How Global Powers Chose Profit Over Justice After Tiananmen Massacre – OpEd |
Communist China’s violent suppression of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in Beijing in June 1989 immediately invited global outrage. The global community solemnly declared support for human rights and imposed sanctions on Beijing.
But after over three decades, the Tiananmen Square legacy shows not just the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) brutality. It reveals a darker, deeper, and more uncomfortable truth about the international community’s miserable failure to sustain Beijing’s accountability.
The world did not simply move on from the Tiananmen Square moment. It chose to move on from the Tiananmen episode to meet its own self-interest, ignoring the global principles of human rights and democracy.
Soon after the Tiananmen crackdown by the CCP using the brute force of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the Western governments acted swiftly.
The US, European nations, and international institutions imposed sanctions on Beijing immediately after the Tiananmen massacre. They suspended arms sales, halted high-level exchanges, and froze financial assistance to Communist China.
The World Bank and Asian Development Bank paused all lending to Beijing. This was a rare moment of coordinated Western pressure, though notably many........