A senior House Democrat linked Tiananmen Square to the clearing of Lafayette Park ahead of President Trump’s visit Monday to St. John’s Episcopal Church in a statement honoring the victims of the Chinese Communist crackdown.
“I cannot honor the events of 1989 or recent events in Hong Kong without acknowledging what’s happening here at home: the suppression of Americans exercising their rights to free speech and association, protesting a racist system rooted in the darkest chapters of our history that continues to subject African-Americans to violence, brutalization, and murder,” House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel said late Thursday.
The massacre in Tiananmen Square was a violent repression of pro-democracy students by Chinese Communist security forces, as the regime killed hundreds or even thousands of dissidents rather than reform. U.S. officials in both parties honor the victims annually, while Beijing censors references to the incident, but Engel is at least the second Democratic leader to suggest that the recent unrest undermines American efforts to denounce such repression.
The deployment of the Washington National Guard to protect the Lincoln Memorial from vandalism spurred Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to evoke the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
“President Trump instead ordered a crowd of peaceful protestors to be tear gassed so that he could walk across the street for a photo-op,” Engel said, referring to the tactics used to clear the park ahead of Trump’s visit to the church. “He has threatened to deploy U.S. military forces against American citizens, with his enablers in Congress cheering him on. This does not look like American democracy, and it should deeply trouble each and every one of us.”
Engel is a New York Democrat whose relatively conservative foreign policy views often place him at odds with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. He issued that rebuke of Trump days after being caught on a hot mic asking for a chance to address a group of protesters and be recognized for his solidarity with their cause in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
“If I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care,” Engel said Tuesday. “Just announce me. … As long as we’re announced.”
In parallel, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with four survivors of the Tiananmen Square massacre and lamented that the Chinese Communist Party answered democracy activists with “tanks and guns” rather than go the way of the Soviet Union.
“The Chinese communist government survived with oppressive control of information and sheer brutality,” Pompeo said.
Engel’s Tiananmen statement was referring to Trump’s Monday remarks at the White House, when he condemned the rioting that took place over the weekend and threatened to “deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for” cities or states that fail to take actions that he deemed necessary to establish order.
