If President Ma ying-jeou (馬英九) continues to be diplomatic on issues relating to the Tiananmen Square Massacre, his administration would give Beijing the impression that Taiwan is prepared to sidestep human rights in return for economic benefits, said Tung Li-wen (董立文), a Taiwan Thinktank consultant specializing in China matters.
Yesterday marked the 22nd anniversary of China’s bloody military crackdown on demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Tung noted that on May 31, an annual open letter posted on the “Tiananmen Mothers” Web site by Ding Zilin (丁子霖) and others who lost relatives in the massacre revealed that China’s Public Security Bureau had privately broached the subject of compensation with the families of victims.
Ding’s son, Jiang Jielian (蔣捷連), was shot dead during the massacre.
Tung said Beijing’s action represented a significant breakthrough, adding that “someone” in the Chinese government had authorized the bureau to contact the victims’ families, a political move to gauge which way the wind was blowing.
However, this has also shaken the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from the inside, creating further power paradoxes, Tung said in an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister paper of the Taipei Times) on Friday.
Tung said both current and future CCP leaders — be it the party’s fourth-generation leader, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), or his potential successor, Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) — have benefitted directly or indirectly from the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Whether the issue of compensation for the victims’ families is made public or not, it shows that there are officials in the Chinese government who are contemplating “admitting it had made a mistake,” Tung said, adding that some might even try to use this to force a breakthrough and influence Chinese politics.
Tung said the Chinese public had become increasingly pro-active in seeking to address the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Compared with the demand of the Tiananmen Mothers in the 1990s — which was to ask Beijing to take suitable legal action concerning the incident — public demands over the past few years have strengthened into calls for an investigation into the massacre, publicizing the results of its findings, issuing a public apology, prosecution of those responsible and compensation for victims or their families.
Tung said that memoirs by then-CCP general secretary Zhao Ziyang (趙紫陽) and then-Chinese premier Li Peng (李鵬) of the massacre had been published, which was to a certain extent meant to deflect political responsibility for the incident.
As various organizations have started documenting the massacre, Tung said that in time, this work would have an impact on the CCP’s rule.
As for the Ma administration’s stance on the issue, Tung said the government’s responses have already prompted questions from many sectors.
The Presidential Office’s recent accusations that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had remained silent on the issue was an attempt on the part of the Ma administration to blur the issue, Tung said.
The Ma government should be directing its words at China — not the DPP — and trying to turn the issue into a domestic bipartisan tussle, Tung said.
“Ma has said that ‘human rights is the line that divides the two sides of the [Taiwan Strait], but those are empty words,” Tung said. “The focus should be on what actions you have taken or whether you have questioned China about its lack of progress on human rights.”
Without action to back up its words, the Ma administration is simply sending the Beijing government the wrong message that Taiwan only cares about economic benefits and not human rights, Tung said.
TRANSLATED BY JAKE CHUNG, STAFF WRITER
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