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Beijing and Bethlehem
WENT to Beijing, a city of twelve million, as one of a group of eleven, planning to visit six cities and study the life of the Christian church in China. On Thursday afternoon, June 1, and again on Friday morning, we walked through Tiananmen Square, photographing the scenes we had previously watched for several weeks on television (from Hong Kong, where I was spending a sabbatical year). Although the crowd had dwindled during the past week, the mood was mildly festal, with a dozen bullborns addressing small groups, and patriotic music playing over a central loudspeaker. Signs and banners were everywhere, with political slogans and the names of universities. The central concern of the students was for "democracy"-by which they seem to have meant: (1) freedom of speech and press, (2) an end to government corruption and nepotism, and (3) the resignation of Li Peng (who had declared martial law in response to their first two requests). One estimate, by someone who had been in the square everyday for weeks, suggested 20,000 students were there (down from more than 100,000 a week earlier).
I
The center of interest for our group was the thirty-foot high white, styrofoarn and plaster "Goddess of Democracy"-obviously (though perhaps not wisely) bearing a striking resemblance to the Statue of Liberty. It was, for the time, surrounded by a square of fencing and tents, clearly intended to protect it. I saw the square again twice on Saturday, but did not stop. It looked much the same. Later that day, our guides who obviously identified with the concerns and pacifist methods of the students and expected them to be successful, suggested to us that the peaceful struggle of the students in Tiananmen Square was one of the two great events of world history during the twentieth century, the other being the communist "liberation" in 1948. So much for ethnocentrism.
On Saturday evening, we visited the one-room apartment of two married university professors in Beijing (I fear recklessly, and without sufficient consideration of the possible consequences for our hosts. We indicated hesitancy, but they insisted we come). On the way, we saw
J. Edward Barrett is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Muskingum College. He took his doctorate at St. Andrews University, Scotland, and he has taught at Tunghai University, Taiwan. This past academic year he was a guest professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. This report from China is his eye-witness account of the recent disruptive events in Beijing with some added comments on politics, theology, and the human spirit.
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seven military trucks filled with soldiers. They were surrounded by and swarming with several hundred Beijing citizens who were seeking to persuade the soldiers not to move against the students. The citizens made the (Western) "V" for victory sign to us as we passed. The professors whom we met, and whose names or subjects I dare not record, were cordial but solemn. They told us that trouble was coming. The government-controlled media had ordered all citizens (subjects) to stay in their homes. They told us this would be interpreted by the citizens as a moral mandate to fill the streets (which, later that evening they certainly did). The mood was one of steadfast commitment, but not void of hope. I learned the next day from someone in our group (a former college president from Pennsylvania) who went to Tiananmen Square instead of to the University, that about 11 p.m. a U.S. embassy official walked through the area urging all Americans to clear out, because trouble was coming.
About 11:30 p.m. tanks, armored personnel carriers, and trucks started passing our hotel, on their way to Tiananmen Square-only three blocks away, and just within sight. The tanks had to crush, ride over, and push aside the concrete and steel structures normally used to divide traffic lanes, but which the people of Beijing had somehow managed to move across the streets, so as to inhibit military traffic. Reports of bloodshed started coming in shortly after midnight.
As day dawned, the military convoy was still rolling on, rumbling to the irregular cadence of gunfire, which only briefly scattered the endless flow of bicycles (the only means of personal transportation, other than walking, for most people in China). Sirens wailed from speeding ambulances, and bloody reports circulated, both from eye witnesses and from those with short wave radios. Citizens were stunned, angry, and ready for anything.
The flow of military traffic which we observed was moving from east to west toward the Square, and was (we learned later) not the most deadly contingent. At about 9 a.m., taking advantage of a break in the progress of the convoy, citizens established a human barricade of people kneeling across Changan (Eternal Peace) Ave., just east of our hotel. Military traffic, then, did stop, and was backed up as far as the eye could see. It is important for history to note that some army units simply refused to run over their own people. In early afternoon, the troops from this command turned around. Cheers could be heard on the top floor of the hotel, where I was observing, through meter-long binoculars mounted on a tripod (supplied by the hotel), the orderly arrangement of deadly military equipment replacing the benign chaos of the peaceful students.
It was, of course, too late for many who had been protesting at Tiananmen Square. We sought out the taxi driver who had taken us to visit university faculty the night before. He told us, amid tears, that shortly after he dropped us off at the hotel he saw tanks running over people (he said over "children"). Herod of Jerusalem would have felt at home in Beijing. Two student interns, in training to be tour guides with
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the company that arranged our itinerary, were shot at Tiananmen Square-one died, and the other was wounded.
Stepping back, at about 6 a.m. on Sunday morning, and again about 8 a.m., we saw black clouds billowing from Tiananmen (and from six other locations along the southern horizon of the city)-evidence that "Molotov Cocktails," while perhaps ineffective in turning the tides of history, are nevertheless the final convulsion of the frustrated against military hardware. And so it was that gasoline bombs were thrown against the military by the citizens of Beijing, enraged because of the army's massacre of the students. Actually, these reluctant citizen warriors unintentionally played into the hands of the government controlled media, who could arrange television clips and the sequence of events as they wished, and who smugly editorialized that such fire bombs were thrown by political reactionaries, and were the cause of military action.
Both government officials and the publicly-controlled media talk without shame about those who disagree with them as "doctrinal deviants," who lack "political purity," and who suffer from "spiritual pollution" due to "ideological laxity." Truth, in China, is what those who hold the guns say it is.
II
A Hong Kong newspaper, before the massacre took place, said that throughout China people were being given the "mushroom treatment: kept in the dark, and fed on manure." That is a clever and accurate commentary if one is describing and responding to official government policy. But in this electronic age, reality is larger than official policy. In the three cities we visited before having to exit, we found frequent posters on walls and electric poles, surrounded by crowds of people. These were placed by individuals risking arrest, imprisonment, and even death. They were hand-written summaries of news reports from the V.O.A. (Voice of America) and the B.B.C. (British Broadcasting Company). The Chinese language broadcasts were by now jammed, but everywhere there are Chinese or foreigners who speak enough English to learn what the outside world is saying. They trust these world-wide news services (perhaps more than we would), and are completely cynical about their own. This places a solemn obligation upon V.O.A. (which I hope they will heed) to resist all temptations to indulge in our own propaganda or to sensationalize. Student-citizen barriers that were stopping People's Liberation Army troops allowed Western network news teams through.
Ironically, throughout the crisis, and though satellite telecommunications were eventually closed down, phone lines remained open, fax machines were working, and photo-copying machines allowed (otherwise prohibited) relevant parts of Hong Kong newspapers to be reproduced and posted (complete with pictures) though, as some wag observed, "in China one word from the government is worth a thousand
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pictures." I spoke with one young English language teacher while he was filing a report for Reuters news service over a telex which continued to tick out the truth for a world-wide network some sixty hours after the massacre, even while the government was issuing its barrage of infantile propaganda.
One hotel in which we stayed, in its printed list of television programming, had an entry titled "Yesterday's News." It was the only news regularly scheduled. Apparently in China it takes twenty-four hours to manufacture an official interpretation of events, even under normal circumstances. At least one major city, Nanjing, has its own illegal and therefore underground "Drum Tower People's Free Radio," but I am relying upon others (whom I trust) for that, and do not understand how it works. International newspapers (such as the Herald Tribune and the Wall Street Journal) continued to be available in major hotels (not in newsstands) in Beijing and Guangzhou (but not Xian) throughout the first week of the crisis.
On more than a dozen occasions I was approached by people-taxi drivers, waitresses, bellhops, salespeople, mothers carrying babies, workers who stopped their bikes, students-pleading: When you return to your country, tell them what has really happened here. Tell them the People's Liberation Army is fighting against the people. It got so that we knew what people coming toward us were going to say.
Propaganda banners, that had been draped by officials from tall buildings on Saturday reading "Fight Against the Disrupting Turmoil" and "Support the Noble Work of the Communist Party," had largely disappeared (ripped down) by Sunday afternoon. As we drove to the airport to depart Beijing for Xian, five of the seven trucks which we had seen twenty-four hours earlier, swarming with jubilant citizens who thought they had a victory, were gone. The other two were charred ruins. Nearer to the airport, a large crowd that included soldiers caused traffic to slow considerably. Attention was focused on the ground, just about fifteen feet from us. We knew what had happened when one man turned toward our bus, and with the incredulous look of one whose dreams have just collapsed, placed his finger to his head, thumb cocked, in the gesture of children playing with guns.
In the city of Xian (six million inhabitants) on Monday morning, students, who seemed well-informed about what had happened on Sunday in Beijing (for example, the Red Cross estimate of 2,600 dead), marched by the thousands carrying funeral wreaths and banners, with political slogans their government would not appreciate. Two of these students broke ranks from their march when they saw us, and offered us hand-written paper pennants saying that those who bled will not be forgotten. The students closed down the walled inner city for a day, and the following day marched off to persuade the advancing army not to enter town. They were joined in this by a large number of workers who went on strike in honor of the students of Tiananmen Square. Not so, we were told, the farmers. They have prospered more than factory workers
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(in this area, anyway) under the present regime, and were not about to rock the boat for a few intellectual discontents. Our tour guide here, whether for reasons of politics or for our safety, henceforth escorted us so as not to see much of the protest. The bus driver was also understandably concerned that his bus not be damaged.
At this point, in response to telephone calls from the United States confirming our general sense of political malaise, we abandoned our itinerary. On Wednesday, we flew to Guangzhou (Canton), where, as someone in our group commented, you can begin to smell freedom. The people who live there are geographically and linguistically (Cantonese is a quite different language from Mandarin) closer to Hong Kong than to Beijing. Hong Kong newspapers and television are available, and there is considerable commerce and visiting of relatives across the border. The prosperity of Guangzhou is pale when compared with Hong Kong, but it is the best China has. People there have an official loyalty to Beijing, but unofficially look to Hong Kong as a model for many areas of life.
III
With mythological power, the pattern of Herod's "slaughter of the innocents" became reincarnate-this time in twentieth century history. Deng Xiaoping, an old man clearly in physical, mental, and political decline (check Josephus about the decay of Herod), was troubled, and all of his city with him. Fearing that the "mandate of heaven" was about to be granted to a younger generation, he consulted with his advisers during more than two weeks, and decided on death and deceit. There was, of course, no threat to the stability of China, only to the reputation and authority of its leaders. There was no "turmoil" except that created when the army moved in. But there was yet another instance of the powerful identifying themselves and their power with the welfare of the nation, and there was the ageless conclusion of Caiphas that it is better for the welfare of the nation (or those who govern it) that someone else should die.
That was Herod's decision, and it was the decision of Deng Xiaoping. Probably most governments throughout history-ancient theocracies of the fertile crescent, absolute monarchies claiming "divine right" until only a few centuries ago, and the pseudo "scientific materialism" used in this century to disguise cynical rule in the name of the "people"-share in common these two characteristics: (1) the government is divinized (either by denying or by absorbing God), thereby claiming to be the ultimate arbiter of what is good and true; and (2) those who criticize or call for reform (even while pledging allegiance) are demonized, and interpreted as a threat (to the social order) which must be destroyed. It is to the eternal credit of English history that there has usually been someone who has had the dangerous cussedness to say "bosh" to such nonsense. We do not know if Herod had any bosh-sayers. Certainly the Chinese have no such tradition within their history-only a recognition that the "mandate of heaven" is sometimes lost.
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The army carried it out-evidencing once again that military forces are often used not to protect nations from external invasion but to protect governments from internal change in the power structure. It is possible though difficult to do this without some degree of self-deception and secondary rationalization, functioning as a fig leaf to disguise the government's true motives. It is a point someone overlooked at the time in Beijing, so that the propaganda office has had to work overtime since-assigned the impossible task of inventing a credible scenario that justifies what happened.
Two symbols have emerged from the Tiananmen tragedy that have enduring significance for theological reflection. The first is the "Goddess of Democracy," tall, majestic, and bright in the reflected sun-but as fragile as styrofoam and plaster. It reminds us that human ideals are beautiful but frail, and, unless they are wed to power, they are usually destroyed by it. Power indeed corrupts ideals, but it also enables them to become at least partially effective. That is the ambiguous reality of politics. The students expected their campaign to work. With some government's, it might have (at least minimally), but the Chinese students were not that lucky. And so, once again Christ ends up on the cross, and Socrates drinks the hemlock. The students relied upon moral persuasion, but had no political brawn. Innocent as doves, they were not as wise as serpents (Matt. 10: 16).
A second symbol is the charred carcasses of military hardware-a monument to the burnt out imagination of China's rulers. It is as though raw power, untempered by humane purpose, begins with fratricide and ends with suicide. The ashes of tanks are but the ghosts of the senile policies of those who govern China, and for whom politics simply is power. The only claim to legitimacy of these old men (Deng Xiaoping is 84) is that they control the guns, and have controlled them since what they sentimentally call "liberation." No one has ever asked the people of this "People's Republic" who they want to govern them. Putting the best interpretation possible on events, perhaps Deng Xiaoping, and those who supported him in this spasm of barbarism, were so lacking in understanding of the dynamics of the issue-of the longing for liberty and a weariness with autocracy-that they feared support for the students would lead to the chaos and anarchy of the "cultural Revolution," with its frenzied youth (the Red Guard) gone mad. More likely, we have an instance-I fear echoed in the leadership of the church in China--of old men whose hardening of the arteries will not allow them to imagine that the young might do it as well or better.
There is a feeling deep within Chinese culture that resents and resists outside influence. This ethnocentric attitude, sanctified by 3000 years of civilization, both contributed to and was reinforced by the wars of the last two centuries. Even the church in China has been forced to play down its world-wide or "catabolic" tradition, and officially adopt the "Three-Self" philosophy-self-governing, self-supporting, and selfpropagating. When you know you are the "Middle Kingdom" (the
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literal meaning of China), nothing valuable is to be expected from the periphery. This attitude, monumentally symbolized by the "Great Wall," is contrary to the flow of history, and will inevitably pass. Meanwhile, however, it is a useful tool of China's rulers, who need look no further than the nearest foreigner to project blame for their own failures.
"One thing you've got to say for China's leaders," quipped a cartoon writer in Hong Kong about the present barbarism, "they treat people from Beijing and people from Tibet equally." This dark humor raises a very important question. Is what we call "China" actually a cultural entity, or merely an imperial one? Given the variety of language groups, is not "China" ruled from Beijing rather like Europe ruled from, say, Berlin? Is "China" a civilization, or a federation of civilizations (or, even nations) more or less bound together at any particular time by military glue?
"Repent," said Jesus, "the Kingdom of God is at hand." "Write your confession," says China's present rulers, "the punishment of the party has caught up with you." The two statements are structurally but only superficially alike. For Christians, it is axiomatic that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" so that "none is righteous; no, not one." No one is exempt, and the standard for history is a righteousness that transcends history, thereby exposing human greed, arrogance, and indifference. China also has a tradition of self-criticism and confession, centuries older than the struggle-sessions and thought-reform of Mao or the Communist Party. But in this case, the standard is not the eternal righteousness of the transcendent, but the ever-changing demands of the powerful within history. Confession and self-criticism is not something the powerful do, but something that is done for the powerful-to appease them, and to survive their abuse of power. Those with the power to punish are exempt from self-criticism.
For obvious reasons, we were unable to visit churches in Beijing on Sunday, June 4th. Indeed, the church where we had planned to worship stood between our hotel and Tiananmen Square. We did visit a church in Xian and both a church and a seminary in Guangzhou. It would be pompously condescending to observe that the people we talked to are politically timid. They are glad to be alive-both as individuals and as a church. To encourage the martyrdom of others is moral recklessness. It is therefore the more worthy of note that Bishop Ting of Nanjing, the recognized head of the Protestant church, did speak out in support of the students. Putting the issue of political conscience aside, there is a profound insight that the churches of the West can learn from the churches of China (which are growing at the rate of one congregation each day). They have no evangelism program, no mass rallies, no cornering of people to "confront them with the Lord." These are illegal activities. Instead, "it is the quality of life of our members" that brings inquirers to attend church, and eventually to become a part of it. "By their fruits you shall know them" (Matt. 7:20).
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IV
There is, I believe, no hope that the Communist Party in China will be overthrown-for there is no alternative institution waiting on the sidelines to take over. The KNIT on Taiwan has, in a moment of unusual but welcome and timely maturity, abandoned its claim to be the legitimate government of China-while helping to establish a developing democracy and a mature economy on that island. But a significant role for the KMT in the future of the mainland is not to be anticipated. Certainly, an invasion of the mainland by Taiwan would be counterproductive. Furthermore, no one who is familiar with the suffering of China during the past two centuries would wish to see them thrown into civil war. Hope for the future lies in the possibility (probability?) of a developing division within the Communist Party, in which the hard-liners and geriatrics lose out.
What is God doing in this situation? Suffering, of course. But that is nothing new. The Lamb-yesterday, today, and tomorrow-is at the heart of the universe. In Hong Kong, I heard a preacher repeat the shabby theology that suggests the tragedy at Tiananmen must have been God's will. But he was distraught and desperate. What is the meaning of the cross if not that God suffers because of the arrogance, cruelty, and indifference of people?
Yet, amid this old and fatiguing story of human sin, it seems to me there is something new going on. It has to do with (of all things) communication. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the French Jesuit scientist, who spent many years in China, suggested that the planet is becoming an organism. God is uniting us. I believe the present crisis provides considerable evidence to support that. During the Vietnam war, news passed via television into American homes and created responses quite beyond and other than what our government would have preferred. The operation of this trend has escalated in the present crisis, where (in this instance) a totalitarian government's patriotic propaganda and the management of news simply slipped out of control, exposing their shamelessness. The troops that carried out the action against the students had been kept in isolation from news sources for weeks before, so that they would not understand what they were being asked to do. But this cannot long be done with a nation in these days of electronic communication. Today, people see and feel the sufferings of others half way around the world. There is a kind of planetary nervous system that creates awareness, sympathy, and outrage in ways and at distances that were unknown to former eras. It is as though God's "plan for the fullness of time is to unite all things" (Eph. 1: 10).