Dying for democracy: Tiananmen Square, remembered

"With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to conclude that the student protests of 20 years ago were doomed; easy, too, to chart how the movement progressively sowed the seeds of its own downfall. Its young leaders were arrogant, increasingly demagogic, and poorly organised. Their calls for democracy in China were not only unrealistic, but in many ways derivative and naïve. It is remarkable that the protest grew to the point where it was seen as a serious threat to Communist Party rule.

That it did so reflects an extraordinary, and completely unforeseeable convergence of circumstances: historical precedents that spooked the authorities; weak leadership at the top of the Chinese Communist Party and government, and a series of unrelated events that no contingency planners could ever have foreseen."

Mary Dejevsky, writing on The Independent in "Dying for democracy: Tiananmen Square, remembered" reflects on the momentous events in Beijing 20 years ago.

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