<<  <  >  >>

strations by force because they wanted to

Rewriting Tiananmen

save the free-market project as Klein claims.

Square

They wanted to save the party's power, and

the majority was made up of economic con-

servatives who were skeptical towards liberal-

Klein sees China as another example of a

ization. Some even refused to visit the free-

country where the leaders have adopted

trade zones on principle.52 And the reforms

Friedman's ideas and enforced market

reform in a violent manner. To make her case,

did not accelerate after the massacre, as Klein

she rewrites the history of the Tiananmen

writes. For the first time since their incep-

Square massacre of 1989 and claims that the

tion, they stalled.

protesters were primarily opposed to eco-

Consider the most consistent free-mar-

nomic liberalization. According to Klein, the

keter in the leadership. Gen. Secretary Zhao

Communist Party, led by Deng Xiaoping,

Ziyang. Zhao was purged because he support-

attacked the students in order to save its free-

ed the protesters, and he spent the rest of his

market program and move on with the most

life under house arrest. Friedman had met

sweeping reforms yet, while people were still

him in Beijing in 1988 and wrote him a letter

in shock.

of advice--another meeting with a tyrant that

Far from being

As Klein does in many instances, she starts

Klein blames him for. Zhao's rivals, including

the start of

cautiously by citing a Chinese leftist intellec-

Premier Li Peng, who was pushing for a vio-

tual and protester and saying that this is one

lent crackdown on the protesters, now tried to

shock therapy,

interpretation. But soon, without providing

roll back the market reforms and reintroduce

Tiananmen

any new evidence for this position, she

controls over the economy. The conservatives

Square was

switches to treating it as her own interpreta-

blamed the unrest on the openness, and

tion and stating confidently that the protest-

Deng's position in the party was weakened.

almost the end

ers opposed "the specific Friedmanite nature

Far from being the start of shock therapy,

of economic

of the reforms" and that the "shock of the

Tiananmen Square was almost the end of eco-

massacre . . . made shock therapy possible."50

liberalization in

nomic liberalization in China. Klein writes

And in the rest of the book she includes this

that "Tiananmen paved the way for a radical

China. Klein

transformation free from fear of rebellion."53

as another example of how markets and vio-

fakes the

lence go hand in hand.

But according to EFW, China was actually less

economically open in 1990 than it was in

But if the students were protesting against

chronology,

1985, moving from 5.11 to 4.91 on a scale of 1

economic reform, they seldom expressed that

and she knows it.

grievance. Instead, they demonstrated in

to 10.

Klein fakes the chronology, and she knows

favor of democracy, government transparen-

it, because she writes that Deng opened the

cy, and equality before the law, and against

bureaucracy and violence.51 The real story is

Chinese economy "in the three years immedi-

ately following the bloodbath."54 She has to

thus very different from the one Klein tells.

The protesters at first gathered to mourn the

change the meaning of "immediate" into

former secretary general Hu Yaobang, one of

"three years," because for three years after

the country's most important reformers.

Tiananmen Square, the reform movement

Those students and intellectuals wanted

was faltering. Deng was forced to try to jump-

democratic reforms, specifically free speech.

start liberalization in a public way in the

The protests grew and included everybody

spring of 1992, even though he was 87 years

who wanted democratic reform, both those

old and had formally retired. His "southern

who wanted more economic reform and

tour" was a trip filled with speeches and net-

those who wanted less (the element that

working to save the reform program. The trip

Klein equates with the whole protest).

was not reported in the national media at

There are no indications that the majority

first, because that was controlled by Deng's

of party elders decided to end the demon-

rivals. Deng even had to write articles sup-

9