Jia and Zhang Koukou. Villagers in some areas have resisted the demolition of their homes to make way for development by joining together and using force. Some of these efforts have at least partly succeeded. What is your opinion of this?
Hu: When we talk about violent or nonviolent resistance struggles, we mainly refer to social movements with political demands. Actions like those of Yang Jia and Zhang Koukou against abusive local tyrants fall into a different category. The heroes in Water Margin behaved like Yang and Zhang until they fled to Liangshan Mountain and banded together; it was only after banding together that they mounted an organized rebellion under the banner of “carrying out justice on behalf of heaven.” Yang and Zhang never went to the banding stage. They are a different kind of case.
Rui: You have written that even if we wanted to do violent revolution, it would be stupid to try it because the other side has all the guns. You have also written that coups and mutinies are not our business. By why, I wonder? One wouldn’t need guns in order to promote a coup or a mutiny. And that strategy might be less costly in lives and resources. So why not consider it?
Hu: To carry out a coup you have to be a high official. To plan a mutiny you have to command a part — perhaps not the whole but a substantial part — of the military. If you are a Hua Guofeng or a Ye Jianying, you can try a coup; if a Lin Liguo, a mutiny. But us? No. The most we can do is write articles, give speeches, and be ready to help when we can. Our help — which would be pressure from below — could make a difference. Conceivably it could play a role in a coup, in police or military disobedience, or even in a mutiny. Such support would be fully consistent with nonviolent philosophy. Gene Sharp has observed that one way nonviolent resistance movements can succeed is by intensifying internal conflicts within authoritarian ruling groups. Nonviolent pressure from below not only can intensify conflicts but also can help to cause them — for example, when moderates and hardliners in the elite have different ideas about how to handle a situation.
Rui: Overseas, you and others, like Wang Tiancheng, editor of China Journal of Democracy, consistently advocate nonviolent resistance. Meanwhile inside China, Xi Jinping, with the help of new high-tech surveillance technology, doubles down on totalitarian repression. In such a situation, how can we build popular confidence in nonviolence?
Hu: My biggest discontent in looking back at June Fourth is to see how people conclude that nonviolent resistance is useless against a regime like the CCP’s. People conclude that if nonviolence doesn’t work, violence must be the only way out. But it would be utter folly for ordinary people to take violent action under the conditions that exist in China today. With violent resistance impossible, to rule out nonviolent resistance would be, in fact, to abandon all resistance. This makes it all the more important that people understand what nonviolence is and how it can work.
To say that we can begin democracy movements on purpose but cannot wind them down on purpose is a defeatist attitude. Winding down might not be easy but it can be done. Would we agree to design a car that has an accelerator but no brakes? If large-scale democratic movements cannot exercise self-control, then we might as well conclude that we should never engage in democracy movements — because we are always likely to end up worse than where we started.
I have published, in total, more than eighty thousand words of retrospection on June Fourth. Am I “reflecting” too much? The massacre was 35 years ago. Friends tease me by suggesting that when the next big democracy movement arrives, I will still be engrossed in the lessons of the last one. Perhaps. But my answer is: Unless we can do deep and purposeful reflection on the 1989 democracy movement, we might never see another one. It is precisely because of the severity of current conditions in China that we must persist in understanding nonviolent resistance.
Rui: What do you think, 35 years after the crushing of the 1989 prodemocracy movement, is the question we in the opposition most need to think about?
Hu: We need to think about how we can improve ourselves and do things right. From 1978 at Democracy Wall until now we have seen 46 years of struggle by Chinese people for freedom and democracy. As we look back we can note some exciting peaks where optimism and confidence in the future were riding high — but today we are indubitably at a low point.
We have to ask ourselves: What happened? Where did we go wrong? We should persist in our faith and dedication, but we must not assume that just because we had good intentions everything we did was correct. In particular, our methods and strategies need examination. Obviously, something was wrong with them. If today we still cannot identify our past mistakes, then the 35 intervening years have been a waste, have they not?
In answering why it was that Poland could forge a path toward freedom and democracy earlier than other Eastern European countries did, Lech Wałęsa immodestly but perhaps truthfully said it was “because we are smarter than everyone else; we learn lessons from others’ patterns and surpass them.” He went on:
All difficulties can be overcome! It depends on what weapons you use, what methods you employ — not just blind impulse. I used to do stupid things because I acted impulsively. . . . Then I got punched by my opponent. Finally, I realized that this wasn’t working. I lost; it proved that my method was definitely wrong. So later on I changed tactics. I thought if today I can’t beat you up, okay then see you next time. Change tactics, if necessary on another day, until success arrives. If I am defeated again it will be because I didn’t learn well enough or choose the right weapon.
What we in the Chinese opposition movement lack is precisely this spirit of continual self-reflection and improvement. The failure of the 1989 democracy movement led many people to overly simple diagnoses: not that we made any mistakes but just that the CCP is too awful, or that ordinary Chinese people are too weak, or that this or that Chinese activist or intellectual was either dense or cowardly. Even if all such points are correct, so what? The natures of the CCP and of the Chinese people both are given facts, and it is precisely under these conditions, not hypothetical ideal ones, that our mission must go forward. Hence we must improve ourselves. Only through improving ourselves can we make progress.
Just doing right things is not enough; we must do them in the right way.
Rui: Thank you.
This interview was translated by Yu Haofeng and edited and condensed by Perry Link.
Copyright © 2024 National Endowment for Democracy
Image credit: Yat Yeung/NurPhoto via Getty Images
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