To Rowena Xiaoqing, the writer of The Washington Post article “China: no answers and no justice” (which ran in The Japan Times on June 14): I share Tiananmen Mothers’ indignation and never doubted the idealism of the Tiananmen protesters. Ultimately, a China that understands its past and recent history will be a better, kinder and gentler nation for the Chinese. This, however, is not to deny the possibility that some foreign powers wish to see China fall apart so that they can take advantage of the situation.
I am constantly reminded of what happened during the disintegration of the Soviet Union and how the Russian people and those of the former Soviet republics suffered. Through it all, the West and the United States stood by and clapped their hands without offering any real assistance. The lack of action on the part of those who could have helped led to the Putin presidency.
If China had disintegrated (after Tiananmen), the U.S. and the West would have been more than happy to stand on the sidelines and enjoy the spectacle. As history repeats itself, there’s no reason to believe that the West and the U.S. would not have acted as it did during the dying decades of the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1912).
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