I was shocked to realise that Thursday 4th June 2020 was the 31st anniversary of the Tianmen Square massacre.
Back in 1989 the ruling Communist Party in China chose repression (and murder) rather than slow liberalisation (which was followed to a degree in Eastern Europe at the same time).
Thousands of pro-democracy activists were murdered or detained without trial by the Chinese Communist Party.
Western Governments condemned the repression (to varying degrees) before swiftly moving on to embrace some of the dubious benefits of the PRC’s economic miracle.
Sadly for the inhabitant’s of People's of China the Communists managed to combine Mao's arrogance in relation to people, nature and the environment with a reckless unregulated capitalist growth which resulted in spectacular economic growth and dreadful pollution and environmental damage which has impacted on people's health.
China now exports industrial commodities around the globe, in-place of silks and potteries, and collects financial instruments and lends money around the globe rather than bullion.
China’s needs are more complex and the state is no longer obliged to submit to unequal treaties and suffer from inequalities imposed in the past by former Western empires.
The leaders of the PRC now invoke the imperial traditions of the past, looking to enhance state power.
The Yuan and the Qing are now celebrated as unifiers of historic Chinese lands - something that justifiably concerns Taiwan, Kazakhstan and other states which lie within historic Chinese imperial borders.
Other imperial traditions continue - with privileged state officials who are relatively detached or remote from the people and society that they preside over.
Overseas the PRC has become a power in the world throwing its weight around in the developing world, especially in Africa - where African trade unionists working to protect their members have felt the negative effects of the relationship between their governments and the PRC.
The impact of the 2008 banking crash temporarily cleared the field of many Western alternatives and the PRC stepped into the vacuum. The PRC now holds the purse strings across much of the developing world.
Where possible we in the West (and in the rest of the world) should actively avoid questionable trade deals with the People's Republic of China and its blood stained corrupt elite focused on retaining control of the world’s last Empire and their privileges that come from being in charge.
While it is very important to remember the events of June 4th 1989 we should also remember that the PRC’s ruling elite continues to this day to brutally repress and imprison its citizens and deny basic human rights to Chinese citizens, Tibetans, Uyghurs and Hongkongers.
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