THE TIANANMEN PAPERS.

• Author: KREYCHE, GERALD F.
• Position: Review

THE TIANANMEN PAPERS BY ANDREW J. NATHAN AND PERRY LINK PUBLICAFFAIRS BOOKS 2001, 514 PAGES, $30.00

There are times when a photograph captures a universal truth in an existential moment. The horror of the Vietnam War, for instance, was fully realized in the picture of a naked young girl, scorched by napalm, running from a burning village, sheer terror written all over her face. Another was the video of a young Chinese man standing defiantly in front of an advancing tank on June 4, 1989, during the Tiananmen Square uprising. As the tank moved to avoid him, he kept in front of it, challenging the tank to run him down. The tank finally just stopped. That extraordinary act of defiance and courage can never be forgotten.

This book deals with that protest movement and the political circumstances which led to it. The account is given through the compilation of Chinese documents that came from that time of political unrest. The Chinese hierarchy held meeting after meeting in which orders, memoranda, and minutes were issued almost daily, especially from April 15 to June 24, 1989.

Zhang Liang was a witness and participant in the uprising and, after many years, was able to gather most of the documents emanating from that time of crisis, which not only stirred China, but shocked the world. (The documents reveal political intrigue in their own way, much as did the secret Nixon tapes.) The work of editing the Chinese documents is ably performed by Andrew Nathan and Perry Link, American scholars of Chinese politics. For the reader, here is an entree to the inscrutable minds of Politburo members. The expose will probably have repercussions on some of those who are governing China today.

A rich background analysis leads to the actual protest movement. The Communist Party had realized since the late 1970s that reform was needed at all levels of government, and it began on two fronts: the agricultural economy in the country and the industrial economy in the big cities. The...