The church in China — Pre and post Tiananmen Square

Abstract

Whereas Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union have enjoyed unprecedented liberalisation over the last year, China has suffered the exact opposite. Since the Beijing massacre of 3-4 June, the Chinese leadership, now firmly in the hands of the party's hardline gerontocracy and backed by the army, has chosen to reject reform on all fronts and revert to neo-Stalinist repression. The tragedy is that the party deliberately refused the path of dialogue and moderation. Certainly, the students I spoke to in Tiananmen Square last May were pressing for reform of the political and economic system, but they were very far from seeking a 'counter-revolutionary' overthrow of the party, as has since been made out by a massive propaganda and ideological blitzkrieg. The present regime has thus itself exacerbated and polarised the situation, alienating students and intellectuals and a large part of the urban population. Thousands have been arrested and an unknown number executed for leadership of, or participation in, the democracy movement.! Isolated internationally by the denunciation of the West on the one hand, and by the breathtaking events in Eastern Europe on the other which have seen its erstwhile allies in East Germany and Romania disappear from the scene, the Chinese government has intransigently maintained one-party rule and resurrected the bankrupt ideology of the Cultural Revolution to cow a sullen and despairing populace. 2 On the economic front, despite lip-service to 'reform', all the major economic reforms pioneered by the technocrats associated with disgraced Party Secretary Zhao Ziyang (the only leader of stature who was prepared to dialogue with the students) have been put into reverse. As the country continues to face inflation, unemployment·