Running Head: EVALUATING AND UNDERSTANDING TIANANMEN SQUARE

EVALUATING AND UNDERSTANDING THE TIANANMEN SQUARE MASSACRE

Danika Li

U0888022

POLS 5450 Castle

EVALUATING AND UNDERSTANDING TIANANMEN SQUARE 2

Introduction

Throughout the course of early to mid-1989, China was rocked by a series of

protests and demonstrations by students that became more widely known as the 89

Democracy Movement. Students began gathering again in April when reformist General

Secretary Hu Yaobang died, and students called for the continuation of his democratizing

legacy. Throughout April, there were multiple clashes between students and police forces,

and following Hus funeral on April 22, serious rioting began to break out to the alarm of

top party elites (Zhang, 2001, p. 3).

From the very beginning of the movement, the party experienced deep divisions

between its elite leaders. This division could be seen most clearly between General

Secretary Zhao Ziyang and Premier Li Peng. Zhao was in favor of conciliatory tactics to

handle the student protestors, whereas Li advocated hardline tactics to suppress the

movement. When Zhao left for North Korea on April 23, Li and party official Deng Xiaoping

took initiative and released the April 26 Editorial, branding the student movement as an

anti-government revolution (Zhang, 2001, p. 10-12). This was the beginning of the

Communist Partys attempt re-write the events of 1989 as anti-government revolutionaries

attempting to topple the Communist Party.

The divisions between Li and Zhao culminated in many unproductive meetings, and

the official government response to the protests ping-ponged between hardline

declarations and conciliatory meetings with student leaders. Zhaos speeches on May 3-4

condoned the student movement as legitimate and patriotic, essentially negating the

official message of the April 26 Editorial and revealing party divisions to the public.
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The lack of cohesive decisive action by the party gave time for the movement to gain

momentum, and on May 13, about 300,000 students gathered in Tiananmen Square and

staged a hunger strike as similar strikes broke out across the country (Zhang, 2001, p. 4).

This hunger strike came two days before Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was scheduled to

visita meeting critical to party leaders as it signaled the revival of Sino-Soviet relations.

The cancellation of Gorbachevs welcoming ceremony in Tiananmen Square was viewed as

a humiliation to the party, and on May 19, it was decided that martial law would be

implemented beginning May 20. At least 30 divisions, totaling approximately 250,000

soldiers, from the countrys military regions were mobilized, but protestors blocked the

army troops, appealing them to join the protests (Wu, 2009). With the advancement of the

military halted, troops were pulled back on May 24.

As the protests showed no sign of dissipating, the decision was made on June 3 to

remobilize the army and strictly enforce the military crackdown. That night, citizens were

instructed to stay inside, but many poured out to block the advancement as they had during

the initial troop mobilization. However, violent engagements occurred throughout the

night and into the next day, and the increasing death toll culminated in what is now known

as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or the June Fourth Incident. The early hours and day of

June 4 resulted in the death of anywhere between a few hundred to a few thousand

civilians, as well as many government casualties.

Looking back on 1989, the escalation of events and their handling by the Communist

Party depicts a party and nation in turmoil. Traditional strategic logic argues that attacking

ones own civilian base undermines long-term stability, and that political violence is the

result of irrational decisions driven by fear. However, Kalyvas (2004) argues that although
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violence against civilians may seem irrational, the rational motivator of violence is to

cement power and deter defection. The motivators behind the Communist Partys decision

to remobilize the troops onto Tiananmen Square are found in the partys organizational

culture, inflexibility, and desire to control the narrative received by domestic and

international audiences. Through effective resolution of the principal-agent problem, the

June 3rd mobilization was incredibly successful, and galvanized a decade of Communist

Party crackdown and power consolidation. By looking at the motivators, methods, and

implications of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, one can gain a deeper understanding of

why governments may choose to attack their own civilians.

Motivators

The key motivator of the Communist Party to re-mobilize PLA troops and attack

civilians, despite international norms, can be traced back to the organizational structure

and culture of the party. In this case, I also argue that not only are decisions affected by

organizational culture, but that these factors are exacerbated by organizational

components. Organizational components also hold influence on decisions made by

organizational leadership. The Communist Partys defining characteristic is that its

structured in a highly hierarchical way, and its strength is based on unwavering deference

to party leadership. Therefore, the key organizational component of the party is that it

holds a monopoly on power.

Moving onto individual components of organizational culture, Legro (1997) argues

that an organizations decision to conform or not conform to norms can largely be

attributed to its monopoly on expertise, the complexity of the issue, as well as the time

frame of the issue. However, the concept of the sacred and non-negotiable beliefs (Francis,
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2015) may create a deeper understanding or organizational culture. While Legro asserts

that the impact of culture is decided by three factors, I believe that the complexity of the

issue is much less applicable to the decision of party elites to attack their civilians. The

crux of the issue was simply that demonstrators broke the hold the Communist Party had

on society, undermining its authority and therefore the logical reaction was to engage or

attack.

Because the party leadership holds a monopoly on expertise as well as a monopoly

on power (the ability to act on this expertise), military action is driven entirely on the

decisions of elites. Within this structure, theres no room for political opposition. To the

party, its most sacred and strict goal is to maintain political homogeneity, with full support

and dedication from all citizens expected at all times. From the beginning of the protests,

party elites viewed the protests as an attempt to undermine the power of the party, and

therefore their core belief was violated. This is evidenced in statements made by top party

officials such as Deng Xiaoping, who stated, We must not give an inch on the basic

principle of upholding Communist Party rule and rejecting a Western multiparty system,

(Zhang, 2001, p. 14)

The impact of organizational culture is enhanced by the partys monopoly on power.

The more impervious the party is to external influences, the more internal organizational

culture has an impact on decision-making. The more monopoly on expertise an

organization holds, the more organizational culture has an impact on decisions (Legro,

1997). Essentially, the actions of the party are dictated by expertise that comes from within

the party, as no other organizations in society are capable of gathering information and

experts.
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Another aspect of the issue that contributed to the decision to mobilize was the time

frame. Legro asserts that the shorter the time frame on events, the more impact

organizational culture has on decision-making. Although the movement is known as the 89

Democracy Movement, the main escalations and major events were taking place in the span

of days and weeks between April to June. To the party, immediate and decisive action by

the party to dissolve the demonstrations was necessary to prevent the movement from

gaining even more momentum.

Because the partys sacred belief was the maintenance of its organizational

component (monopoly on power), it had stronger initial motivators to keep a hold on this

monopoly of power. The organizational culture factors of monopoly on expertise as well as

the shortened time frame of the 89 Democracy Movement had a stronger effect due to the

partys organizational monopoly on power. This in turn served to only reinforce the effect

of non-negotiable beliefs in the partys decision-making process.

While organization culture, components, and sacred beliefs had significant impacts

on decision-making processes, in order to understand the decision to remobilize, it also has

to be remembered that this was a weak and inflexible state. States that are weak either by

inflexibility or by lacking capabilities will strike against civilians instead of reforming in

order to assure their own political survival (Mason and Krane, 1989). Mason and Krane

argue that for a cornered organization, its do or die, because reform spells certain death

for the already weakened state. Attempts at compromise emphasize that the organization

is unable to assert its strength and erodes its power base even further. In Mason and Krane,

its argued that the interests of economic elites are what drive the decision to strike out at

civilians. A crucial distinction must be made at this point, which is that the Communist
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Party was weak not for lack of military capabilities, but because it was inflexible in its

beliefs.

In the case of the Communist Party, rather than the survival interests of economic

elites, it was the fear of party elites that they might lose power if they instated reforms.

Therefore, its important to understand why the Communist Party felt that it couldnt

reform without losing power. This requires a look back into history, at events such as the

Prague Spring of 1968. This was a period of time in USSR-dominated Czechoslovakia where

political liberalization began to take hold. The loosening of political freedoms was ill

received by the Soviets, and the movement took eight months to fully repress because it

gained too much momentum (CIA, 2013). Additionally, there was the Polish Solidarity

Movement, a broad anti-communist movement in the 1980s that lead to the eventual

dismantlement of the communist system in Poland. This set an example to the rest of the

Eastern Bloc, and significant weakening of the communist government followed. This initial

Solidarity Movement is now understood to be a major factor in the fall of Communism

(Britannica, 2016).

In light of these events, its not a far stretch to understand why the party leaders in

Communist China were fearful of reform. Based on the sequence of events in

Czechoslovakia and especially in Poland, any sign of liberalization or reconciliation could

potentially galvanize the protestors and lead to the erosion of party power. The Communist

Party was weak because it felt it could not stand up to this reformist pressure if it gave any

ground, and therefore the decision was made to attack and maintain power instead of

giving concessions and potentially losing power.

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The actions chosen because of these motivators may be best understood as a costly

form of signaling specifically the intimidation logic of Kydd and Walter (2006). Kydd and

Walters intimidation logic argues that by striking civilian populations, an organization is

able to signal the costs of continuing a certain policy, as well as asserting the strength of the

organization over its opponents. The goal of suppressing the movement was ultimately to

assert the strength of the party over that of the demonstrators. However, it wasnt just a

tactic to deter a continuation of policy (demonstrations), but also an example of signaling

the costs of defecting from the goals of the party. This is attributed to organizational

culture and non-negotiable/sacred beliefs the Communist Party had even more incentive

to intimidate the protestors because a central goal of the party was to portray and maintain

absolute control and societal unity.

However, the government wasnt just struggling to deal with demonstrators

undermining their liability, but also with how to handle the reactions of the domestic and

international audience. The third and final motivator behind the Tiananmen Square

Massacre was a desire to control the narrative of events. Throughout the course of events

leading up to the massacre, the party made multiple attempts to portray the demonstrators

as radical anti-governmental revolutionaries through documents and proclamations such

as the April 26 Editorial. However, after the numerous weaknesses within the party, there

was an additional incentive to portray to the international and domestic audiences that the

decision to strike wasnt a desperate attempt to maintain power, but to suppress an enemy

of the people. As stated by Deng Xiaoping:

A tiny minority is exploiting the students; they want to confuse the people and throw

the country into chaos. This is a well-planned plot whose real aim is to reject the
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Chinese Communist Party and the socialist system at the most fundamental level. We

must explain to the whole Party and nation that we are facing a most serious political

struggle. (Zhang, 2001, p. 11)

The overall narrative was that the partys actions were justified as being for the sake

of the people. According to Lyall et al (2013), the ability to effectively spin the narrative

gives organizations the capability to make attacks that would otherwise create civilian

backlash. By re-writing civilian aggression as either the result of the opponents actions or

as aggression necessary to defeat the opponent, an organization gains more social capital to

commit strategically illogical actions. This extended to the decision to remobilize because

by completely suppressing the movement, the party gains a monopoly on presenting the

narrative to the domestic audience. The effectiveness of this can also be heavily attributed

to the structure of the party and the way it governed its citizens through heavy

propaganda. By controlling the spin on events, the government is able to portray to the

people that its still in power and also gives it space to mobilize the troops into Tiananmen

Square, which would normally eat away at their long-term civilian support base.

On the other side of this was also the desire of the party to control the narrative of

domestic events to its international audience. The impact of Gorbachevs botched visit had

a deep effect on party elites in front of a major Communist leader, the Chinese

government had shown that it was incapable of controlling its own citizens. By aggressively

and decisively shutting down the immediate demonstrations within a day or so, China was

showing the rest of the world (the other Communist regimes in particular) that it was still

in control. This would also help it to regain some of the reputation that had been tarnished

during Gorbachevs visit.

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Effectiveness

Up until now, I have simply stated that the June 3 remobilization was extremely

effective as an assumption, and have analyzed three strong motivators for why it

happened: organizational culture/sacred belief, a weak and inflexible state, and a desire to

control narrative. However, what made the Tiananmen Square Massacre so much more

decisive and effective over the prior attempt at clearing the square on May 20 is another

important dimension of the case to analyze. The primary difference observed between the

May 20 and June 3 mobilizations can be understood through the lens of the principal-agent

framework.

It may seem odd that given the partys emphasis on maintaining a monopoly of

power, it took so long for the party to take decisive action, which allowed the movement to

gain momentum. This can be attributed to the divisions within party elites, which crippled

the party from taking decisive actions. Had the party made the decision to fully suppress

the movement or fully engage and attempt to come to an agreement with the protestors,

the movement might not have ever snowballed. However, the party had an elite leader in

General Secretary Zhao who was openly opposing the messages being broadcasted by the

other party members such as Premier Li. With debates raging between the two sides of the

leadership, the movement eventually escalated to a point where the party felt that it had to

take action and signal to domestic and international audiences that it was still in power.

The principal-agent problem, introduced by Butler et al (2007), is a problem that

occurs when a principal is unable to control the actions of its agents, either through a

monitoring problem, a misalignment of goals and motivations, or a combination of both. In

this case, the Communist Party was the principal, and the various factions of the army it
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called to the square its agents. During the initial attacks, there were instances of the

principal-agent problem occurring with specific military officers. One such instance

occurred in General Xu Qinxian, who refused to enforce martial law until General Secretary

Zhao had approved it as well (Wu, 2011). More importantly, however, was the principal-

agent problem as exacerbated by the incompetence of the deployed troops. Many of the

troops that were deployed were from peasant villages around the country, who had very

sparse understanding of the politically tumultuous situation they were about to enter, and

who were more excited for their first trip to Beijing than prepared for the coming

altercation with the demonstrators (Roberts, 1989).

Once inside the city, interactions between troops and demonstrators were largely

peaceful, with students offering care and resources to soldiers and attempting to reason

with them and protecting them from attacks by other demonstrators. For soldiers who

already had a poor understanding of the politics of the situation, and who only had

exposure to their small villages, these acts of kindness created a confusing relationship

between the two, contrary to the strict in-group out-group classification presented by the

party. Throughout the course of the initial mobilization, troops developed ties with the

demonstrators, which took them out of alignment with their desired allegiance with the

Communist Party. Many troops found themselves unable and unwilling to shoot the

civilians who they either had previous local ties to, or whom they had connected with

throughout the initial four-day mobilization. After four days of being unable to gain any

traction, the government was forced to pull the troops out.

During the interim between the failed mobilization and the June 3 mobilization,

even more PLA troops were pulled in. Even more critically, the troops from the initial
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deployment were taken and put through re-education programs that drilled into their

heads the belief that there was an enemy to the party and the people causing significant

turmoil to the country, and that these enemies needed to be removed at all costs (Zhang,

2001, p. 37). By essentially re-programming the ideals and beliefs of the party elite into

their soldiers, and by taking precautions to pull in more disciplined troops, the party

regained their hold on the agents. The more the agents goals can be pulled into alignment

with that of the principal, the less likely it is that agents will act on goals contrary to that of

the principal. Additionally, the party removed the insubordinate officers from the first

mobilization, signaling what would happen to other officers if they were to defect from the

cause.

By the time the second mobilization rolled around, the troops had largely been re-

educated, and although there were still a few individual instances of insubordination,

control by the party had been regained. With more decisive action by the leadership and an

emphasis on intolerance for failure, the party authorized troops to begin moving in on the

night of June 3. The principal-agent problem was therefore resolved in a few ways. First,

the wayward agents of the first mobilization had been re-educated and their goals

brought into strict alignment with the party. Second, the insubordinate officers who were

critical to maintaining principal control on the unit by unity level were removed and

replaced, thereby improving the partys capability of monitoring and ability to control the

actions of its agents through these intermediary agents. Third, the principal broadcasted

its message more aggressively and clearly, narrowing the margin for agents to interpret the

situation themselves. By resolving the principal-agent problem through these three

mechanisms, the party was able to effectively control its military agents throughout the
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second deployment. The stark contrast between the two is evident during the May 20

mobilization, troops were stalled and pulled out after four days. In the case of the June 3

mobilization, the Square was cleared within a day or two, and protests around the country

were shut down.

Theoretical Implications

Although shedding light on the motivators and effects of Tiananmen Square

obviously has a profound impact on the understanding that theorists hold on Chinese

domestic policy, the real value comes from its predictive capabilities. Kalyvas (1999)

argues that through rational, targeted violence, governments can succeed in achieving

strategic goals through political violence. Tiananmen Square illustrates this concept, as the

Chinese government enjoyed increased stability and control following the events of June 4.

It is therefore vital to look at these rational motivators, and through analysis of these

motivators, one is able to garner a deeper understanding of why certain governments

choose to violate international norms and conventional strategic logic by attacking their

own civilians. The reason a government might choose to attack its own civilians, as

illustrated by Tiananmen Square, is a function of how accountable it is to international

norms, how strong the regime is internally, and how capable it is of controlling the

narrative spin on domestic events.

Firstly, authoritarian regimes, from a structural and cultural point of view, are less

accountable to their citizens than democratic regimes (Morrow, 2007). This gives them

more freedom to violate international norms and still maintain control over their

populations. As an authoritarian regime, the Chinese government wasnt very accountable

to its constituents, and party decisions mostly centered on maintaining political survival.
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Additionally, the international audience that China was focused on wasnt the Western

world that championed these civilian rights norms, but the other authoritarian Communist

regimes. Because they werent domestically or internationally accountable to following

norms, China was able to easily make the decision to clear the square with force when the

core beliefs and goals of the party were violated.

Secondly, weak states that are unable to change either through capability or

inflexibility factors will strike out against opposition forces to maintain political survival

(Mason and Krane, 1989). The Chinese government was weak due to its inflexibility and

belief that it could not reform without losing power. Similarly, other governments that

believe their only choice is to either take out the opposition or lose power will make the

logical decision to try and maximize their chances of staying in power by lashing out. If this

pans out in favor of the state, then it consolidates its power base while also signaling to

potential defectors and dissenters what the costs of their actions will be.

Lastly, if a state believes that by striking out against dissenting or defecting civilians,

it can gain a monopoly on narrative control, it may be incentivized to strike out. In the case

of Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government already had all the parts in place to control

the narrative through their extensive propaganda machine. However, this was one of the

most major disruptions of Chinese social structure in modern history and therefore

required more effort than just propaganda to deter the students. Because reconciling was

not an option the party viewed as viable, the next best choice was to crush the

demonstrations in order to regain control over the narratives being portrayed to domestic

and international audiences. This narrative control in return consolidates the regimes

social-political control and also signals strength to relevant international audiences.

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Conclusion

In sum, the decision of the Chinese government to remobilize troops and violently

clear our Tiananmen Square was a function of its authoritarian organizational culture and

emphasis on party unity/stability as a sacred belief, weaknesses both within the leadership

and inflexibility towards reforms, as well as its desire to control the narrative and flow of

information. By effectively addressing the principal-agent problem, the Communist Party

was able to achieve its core strategic goals and solidify its power base for the coming

decades. By analyzing these factors within a shifting international and domestic context,

one can also begin to predict variations in decision-making by the similar governments, as

well as look to the future for what to expect from Chinese policy and responses to dissent.
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