Tiananmen at 25: Enduring Influence on U.S.-China Relations and China’s Political Development

The Congressional Executive Commission on China announces a hearing to revisit the events of 1989 and discuss how the Tiananmen crackdown influenced both China's societal and political development and U.S.-China relations over the last 25 years.

In 1989 citizens from all walks of life participated in demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and throughout China calling for political reform, respect for universal freedoms of speech, assembly, and association, and an end to government corruption. The government’s violent suppression of the protests in June of that year had far-reaching ramifications for both the development of human rights and rule of law in China and U.S.-China relations. In the years since, Chinese authorities have censored public discussion of Tiananmen and prevented a public accounting of what happened. At the same time, Chinese citizens continue to advocate for human rights, democracy, and an end to corruption. Witnesses at this CECC hearing will revisit the events of 1989 and discuss how the Tiananmen crackdown influenced both China’s societal and political development and U.S.-China relations over the last 25 years.

Witnesses:

Panel I:
Honorable Stapleton Roy, former U.S. Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, 1991-1995
Honorable Winston Lord, former U.S. Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, 1985-1989

Panel II:
Rowena He, Lecturer, Harvard University
Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chancellor’s Professor of History, University of California, Irvine
Liane Lee, Eyewitness to June 4th events as part of Hong Kong Federation of Students delegation

The hearing will be webcast live here.

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China, established by the U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000 as China prepared to enter the World Trade Organization, is mandated by law to monitor human rights, including worker rights, and the development of the rule of law in China. The Commission by mandate also maintains a database of information on political prisoners in China-individuals who have been imprisoned by the Chinese government for exercising their civil and political rights under China's Constitution and laws or under China's international human rights obligations. All of the Commission's reporting and its Political Prisoner Database are available to the public online via the Commission's Web site, http://www.cecc.gov.