Could 1989 Have Led to Democracy In China?

There are two great “what if” questions in modern Chinese history. The first was in 1949, which is when China fell to the Communists. What if the Nationalists had been more effective on the battlefield? What if the United States had given them more support? What if Chiang Kai-Shek had won the civil war instead […]

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That Square In Beijing

It was a massacre. Most of the carnage occurred not in the Square or right around it, but in the western-approaching streets that led to the Square. I viewed the videotapes of bloody bodies that came in with camera crews, and I made phone calls to local hospitals and to the Chinese Red Cross. We […]

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The Great Year Theory

Seeing the past as a series of hefty dates has its uses. It arrests the flow of history and helps us take stock of the maelstrom of events whirling about the room. But handing out the trophies of public recognition to the same years, again and again, doesn’t just innocently stop up the past. It […]

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