Twenty Years Ago: Beijing, Warsaw, and History's Fork

On June 4, 1989, history forked.

In Poland, voters went to the polls to give the anti-communist opposition a sweeping victory in the country's first, partially free elections in ages. It was the first sign of the revolutionary changes that would sweep through Eastern Europe that year, knocking down the Berlin Wall and changing the face of the continent. On the other side of the world, on that same day, the Chinese government sent tanks and troops into Tiananmen Square and crushed the student-worker demonstrations. This was the anti-revolution of 1989. Communism collapsed in one place; communism continued in the other.

Twenty years later, it seems as though both countries took different paths to the same economic endpoint. Poland has become a member of the European Union (EU) and NATO. And China, after its own long march to capitalism, has become the largest holder of U.S. treasury securities.

In both countries, the populations live better on average today than 20 years ago. But increasing inequality suggests that the two movements -- the Solidarity trade union in Poland and the Communist party in China -- ultimately betrayed their core constituencies of workers and peasants. At the same time, the fervor for democracy that animated Polish voters and Chinese protestors in 1989 has subsided as corruption and commercialism has driven people away from politics and into IKEA. Nationalism has become more important as a unifying ideology in both countries, expressed either in the form of the clericalism and anti-German sentiments of the Kaczynski twins in Poland or the Han chauvinism and anti-Japanese sentiments so prevalent in Chinese chat rooms.

We don't, of course, live in a flat world leveled by technology and driven by the market. There are still important differences between the paths taken by Poland and China, between the social market of the EU and the market socialism of the "Beijing consensus," between the corrupt but functioning democracy in Poland and the corrupt but functioning oligarchy in China.

The sharpest contrast between the two countries, however, lies beneath their routine proclamations of a desire to improve relations with Washington. The Polish government has campaigned hard for a U.S. military base that would be part of the missile defense network. Fearful that the Obama administration might change its mind, Poland is lobbying for Patriot missiles stationed outside Warsaw by the end of the year. China, on the other hand, is distressed about U.S. missile defense plans, so much so that it is reportedly undertaking the largest increase in its nuclear-tipped ballistic missile program since the late 1980s.

So, in 20 years, we really haven't fully escaped the shadow of the Cold War. Poles and Chinese can suck down frappuccinos as they trade funny videos on Facebook. But nuclear weapons still hang over us all like a guillotine blade. And we have yet to escape, fully, our global bipolar disorder. "Even if China and the United States make nice in bilateral meetings, they are spending as if a new Cold War is just around the corner," I write in The G-2 Paradox.

There will be many commemorations of June 4, some joyous, some sorrowful. Many courageous people sacrificed so much to change the world. And much did change. But 20 years later, I'm still waiting for my invitation to the Cold War's funeral.

Crossposted from Foreign Policy In Focus where you can read the full post.

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Comments

[Henry]

JJohn,
I think you are missing the forest for the trees. The cold war was ideological and it served a purpose. It's been overtaken by terrorism as the threat to the west. Poland and China are each their own victims to geography. We've moved on into the empire of America. (How many countries do we have bases in?) The colonial and imperial traits of the west are still alive and this of course is the thrust to the resistance. Take Palestine as a simple example. Once you can understand this then you would be enlightened about such matters as the cold war. Didn't we create it the same way we created terrorism? (Think of our boy-George explaining that 911 attacks were because they were offended by our freedoms....if you can believe our collective stupidity)

[Amalek]

I was at Peking University today, the place where the Tiananmen incident occurred.

How the world has changed in twenty years. There were no protests, only the wails of a dozen MBA students huddled together waiting for their theses to be examined.

I think a great deal happened as a result of Tiananmen, but neither side is admitting it. No one wants to go back there.

[Henry]

Amalek,
The very big thing for Americans about that issue is this: At that time George H.W. Bush was president and he, Bush, did nothing to derail the PRC from MFN (most favored nation status) and this seemed to signal a weakness on the part of Bush i.e. he permitted this to happen (shock). And then you watch the progression of the PRC on to the WTO and look at the present. This added to the "weakness" issue of George Bush with respect to his failure to respond to the the Lockerby Scotland flight being blown up.... and his failure to retaliate. (study his response to the invasion of Kuwait) So unRonald Reaganlike. Tiananmen is a very strange episode in the history of America (in it's failure to respond in belicose fashion)

[TXFF5000]

SiberianRat,

I wouldn't be so quick to judge and generalize about the post communist government in Poland, especially considering all that Poland went through from WWII through the years they were oppressed by the Soviets. As of today, the Polish Prime Minister Mr. Tusk has decent relations with other EU countries like Germany and even non EU countries.

How about the leadership of Siberia/Russia? That definitely isn't a perfect leadership.

[SiberianRat]

Poland's post-communist leadership has been poor (Kwasniewski) to horrible (the twins). They're also regularly obstructionist in EU matters.

[victorsays]

The problem is not China or Poland, but the Western institutions that currently sway international politics. China fear the US would trampled on their sovereignty. Only the most powerful can change the world. US, being the most powerful, and the West are doing a disservice to the world by practicing democracy at home and tyranny abroad.

[LMPE]

According to what I've heard, the majority of Poland's population neither supported the invasion of Iraq nor wants US missiles stationed in the country. Michael Moore in "Dude, Where's My Country?" noted that the government helped the US invade Iraq, but the populace didn't support it.

I suspect that the apparent lack of pro-democracy sentiment in China is due to the fact that they know that they would never succeed. The anti-Japanese sentiment is probably authentic: Japan did the same sorts of things in China that the Nazis did in German-occupied countries.