June 10, 1989
"Economic Reforms to Continue, Deng Vows"
"Ailing Ruler Resurfaces, Praises Army"
by David Holley and Daniel Williams, Times Staff Writers
"Beijing - China's leadership puzzle began to fall into place Friday with the reappearance of Communist patriarch Deng Xiao-ping, who endorsed last weekend's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators but promised that economic reforms will continue."
"Deng, who had been away from public view for three weeks, said the crackdown against student protesters centered at Tian An Men Square was needed to defend Communist rule in China. He accused a 'very small number of people' of 'attempting to overthrow the Communist Party, topple the socialist system and subvert the People's Republic of China to establish a bourgeois republic.'"
So, looks like the civil war about to engulf the nation has faded away.
Meanwhile . . .
"Shanghai Students Defy Regime, Hold Protest"
"Authorities Warning Ignored; Up to 50,000 March to Honor Memory of Victims in Beijing"
article by Karl Schoenberger, Times Staff Writer
Now, I admit, when I read this again, I did not remember this protest in Shanghai. I have been going down "memory lane" this past week, re-reading the "Los Angeles Times" from thirty years ago . . .
at the time, I was picking up the Times every day to read whatever I could find. In that year which had started with talk about the Berlin Wall coming down, could it be possible that Communist rule in China was on the way out?
Looking back now and reading Mr. Schoenberger's article about the students in Shanghai, their demands seemed so foolhardy, reckless, even ignorant of who and what they were dealing with, how willing the leaders were to extinguish any such talk.
We have seen over these past thirty years how the events at Tian An Men Square were so thoroughly "washed away" from the national discourse. To be a fly on the wall when the leaders read the three demands to the government issued by the student leaders in Shanghai (from Mr. Schoenberger's article):
1. That flags on public buildings be flown at half-staff to mourn the deaths in the capital
2. That some sort of dialogue be established between students and Shanghai government officials
3. That the government openly distribute videotapes it supposedly possesses documenting the scene early last Sunday at Tian An Men Square, where soldiers beat and shot demonstrators, crushing some with their armored vehicles.
"Economic Reforms to Continue, Deng Vows"
"Ailing Ruler Resurfaces, Praises Army"
by David Holley and Daniel Williams, Times Staff Writers
"Beijing - China's leadership puzzle began to fall into place Friday with the reappearance of Communist patriarch Deng Xiao-ping, who endorsed last weekend's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators but promised that economic reforms will continue."
"Deng, who had been away from public view for three weeks, said the crackdown against student protesters centered at Tian An Men Square was needed to defend Communist rule in China. He accused a 'very small number of people' of 'attempting to overthrow the Communist Party, topple the socialist system and subvert the People's Republic of China to establish a bourgeois republic.'"
So, looks like the civil war about to engulf the nation has faded away.
Meanwhile . . .
"Shanghai Students Defy Regime, Hold Protest"
"Authorities Warning Ignored; Up to 50,000 March to Honor Memory of Victims in Beijing"
article by Karl Schoenberger, Times Staff Writer
Now, I admit, when I read this again, I did not remember this protest in Shanghai. I have been going down "memory lane" this past week, re-reading the "Los Angeles Times" from thirty years ago . . .
at the time, I was picking up the Times every day to read whatever I could find. In that year which had started with talk about the Berlin Wall coming down, could it be possible that Communist rule in China was on the way out?
Looking back now and reading Mr. Schoenberger's article about the students in Shanghai, their demands seemed so foolhardy, reckless, even ignorant of who and what they were dealing with, how willing the leaders were to extinguish any such talk.
We have seen over these past thirty years how the events at Tian An Men Square were so thoroughly "washed away" from the national discourse. To be a fly on the wall when the leaders read the three demands to the government issued by the student leaders in Shanghai (from Mr. Schoenberger's article):
1. That flags on public buildings be flown at half-staff to mourn the deaths in the capital
2. That some sort of dialogue be established between students and Shanghai government officials
3. That the government openly distribute videotapes it supposedly possesses documenting the scene early last Sunday at Tian An Men Square, where soldiers beat and shot demonstrators, crushing some with their armored vehicles.
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