Customer Reviews

The Tiananmen Papers : The Chinese Leadership's Decision to Use Force Against Their Own People - In Their Own Words

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Never has there been a book more vivid and truthful at presenting the Chinese government, its top decision making process, and the agitation, determinations, intelligence, manipulations, and openness of its leaders. This is more than just a recording on the Tiananmen Turmoil, but a chronicle from which useful reflections can always be drawn, especially now. If the Chinese Government, can be brave as to accept this book, repents its ill-doing of the past, and embrace more political openness and changes in the future, we, 1.3 billion brothers and sisters, will be the happiest people on earth.

The more I read, the more I understand, and the more I pity our leaders, for their situations were so critical, futures so uncertain, and with all those uncertainties, had to decide nevertheless the directions of a whole country. You, from this book, will learn how human our leaders are, and how little we can complain, for us in the same situation would have done worse.

This is a great book, and those stated above are just some of my own judgments made upon these very wonderful information whose authencity there should be no doubts, but as all unbiased information are, you will make your own judgments too, which in comparison with the opinions here, would only make the book more interesting. But only to be aware, this is a long book with many details that you might not be very interested at, go to the New York Times Web site, and the excerpts they have there might be better.

OK I'll start with a disclaimer: you should not bring this book with you on your next vacation in China because this contains highly sensitive, confidential, and provocative contents. Books like these are what the Chinese government labels as materials that "threaten national security." The Tienanmen Paper is a collection of documents depicting the inner-workings and Chinese top leaders' decision on pulling in PLA (People's Liberation Army) into Beijing on June 3, 1989. These documents, which were secretively smuggled out of China, give a clear perspective on the events that lead to the massacre shortly after midnight on June 4, 1989.

While the book does not add on to what we already know about the Tienanmen massacre, it does give us a feel for how decision-making works at the very lop leadership. It clearly indicates that the turmoil split the top leadership into opposing fractions. The documents confirm the fact that dismissal of Party Secretary Zhao Ziyang, who was pro-reform in the Communist Party, was not a coincidence. He was removed from office upon his firm refusal to declare martial law and send in troops to drive students out of Tienanmen.

The leaders already had an idea of how to suppress any democratic sit-ins and riots as soon as students walked out from the classrooms and made their ways into Tienanmen square. A general who wanted to remain anonymous from a memoir commented, "Army is the Army. Power is what is most important to the rulers of this country. They don't care what foreigners think. They don't care what the students want. The demonstrators are threatening their power. That is what they are thinking about. So the students will die." Decisions had long been made. They just had to get rid of any opposing efforts and those who opposed. Outsiders (foreigners and Chinese who live in remote parts of the country) often think what they could not see and could not hear wasn't there. And Tienanmen Paper has filled this gap. Every gesture, voice, meeting, decision made by the leaders is laid bare.

We saw gunfire, screaming, and fighting. We saw students falling, laying in blood. We saw tear gas and rubber bullets. We saw trucks and tankers sitting bumper to bumper. We saw the officers in cars racing up and down the line supervising the caravan. We saw common people demanding the soldiers turn around and leave the city. We saw other people shaking their fists and denouncing the soldiers. We saw buses and vehicles burning at intersections, windows of apartment buildings flickering. But one thing we miss: the troops called into Beijing by Yang Sheungkun, or the 38th company of the PLA, has no clue of the democratic movement started by students. The troops were brought in from some remote province of the country and they knew they had to listen to the order from above. As one bystander recalled, "The soldiers made no eye contact with the street crowd. They looked absolutely clueless and blank." This confirms the invaluable contribution by The Tienanmen Paper, a book that gives us idea of how top leaders monopolize decision-making. 4.0 stars.

A few of the reviewers have mentioned that the book contains nothing new. That may be the case for people who have studied the situation in depth or were there at the time. But lots of Americans, like me, only knew what they saw on the news or read in the papers. For us, the book is a real eye-opener with many surprises.

I also disagree with the characterization of this book as "dry." I couldn't put it down. If the expository narrative bits weren't in there and the book consisted of the documents only, it might have been tiresome after a while. But whoever put this together added just enough background to maintain the sense of tension and gravity. It's very suspenseful--a neat trick considering the one thing everybody already knows is how the story ended.

This book is obviously a milestone assuming that its contents are authentic. The reader is privy to inside decision making in the critical months and a view of the government machine in action across China in the period leading up to the massacre and immediately after.
The main point of this review is to give the opinion that this book is not a suitable introduction to Tiananmen for the novice on this subject. I have always wanted to read an account of the massacre and the political factors leading up to it, and thought I'd start with this. My feeling is that without any prior knowledge beyond what everyone has heard, the impact of this book will be lessened somewhat. Which shouldn't take anything away from the book, only warn novice readers that this might be better put on hold until you've read something else. The reason is simply the massive amount of unfiltered and not always well-organized information presented. The book is so dry at times that it is hard to maintain interest, unless in fact questions were being answered that had been nagging at the reader, which is less likely to a new reader in the area.

This book provides an excellent study on how governments commit evil. The story it tells is a disappointment (dramatically or theatrically) in that there is no climactic scene in which an evil dictator, sitting in the shadows, utters some malice-filled, murderous instruction like "Let them die" or "Teach them a lesson". Life is more complicated than that. The final order to crack down on the protesters came about as a result of complex relationships among various bureaucracies and various governing officials. Had it been up to those nominally in charge, the Politburo Standing Committee, the crack-down may never have occurred.

On the other hand, because calls for freedom were inherently violative of the governing principles of the Communist bureaucracy, one wonders whether the crack-down was nevertheless inevitable -- no matter who had the final word.

That's not to say the it was solely the system which was at fault. Some of the decision-makers were clearly concerned with their own well-being, remembering the dangers they faced during the Cultural Revolution. Ultimately, they will have to accept responsibility.

All-in-all, this book would be excellent for students of political science who wish to see how the CCP truly makes political decisions, before the Hollywood version of the incident comes along and reduces the events down to white and black hats.

(This all assumes that the documents are authentic, which the editors readily admit cannot yet be determined.)

There is no way for to know whether this book is full of true documents or fakes. However, several of my friends from the Michigan Business School who are from China believe them to be true and that is good enough for me. A few of them were actually in the square in the days leading up to the final horror. Plus, we all know from the history of the Pentagon Papers and similar events, that documentation of difficult historical events do have a way of finding their way to the light.

While there are narratives of these events that are easier to read than this long and somewhat disconnected book, there is a real power that comes with reading the actual documents. Plus, it fills in some of the gaps and provides deeper background for those commentaries. The notes provided by the authors to fill in the gaps is pretty good and reads like it is true, but, again, I have no way of knowing.

There are a few maps and the front of the book and 100 short biographies (a few lines each) at the back to help us keep track of who is who. But there are no pictures provided. There is a small index.

This is an important window into the decision-making process of the Communist government in Beijing. That the rulers in Beijing would decide to kill thousands of their best and brightest students continues to give the world the true test of their character.

A review of this book isn't necessary considering the extensive reviews already given, so I will just give you opinion on the book.
I don't think most of us will be shocked that the Chinese government ordered the killing of their own people, they do that all the time. I think they will be fascinated to see the thought process behind the actions, and that is where this book really shines.
I do warn all casual readers, that I don't see this book as being something most will enjoy. It is long, it is dry and sometimes it is down right boring, but that is the nature of politics.
For people who are extremely interested in Chinese Political Strategy, Cultural Political Strategy, Political Science or Governmental Procedures, this will be a real page turner. Luckily, I enjoy these topics and make a living off of such ideas and subjects, but my friends who do not did not enjoy the book as much as I did. Which is why I give it 4 stars, a five star book would have attempted to make this read more accessible to the masses, and add more commentary about what the readers were reading to increase their understanding. To fully grasp all that is going on you must know a good deal of Post-Communist Chinese history.
If any of this sounds fun for you this book is a treasure, if not, I suggest waiting for a good program on the History Channel.

This is either a stunning exposé or a masterly forgery. Even its editors are not entirely sure which it is because it is impossible to verify the authenticity of the documents presented here, which the compiler - who uses a pseudonym - delivered to a leading American Sinologist. The documents purport to record the most secret deliberations of China's leaders, as well as the information upon which they based their 1989 decision to unleash armed forces against the peaceful demonstrators who occupied Tiananmen Square. After careful checking, the editors deemed the documents authentic because they possess "an internal coherence, richness and human believability that would be impossible to fake." The Chinese government denounced them as forgeries, as was to be expected, true or false. We [...] believe the documents have enough verisimilitude to offer an instructive, useful picture of how China's system works. Reading these, it is impossible to escape the reflection that the current regime is doomed by its very rigidity and betrayed by its own strength.

Whether or not the papers are authetic preoccupied my mind before I read the book. As I read along, however, authetication becomes a lesser and lesser issue. What strikes me most is comrade Deng Xiao-Ping's vision and his leadership. He clearly distinguished him from others, include the elders. He tried very hard to balance reform and power. While he adamantly pursued the (economical) reform, he was also full aware of grip of the power or the control. In the early stage of the 'storm', he sensed that any compromise would eventually lead to the end of communist's rule. (The events afterwards in East Europe clearly demonstrated that.) No wonder he was so ignorant of enormous voices from all kinds of sources. On the other hand, he was well aware that the crackdown might go too left to revert the reform to the other direction. So he emphasized continuing reform several times in the aftermath.

Many blame Li Peng for his notorious roles, to me however, he is just a footnote in the history. It was Deng who should bear the main reponsibility of the crackdown, for better or for worse.

Zhao Ziyang was a good comrade. He showed good vision - it was a chance for the communist party to adapt itself and a chance for political reform. Unfortunately, he lacked the leadership to carry out his plan.

Though more than ten years has passed, reading the papers is still a bit painful. When it comes to power, it showed that the communist is so ruthless, especially those elders. As different voices became stronger and stronger, they became more and more determined to carry out the crackdown. They are no longer for the people (mass).

Deng said the 'storm' was bound to come sooner or later, and he was glad that it came when the elders were still in control. Deng clearly understood the importance of both reform and communist rule, but he didn't (fully) realize that communist already proved to be a failure in the twentieth century, and communist rule is the biggest obstacle of reform. This storm was over, I believe however, there are more to come, sooner or later. I just hope they will be peaceful. (BTW.....