RECALL AN ARRESTING IMAGE watched by all the world: that young Chinese student standing alone against a column of tanks in Beijing. As the lead tank attempted to go around him, the fearless young man dodged to the side to head it off. The standoff, which seemed to last forever, was perhaps the most dramatic moment of the clash between the student democracy movement and the ruling Chinese Communist party. That clash ended in blood as nearly 700 students were massacred in Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989. That brave young man has long since been presumed dead. It speaks volumes about China — and about us in the West — that we do not know for sure.
It did not take long for the U.S. foreign policy elite to rush to China to reassure her aging dictators that we were not responsible for student protests that had almost toppled their rickety regime. Then-national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and undersecretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger were sent on a high-level, secret mission to Beijing. They toasted the men who gave the orders to fire.
