DBWI: The Tiananmen Square protests didn't lead to the PRC's fall

Today, the 4th of June, is the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests (as known as National Remberance Day in China), which has successfully toppled the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. While watching a broadcast of the President of China laying wreaths in the Goddess of Democracy statue to commemorate the victims of political repression, a question popped up in my head: what if the Tiananmen Square protests failed, with the protests being suppressed brutally by the Chinese government? How would the PRC fare out in the 1990s and the 21st century? Would the crackdown on protesters eventually led to a civil war?
 
I’m going to take a relatively optimistic view. Yes, economic growth has gone well in China.

But if the Communist Party was still in control, perhaps in name only, you might see less crony capitalism and even higher economic growth?

The killing is still wrong of course, and it would be recognized as such. But more in the nature of private conversations, rather than public remembrances.
 

Dolan

Banned
There were orders to shot on the protesters that resulted in 20 martyrs of Democracy, but the Beijing Garrison finally had enough and actually have the audacity to side with the Protesters and shoot on the few PRC loyalists instead, all while storming the Gongchangdang Offices and turned the protest into impromptu coup.

Now if the Communist Party managed to pull some Regional Army who is willing to shoot on the Protesters at Beijing, that would be a different story.
 
These protest went quiet widespred. If protests would had already crushed in Beijing before these would had spred to other cities, China would had went even stricted totalitarism. The country would be awful place and probably quiet poor too. Internationaly it probably would be pretty much pariah nation and perhaps there would be new cold war. And we hardly would see unification of Korea and democratisation of Vietnam and Laos.

In worst scenario it might had led to civil war.
 
I doubt things would be very different, most of the oligarchs of today have ties to the old Party after all.

However, while the current RoC owns Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan as federal provinces but not East Turkestan and Tibet, it'd be the other way around in a surviving PRC. And well, sure, Tibet benefited from independence due to its resorces, strategic location, ties to India and good PR in the West, but East Turkestan... yeah. They did not.
 

Dolan

Banned
I doubt things would be very different, most of the oligarchs of today have ties to the old Party after all.
Yeah, who could guess that when they removed the Communist Party and invite Kuomintang Taiwan to return, there won't be a Kuomintang cligue ruling on the top replacing the now executed Communists?
 
if we don’t have the army, after the very beginning, basically refusing to shoot fellow citizens,

and if we don’t have the protests spreading to other cities,

then we probably don’t have two different Prime Ministers traveling to Cambodia both offering a heartfelt acknowledgement and apology for the Chinese role in the Khmer Rouge genocide.

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All the same, and please don’t think I’m cold-hearted because I’m not, strictly on economic terms China might have done even better with surviving communist party rather than, okay, call it the quasi-crony capitalism which we see right now.

Of course the communist party would have to adopt and modify itself big time. And it might end up being like most armies, or the Catholic Church, a hierarchical organization which promotes from within.
 
All the same, and please don’t think I’m cold-hearted because I’m not, strictly on economic terms China might have done even better with surviving communist party rather than, okay, call it the quasi-crony capitalism which we see right now.

At least China, despite being what it is, is a stable country under a stable dominant party system.

The USSR fell more or less alongside the PRC, give or take a couple of years, but the Kremlin has been a revolving door of insanity ever since Yeltsin drank himself to an early grave.
 
. . . the Kremlin has been a revolving door of insanity ever since Yeltsin drank himself . . .
In a top heavy system, leadership matters.

And I think the fact that Russia went the route of strong president system whereas China went route of parliamentary system does make a difference. Not that it’s a hundred percent deal, not by any means, but does make a difference on how lucky you need to get.
 
I think it's important to remember that the original members of the Tiananmen Square protest were orthodox Marxists who were protesting the CCP's drift away from "true Communism." These protesters were quickly silenced and eliminated not long after the fall of the CCP, along with the advent of the private school empire that currently dominates Chinese education where the affulent can buy themselves a world class education while groups such as the Tibetans, Uighurs, and other groups are essentially "left out" of the education system entirely and which painted Communism as an inalienable evil which was a cancer on the world. Hell, there are alarming studies that suggest that the Native Taiwanese languages could be extinct by 2050 if major regional attempts to go and revive and record the many languages wasn't done. I will admit that this is rather ununiform across the "New China;" the current Governor of Manchuria has been a very active proponent of the revitalization of the Manchu language, and authorities in Inner Mongolia have fostered Mongol language programs in their dimense. And it is better than what is happening in Russia; the Ket language is only the most recent to go extinct due to regional "economic Russification" programs. Unfortunately, the march of capitalism, at least so far, seems indifferent to these minority groups in most areas.

I will say the revival of religion in China has been interesting to watch. For example, Manicheanism, which for generations was thought to be long extinct, has taken Fujian by storm, successfully competing with the Southern Baptist and Pentecostal missionaries that have swarmed China after it's "opening" in the same way they have nearly every thawing of a State Atheist system.
 

kernals12

Banned
China remaining a communist dictatorship is a huge blow to the cause of democracy. Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos would still be dictatorships, and Beijing would've been none too pleased with the US bombing North Korea in 1994, the Korean peninsula would still be divided. Mr. Putin would be emboldened in his imperialist ambitions, by having a country home to 1/5th of the world's population implicitly supporting him. Maduro might have been able to hold on in Venezuela with Chinese money.

On the whole, the world would be much less peaceful and less free.
 
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kernals12

Banned
The West would also never be as trusting of a communist China, even if it did become as wealthy as IOTL. Their companies would be regarded as tools of the government, their movies and music would be classed as propaganda. There'd be much less willingness to learn of China's rich history and its culture.
 
. . . there won't be a Kuomintang cligue ruling on the top replacing the now executed Communists?
I think it's important to remember that the original members of the Tiananmen Square protest were orthodox Marxists who were protesting the CCP's drift away from "true Communism." These protesters were quickly silenced and eliminated . . .
And that's the part which is hard to talk about today.

We can talk about the Party supporting the Khmer Rouge in the bad ol' days of the late 1970s, because it was the bad ol' days, and most of all, because it was the Chinese Communist Party.

But the fact that older Party members who, at least in some cases, were persons who had no direct involvement with previous abuses. But were, and let's go ahead and say it, more akin to Democrats or Republicans, that is, people who had simply risen in a mainstream party. Such persons were too broadly imprisoned and in some cases executed. And some have argued that the rounding up in at least a couple of regions of China had aspects of an informal quota and a way a person could make a mark for themselves as a rising star during the transitional period. And yes, in some cases, this does seem to be true.

And what the heck is wrong with being an orthodox Marxists in a society in which that is the dominant ideology? ! ? Yes, some of the student leaders were calling the government out on corruption and the fact that the country's leaders weren't true blue enough believers? Young people in almost every society think that from time to time and occasionally act on that, sometimes constructively, sometimes not. Very wrong to executed such student leaders. (although I understand that wasn't as widespread as that of the senior government officials)

Every society has things which are hard to talk about.
 
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Dolan

Banned
Aaaand this is just coming through tbe news today, there are large student protests in Shanghai and Guangzhou, demanding the decriminalization of Communism and Socialism. They were spotted carrying big posters of Comrade Mao, something that will earn you a harsh fine or even imprisonment inmost situations.

Well, what are you thinking folks? Will the Pendulum turned back to the left again? The Kuomintang government seem to be eerily silent on this.
 
Aaaand this is just coming through tbe news today, there are large student protests in Shanghai and Guangzhou, demanding the decriminalization of Communism and Socialism. They were spotted carrying big posters of Comrade Mao, something that will earn you a harsh fine or even imprisonment inmost situations.

Well, what are you thinking folks? Will the Pendulum turned back to the left again? The Kuomintang government seem to be eerily silent on this.

Ehhh, hard to say; this is China, where EVERYTHING is privatized. Seriously, they make the US and its obsession with privatization seem like a wonderful experiment in socialism by comparison. Promoting Mao over there is like promoting Hitler in Germany - they stomp on that shit FAST and they don’t show mercy.

It may be a democracy but it’s a borderline authoritarian democracy where corporations reign supreme. Unions are all but against the law, and forget employee-owned businesses - they never get off the ground before the big boys crush them. It’s a democracy with a friendly foreign policy, but it’s not exactly the freest place on Earth.
 
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