Remember China's self-inflicted wound
an alleyway near Tiananmen Square
June 4, 1989
by Koichi Imaeda
17 years ago today, tanks were rolling to Beijing, around civilian barricades and defenses of limited use. Many, many were killed and maimed in the shudder of a challenged autocracy. Bad timing might be the most to blame. If Hu Yaobang had died one year earlier, the wave of Eastern European revolutions would not have loomed threateningly before the Politiboro, Zhao Ziyang probably would have been in town to cool the response to the mass demonstrations of grief, the aggressive Li Peng would have only been Acting Premier, and hundreds of idealistic students would still be alive -- and maybe in power. But now they are mostly forgotten and unknown by most of those 1.3 billions.
Don't you forget them, too.