The Foreign Service Journal, June 2009

18 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 0 9 history is not recorded, and the truth never told, the present can completely erase the past. That is why I feel compelled to share my recollections of the tragic events in Tiananmen Square 20 years ago this month. Although China is a very different place today, and the government has tried to sweep it all under the rug, we must never forget what happened that spring and all who died there in the name of democracy. The Buzz Begins On April 15, 1989, Hu Yaobang, the former Commu- nist Party general secretary who had lost power in Janu- ary 1987 because of his liberal views, died. In the days that followed, thousands of students at Beijing Univer- sity (known as Beida) and other university campuses began citing Hu’s views as they formed the “Beijing Spring” movement in China. Three days after Hu’s death, Jim and I went to see a film on the Beida campus. When we came out of the theater, there was an almost palpable buzz, as students milled about reading slogans tacked to the walls and held impromptu open discussions. Curious about what was going on, we mingled with the youth and listened to some of their ideas. They thanked us for coming, saying “Meiguo hen hao” (“America is good”), and some asked us how students in the United States demonstrated, and about our student days during the late 1960s and early 1970s. A large crowd of students listened as we shared our experi- ences protesting against the Viet- nam War in the U.S. We told them about the 1969 Moratorium March on Washington, and they listened with keen interest. Over the next week we watched the movement spread to other campuses, each day expecting the government to crack down on this activity. May 4, 1989, was the 70th anniversary of the launching of the May 4 Movement, when crowds massed in Beijing to protest the Chinese government’s weak re- sponse to the Treaty of Versailles. Once again students poured off the university campuses into the streets. Their numbers grew each day, until thousands of stu- dents were marching around the second ring road encir- cling the capital, where we lived, calling for freedom and the right to enter into dialogue with Communist Party leaders. The government did not respond; instead, its leaders stayed secluded in their privileged refuge of Zhongnanhai, adjacent to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. On May 13, 1989, a Beijing Normal University stu- dent named Chai Ling made an emotional plea for the government to begin a dialogue with the students, or they would stage a hunger strike to demand direct negotia- tions with Communist Party leaders. When no response was forthcoming, the students descended by the thou- sands on Tiananmen Square, set up camp outside Mao Zedong’s mausoleum, and launched the hunger strike. Mao must have been rolling over in his grave! Although he knew very well the power of mobilized students driven by nationalistic fervor, such as the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, he would have been horrified to wit- ness students calling for democracy and freedom from the Communist Party. Over the next week, the square filled with colorful banners, loudspeakers blared, and hundreds of tents were set up. We wandered among the students, amazed at what we were living through. In mid-May, Soviet Pre- mier Mikhail Gorbachev arrived in Beijing on an official visit. The first Russian head of state to visit China in 30 years, Gorbachev arrived at the Great Hall of the People for a historic meeting with Premier Deng Xiaoping. The entire international press corps came to Beijing to cover F O C U S A large crowd of students listened as we shared our experiences demonstrating against the Vietnam War in the U.S. Joanne Grady Huskey is a Foreign Service family member who has been posted with her husband and children to Bei- jing, Madras, Nairobi and Taipei. A cross-cultural trainer and international educator, Ms. Huskey founded Global Adjustments in India, a relocation company that specializes in cross-cultural training. She is also a co-founder of the American International School in Chennai and a former international director of Very Special Arts International at the John F. Kennedy Center. She has published articles in Newsweek , the Washington Post , State magazine, the For- eign Service Journal and Centered on Taipei. This article is excerpted from her forthcoming book Un- official Diplomat (New Academia Publishing, September), a volume in the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Memoirs and Occasional Papers Series.