Remember Tiananmen Square

Today is the anniversary of what the Chinese government euphemistically calls “Political Turmoil between Spring and Summer of 1989.” On this day in 1989, the Chinese military brutally crushed pro-democratic demonstrators in the historic Tian An Men Square in Beijing.

This image, of a man facing down a line of tanks, became symbolic of the event and the awesome odds faced by the protesters. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher voiced a powerful sentiment in an address on June 2:

This day the government of China affirmed to the world that it is a criminal enterprise that is perfectly willing to murder unarmed people in order to stay in power.

Shame on those Communist Party bosses who still 20 years after Tiananmen Square would still massacre advocates of democracy if they would gather in their streets, just as they would massacre Falun Gong members one at a time as they would arrest them, put them into prison, murder them, and would sell their body parts, just as they would murder Tibetan nationalists or Christians or other religious believers. Shame on Beijing. Shame on the people of the world who would treat the Government of Beijing as if it were the same as a democratic government.

June 4 is not just a day of shame for the Beijing regime, however. It is a day of shame for our government as well. Under President Reagan, we made it clear that the United States would continue providing credit, investment, beneficial trade arrangements, and technology transfer as long as China was willing to continue on the path of reform and on the path of making their society more open. Reagan, had he been confronted with Tiananmen Square, would have sent a message: if you send the troops in to massacre these people, the deal is off. You will pay a price.

Do you know what our government did? It wasn’t President Reagan. It was President Herbert Walker Bush. Do you know what his message said? It said nothing because he didn’t send a message, and that was the message the murderers in Beijing needed to hear.

America really doesn’t give a damn about democracy. America doesn’t care about human rights. We care about making a buck, and if you have to slaughter the people at Tiananmen Square, the Americans will never ever protest; they won’t whisper a protest; they won’t cancel contracts, because money is more important to the Americans than freedom.

Well, I’m afraid that did not represent the America that I’m all about. That immorality of siding with a dictatorship, of siding with the gangsters, of siding with the murderers in order to make a short-term profit–that policy–is coming back to haunt us now. That policy has created a monster in Beijing–a powerful, powerful force for evil in this world that we now must confront.

Today marks an anniversary–an anniversary of shame on those who committed the murders, an anniversary of shame on what our reaction was to those murders and to the repression that took place 20 years ago.

Let us send a message to the people of China: We are on their side. Hopefully, if nothing else, this resolution will let them know that, as our people stumble over themselves in trying to make short-term profits by making deals with the gangsters who have oppressed the people of China, there are Americans here who still hold true to the values of Jefferson, of Washington–of our Founding Fathers–and that there are Americans who still hold true to those values that liberty and justice for all is more important than short-term profit gains for American capitalists.

Let me add my voice in defiance against tyranny. My prayers are with those who still labor to bring freedom and democracy to the oppressed in China. God bless.