Professor Andrew Nathan is poised to appear in a PBS documentary film on June 25 titled Tiananmen: The People Versus the Party, to be released in the wake of the 30th anniversary of the June 4 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Ahead of the anniversary, Nathan published an article in Foreign Affairs introducing a new publication of speeches that were delivered by top Chinese Communist Party officials shortly after the crackdown. The collection of speeches was released in a book titled The Last Secret: The Final Documents From the June Fourth Crackdown.
“Now, these newly leaked speeches shed light on what happened after the crackdown, making clear the lessons party leaders drew from the Tiananmen crisis: first, that the Chinese Communist Party is under permanent siege from enemies at home colluding with enemies abroad; second, that economic reform must take a back seat to ideological discipline and social control; and third, that the party will fall to its enemies if it allows itself to be internally divided,” Nathan wrote. “The speeches offer a remarkable behind-the-scenes look at authoritarian political culture in action—and a sign of what was to come in China as, in later decades, the party resorted to ever more sophisticated and intrusive forms of control to combat the forces of liberalization.”
Nathan was also recently quoted in international media outlets on the topic, including The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, NHK World, and the Nikkei Asian Review.
