Extensions of Remarks

12182 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS June 15, 1989 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS AN ANALYSIS OF THE CURRENT China's Communist government, and that Communist Party and a member of the Po CRISIS IN THE PEOPLE'S RE the progress of the Chinese reform move litburo during most of this period. PUBLIC OF CHINA ment toward "liberalism" was irreversible. If And then, there was the famous Great nothing else good comes out of this tragedy Proletarian Cultural Revolution <1966- it will perhaps have a heuristic value, re 1976), the details of which we need not be HON. FLOYD SPENCE minding us that nothing in politics is irre labor here. The "wounded" literature of the OF SOUTH CAROLINA versible, especially the march toward West survivors of China's holocaust is well IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ern liberal democracy in a political system known, some of the personal accounts of like that of the People's Republic of China. this period having become best sellers in the Thursday, June 15, 1989 In fact, the spectacle of the Chinese gov United States. Deng himself became a Mr. SPENCE. Mr. Speaker, in the wake of ernment engaging in the "wanton slaugh victim of the Cultural revolution, purged the tragic and suppressive actions taken by ter" of its own people, to quote a distin and branded a "capitalist roader." His son the Government of China, I would like to guished member of the U.S. Congress in de was thrown out of a window at Beijing Uni share with my colleagues an editorial written scribing the use of the Army against the versity and paralyzed for life. by a noted professor of government and inter students, is really nothing new. Over the years, then, the record of gov If we look back to 1951, for example, the ernment violence against the Chinese national studies at the University of South first year in which the new Communist gov people is a rather substantial one. Carolina, an exceptional institution located in ernment had consolidated complete control During this time the factional strife my congressional district. Prof. James T. over the Mainland, Hainan Island and within the Communist leadership has not Myers has been a professor of East Asian af Tibet, the government launched what can been between "liberals" and "conservatives" fairs at the university for the past 20 years. In only fairly be described as a year-long reign in the Western sense, or between "hard this piece, entitled "Whither China?" Dr. of revolutionary terror. The campaign was liners" and those who advocated "human Myers illustrates the realities of the Beijing called "Suppression of Counterrevolutionar rights," but between those more willing to crisis by bringing the student riots into histori ies." The precise human toll of this cam take risks to make the inefficient Marxist paign is impossible to calculate, but respon system work more efficiently and those cal perspective. He reminds his readers that sible scholars estimate the numbers of more comfortable with the security of the "democracy" was not on the verge of becom deaths in the hundreds of thousands, and inefficient status quo. Deng has been among ing the new ideological basis for the Govern perhaps in the millions. The Land Reform the risk takers, but it has been a mistake to ment in China; nor was it the principal catalyst Movement was taking place at the same regard him as a "liberal" in the Western for the turmoil. Dr. Myers reascertains that time with the bloody and violent <and suc sense, leading his country toward democra communism is alive and well in China and, cessful) attempt to eliminate the gentry cy and capitalism. Deng has never favored that the harsh actions taken by the Chinese class in the Chinese countryside. One figure the sort of intellectual disorder which is Government against the will of the students may give an indication of the scale of the necessary to make a pluralist, democratic and also its people, while contemptible, killing; in the city of Canton alone, the gov political system work. Deng has always been ernment reported more than 20,000 execu identified with the forces of order and re should not come as a surprise to anyone. tions in a ten-month period in 1951. To such pression whenever things got out of hand. WHITHER CHINA? execution statistics must be added large The problem is that Deng has wanted to <By James T. Myers, professor of govern numbers of suicides plus the deaths associ have it both ways. He has wanted to main ment and international studies, University ated with the agrarian reform movement in tain control and order, but he has also of South Carolina) the countryside. Mao Zedong had explained wanted to encourage the sort of intellectual Recent events the People's Republic of all this with his usual clarity. innovation which is necessary to achieve China have caused world leaders to express "Our state is a people's democratic dicta economic development and modernization. "regret," "outrage," even "shock," that the torship. • • • What is dictatorship for? Its Unfortunately, from his perspective, every Chinese government would resort to the use function is to suppress the reactionary class time political openness has invited innova of naked, deadly force against its own es and elements and those exploiters in our tion, someone has innovated the response people. There can be no argument about the country who resist the socialist revolution, that China's problems lay in its Marxist tragic nature of these events, not only for to suppress those who try to wreck socialist Leninist Communist system and that the the cause of human rights in China, but construction.'' Communist Party should go away and leave also for the increasingly faint hope for the Mao's point is an important one to re the people alone. And each time the govern success of the Chinese modernization plans. member in the context of current events be ment's predictable response has been re But the decision of the Chinese government cause it was made in 1957 in response to the pression. The recent case is different only in to use units of the People's Armed Police "thaw" of the so-called "100 flowers" period its scale and in the intensity of media cover and the People's Liberation Army <P.L.A.) when the Party asked for the helpful criti age which it has attracted. against a non-violent demonstration by the cism of Chinese intellectuals. What the And now, the army is in the streets with Chinese people should not be a cause of as Party got for its trouble was an outburst of reports of fighting between units loyal to tonishment to anyone. Regret surely, but criticism not unlike the recent criticism of various factions or individuals in the leader not surprise. the Beijing students, namely: the problem ship. None of this is entirely new either. It was, afterall, only a few short weeks ago with China is the Party itself. The Party Indeed, the middle-aged and senior officers that the same Chinese government ordered was no more receptive to this notion in 1957 of the P.L.A. have been through this not so the use of deadly force against peaceful than it has been in 1989. long ago in the Cultural Revolution when demonstrations by Tibetan-Chinese citizens And in the mean time, there have been all wholesale violence and civil disorder swept in Tibet. The fact that the Chinese govern the other campaigns in which the Chinese the nation for nearly three years. Army ment has carried out a policy of genocide government has turned on its own people, units battled each other and armed rival against the Tibetan people for decades, and such as the "three-anti" and "five-anti" and Red Guard units. In the end though, the that the Tibetans want their independence "anti-rightist" campaigns of the 1950s and, army came together to end the violence and from China, makes the Lhasa demonstra of course, the famous Great Leap Forward. to restore order, and essentially to run the tions different from those in Tiananmen We now know from extremely reliable de country for the next five or six years. And Square only in detail, not in principle. I sus mographic studies that the famine in China this despite the fact that deep political divi pect the real source of the world's shock is caused principally by the Great Leap poli sions remained within the leadership which the intensive media coverage which the cies created in China in 1960-61 a popula were not finally solved until after Mao's Beijing student demonstrations have re tion deficit of approximately 31 million. A death in 1976. ceived and the attendant pious but naive famine may not be as sudden as a massacre, Can the same thing happen again, or is commentary to the effect that democracy but the end result is pretty much the same. China doomed to disintegration and civil was about to come to China, that the "Man It is also important to remember that Deng war? It is always hazardous to predict the date of Heaven" was slipping away from Xiaoping was General Secretary of the future and especially so in a situation as e This "bullet" symbol identifies statements or insertions which are not spoken by a Member of the Senate on the floor. Matter set in this typeface indicates words inserted or appended, rather than spoken, by a Member of the House on the floor. June 15, 1989 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS 12183 fluid and volitile as that which exists in former general counsel of the Senate Appro of our country.

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