June 3, 1999
ESSAY / By WILLIAM SAFIRE
T-Day Plus 10 Years
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ASHINGTON -- "The press in China was freer then," recalls Wei Jingsheng, the dissident forced into exile in the U.S., of the day exactly a decade ago when
Beijing's rulers massacred Chinese
students and workers demonstrating
for democracy.
Wei was in prison at the time for
advocating freedom on "Democracy
Wall" years before. He was allowed
to watch the official television news,
and saw a man standing in front of a
tank, arresting its progress.
But this was not the same picture
that was front-paged all over the
world. The other confrontation, the
one Wei was watching, took place in
front of the Military Museum, three
miles from Tiananmen Square, where
much of the bloody work was done.
"There were many other examples of courage," says Wei. "Chinese
people will never forget what happened that day."
I wanted to have dinner with Wei
this week because I admire anti-Communist dissidents. When names
like Jiang and Clinton and Brezhnev
are forgotten, memories of this century's heroic dissidents -- Andrei
Sakharov, Anatoly Shcharansky and
Wei Jingsheng -- will endure.
That's because they have done
what no politician or Kremlinologist
or China-watcher dreamed of doing.
By publicly daring the most despotic
systems to do their worst to silence
them, the dissidents of our time --
like the biblical Job -- awoke the
world's conscience to human rights.
Wei is a stocky, intelligent man
with a shock of black hair, a quick
smile and an uncompromising attitude who has some other dissidents
here wishing he had stayed in jail
another 18 years. Of their disunity,
he says: "If you can find an American leader who unifies the people, I
will go and study with him."
Are most Chinese angry at the
U.S.? "The Communist leaders are
trying to channel dissatisfaction
against Westerners, and against pro-Western Chinese. But people are not
sheep to be so easily manipulated."
The average Chinese reaction to
being caught lifting our nuclear technology? "It may not be good for the
democracy movement for me to say
this, but you cannot fault the Chinese
Government for stealing secrets.
Many people always thought the U.S.
was leaking the secrets to Beijing on
purpose, along with the technology
being sold, and are confused about
why you now take offense."
The top leaders? "Jiang Zemin,
whose son is a billionaire, blows with
the wind. Li Peng is a hard-liner with
limited intelligence. Zhu Rongji tries
to save the ship from sinking, but to
what end -- to prolong the life of the
Communist Party? Befuddling."
The People's Liberation Army?
"The P.L.A. is not a seamless entity.
There is a faction of high officers
who benefit from corruption, and another of lower rank who dissent from
corruption. In that situation, accidents and coups can happen."
What's with the demonstration by
15,000 Falun Gong followers outside
the leaders' compound? "When regimes weaken," said Wei, "popular
religious movements and superstitions become significant. There are a
hundred sects like Falun Gong,
which means that people long for
faith in some ideology, a new source
of guidance. The Government recognizes the danger and is anxious for
ways to control their growth."
Is China playing the Russian card
against America? He smiled at the
allusion to a reverse Nixonian strategy: "The Deputy Prime Minister,
Qian Qichen, wants to draw in Russia
to bolster China against the U.S. But
Primakov was more concerned
about dealing with NATO. Now Primakov's gone, and we'll have to see."
Today, T-Day plus 10 years, President Clinton will issue a statement
challenging Congress to extend
"most favored nation" trade privileges to China for another year.
(Spinmeisters in the pro-China lobby
are trying to change that historic
phrase to "normal trade relations"
to make it more palatable, and many
in the media will meekly obey.)
I think Congress should vote to
suspend trade privileges for China.
Clinton will veto the bill and the
Senate will sustain his veto, giving
China its annual reprieve. That minuet is a good way of reminding Beijing how dependent it is on the American market -- just as patriots like
Wei Jingsheng remind us how the
spark of democratic spirit is alive
among Chinese.