China Since Tiananmen: Not a Dream but a Nightmare

In an article for Law & Liberty published on the thirtieth anniversary of Tiananmen Square, Teng Biao, a rights lawyer who left China in 2014 and a former Visitor (2016–17) in the School of Social Science, explains how the extinguishment of the democracy movement on June 3 and 4, 1989, is closely linked to the flowering of its economy:

"China has shocked the world at least twice in the course of the past 30 years. The first time was the 1989 Tiananmen democracy movement and the ensuing repression, which made the world aware of the ruthlessness of the Chinese Communist Party. The second time was China’s 'economic miracle.' In 2010, with the phenomenal growth of its economy, China became the second largest economy by nominal Gross Domestic Product. In 2014, it surpassed the United States, achieving purchasing power parity.

"In fact these two—the extinguishing of the democracy movement and the flowering of the economic miracle—are closely linked. Without the massacres of June 3 and 4, 1989, there would be no Chinese miracle.”

Read more at Law & Liberty.