Hello again… it’s a beautiful Spring day in the neighborhood… [Mr. Rogers thinks so!]
And today we’re delving back about twenty years into events surrounding the student protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. I don’t doubt most of you remember the frail looking Chinese student standing unarmed in front of a Chinese Red Army Tank that could have rolled over him in a moment. It was a stand-off picture carried around the world.
We need to remember the same regime controlling Beijing in those days is still in charge. Last Summer’s Olympics showed that. They still wish to control every aspect of everyone’s life – including no freedom to worship God – that would erode their control. That’s partly why the students were protesting twenty years ago. Nobody knows how many died. Unfortunately the same ideological group, twenty years older, run things in the Middle Kingdom today. They’d like to run things here too – and they hold the lion’s share of America’s foreign indebtedness.
[As a side note – they are uncertain about the continued value of American currency and have made the first moves to ditch it and replace it either with the Euro – or a basket of international currencies including their own (which they manipulate to their own advantage quite freely.)]
All that to say – it’s a toss-up as to whether China or India is the most populous nation in the world today. Neither is our “buddy” – but we’re far more likely to suffer as a nation at the hands of the Chinese – especially if they have nuclear ‘rogue’ states to do their bidding. The world is a pretty dangerous place. Our current team seems to think we’re playing marbles and not even for “keeps.”
In any case, today’s program introduces a memoir by Zhao Ziyang, who was Secy Gen. of the Communist Party under Deng Zhou Ping twenty years ago. He tried to calm things down before they got out of hand in Tiananmen Square and got booted out of the Party because of it. In his 16 years of house arrest he realized he’d made a big error in not realizing an effective government needed democratic means by which to effectively govern. He details how he tried to moderate the CP leadership – and for his pains got to spend the rest of his life in house arrest. He died in 2005. But he dictated a memoir – which is due to be released this week in English and next month in Chinese (although I’m sure it won’t make it behind the bamboo curtain unless the RED CHINESE leadership relents.) It’s critical of Communist leadership and ideology. That’s a no-no even if you were Secy. Gen’’.
So… it’s a very interesting thing to see what happens when the leopard has attention called to his spots. There are a lot of them around.
Cordially, IN HIM
Jack
http://www.jebcovoice.net/audio/jama05-18-09.mp3
http://www.jebcovoice.net/scripts/jamt05-18-09.doc
If the links don’t work please try copying to your browser.
“JUST A MINUTE”
THE TANKS OF TIANANMEN STILL ROLL
JUST A MINUTE – Two decades after the bloody events of Tiananmen Square – Zhao Ziyang’s ghostly memoir will be heard by today’s Chinese leaders. Zhao was Secretary General of the Communist Party under Deng Zhao Ping, and spent his last 16 years under house arrest for daring to sympathize with students asking for openness, less corruption and a freer press.
Images of the brave student facing down a twenty-ton tank, or the crowd lifting Lady Liberty before Mao’s placid portrait -- spring forth from Zhao’s tape-recorded memoir, transcribed by Bao Pu, and scheduled for English release this week. The Chinese version, due for released in Hong Kong next month, will give thousands of Chinese a rare inside view of Communist Party Leadership debates.
Once again the unarmed student faces the tank in Tiananmen – he’s memorialized by the ghost of Zhao Ziyang’s memoir – spoken into a tape recorder to forestall forgery – providing a rare insider's view of the Communist Party.
Will that voice be heard by China’s leaders today?
<> I’m Jack Buttram
Jebco Editorial Service
www.justaminuteradio.blogspot.com
e-mail n4zhk@arrl.net
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