Visiting London last January, I met a woman named Diane Wei Liang. A former management professor, a writer of detective novels, a mother of two, Liang was someone I had seen serving as a commentator of the BBC. I thought she might add an interesting perspective to an article I was writing about the rise of the surveillance state, not least because she was born in China, and because in June 1989, she was among the students present at Tiananmen Square, where the protests came to such a bloody end 20 years ago today. We met for tea in Notting Hill, and during the course of the interview, I asked her about her most recent novel, Paper Butterfly, which deals in part with the effect Tiananmen Square has on people in China today. And then I asked her to tell me what happened in 1989.
I was 22, a student at Beijing University, where most of the student leaders came from. The protest started on campus, but it didn’t just happen—the whole democracy movement had been underground on campus for a couple years. We had cafes, modeled on debating societies, where we would go and drink terrible, terrible coffee, and we would debate, and philosophize about where China should go. We thought we were heirs to the Chinese democracy movement that dated back to 1910, when the democracy was established after the dynasties. But in April, Hu Yaobang died. He was an ardent reformer who was dedicated to political freedom, and when the government gave him a small funeral, 50,000 students came out.
From there, things escalated. Students went onto the street, the government sent in police—40,000 at first. Then they tried to send tanks, but we stopped them. They had to enter Beijing from the outskirts, and you could see the tanks in a long line, winding down a narrow country road like a snake. We rode our bikes out to meet them, and we stepped in front of them, and we stopped them. They stayed out there for days; the commander said the solders were reluctant to come in. So the government brought in a new division, the 28th army—part of a core group, real army troops.
I was in Tiananmen Square the night before they swept through. I was on night shift security duty, and we were totally scared. There were many many layers of students on duty, but the security was basically ridiculous. You’d spread out at arm’s length, and sit there for the night , 19 year old students holding hands.. What were we thinking? Who were we going to stop?
The next day is when the killing really started. I wasn’t there. At that time, I was married to my professor, who was much, much older, and he had experience of the Cultural Revolution, and he forbid me from going out. On the day of the killing, from two o’clock in the afternoon on, in the entire city, every radio station kept repeating the same announcement, word for word. “Please do not go out in the street today. The government asks everyone to stay in today. ‘’ You heard that message constantly repeated. It was like a nightmare movie. You’d turn on the radio, and on all the stations, it was exactly the same. And my husband said, OK you’re not going.
Everyone knew something was happening. Of course, the students were so young. We thought, the army will hit us with rubber bullets and tear gas. So the organization sent out groups, armed with wet towels and winter coats to stop the bullets. No one thought it would be real artillery. Not the students—not even my parents, who had gone through the Cultural Revolution. So people went out. I think that’s why the death toll was very high. Because thought, this was modern times. The western media is here. But the next morning—the bodies came in, bodies lying on flat-bed carts drawn by bicycles. The students were very young, and entirely unarmed. No one thought they would do it. No one thought this would happen.
Diane’s voice was cracking as she finished her tale. Seldom have I felt that I knew so little about anything. So often tragedy is the result when we fail to believe that the people in charge–our political leaders, our financial leaders, our moral leaders–would go beyond the norms of prudence, or civility, or justice. Because they do, over and over, they do.
To read Lake With No Name, Diane’s memoir of her life in China, click here. To read her first novel, The Eye of Jade, click here. To read her latest novel, Paper Butterfly, click here.