Repression, and everybody, i think, believed that this was an inflection point. Rose a moment of change. They would never get this thing this jeanie back in the bottle. But, of course, that was a very naive presumption. Rose we conclude with jeff widener, the man who took one of the most famous pictures of all time, a young man in front of a tank. Then suddenly, we heard a noise down the street, and it was a familiar sound of tanks. I went to the balcony, and i thought this is a nice composition air, compressed shot of the tanks, and then a man walks out kearing shopping bags waving. And i told kirk, this guy is going to screw up my composition and he said theyre going to kill that guy. Rose Tianamen Square and china next. Theres a saying around here you stand behind what you say. Around here, we dont make excuses, we make commitments. And when you cant live up to them, you own up and make it right. Some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where its needed most. But i know youll still find it, when you know where to look. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose we mark this day, the 25th anniversary of the events on june 4, 1989, in beijing, china. Tanks rolled into Tianamen Square to crush a student preft that had captured the attention of the world. Many hundreds died. The Chinese Government has since tried to erase the events of that day from history. Heres a report from seth doen of cbs news today from beijing. At dawn, chinas flag was raised over Tianamen Square. , as it is every day, but on this anniversary, extra security forces, some with machine guns, were stationed around the square. Why are you stopping me . Who are you . While trying to report, we found citizens serving as plained clothes informants. Im seth doen with cbs news. As china revealed its authoritarian side. 25 years ago, tanks rolled into beijings Tianamen Square to suppress a weeklong student uprising that had spread across china. The communist governments crackdown turned bloody. Its still not known how many died. Estimates range from 200 to more than 1,000. As a student here in china, do you learn about Tianamen Square in the history book . Not mentioned. Reporter not mentioned. Not mentioned. Reporter not mentioned at all. These College Students who we wont name because they took a risk just to talk with us acknowledged its difficult to find information about what the government calls the june 4th incident. 25 years passed, and we still dont know what happened. I think thats that it thats not thats not cool, i think. Reporter not cool . Yeah, thats not cool. Everyone in china, we have right to know the truth. After so many years passed, and we still dont know what happened. Rose china is a very different place today than it was 25 years ago. It is wealthier, more powerful, and more confident on the world stage, but the growth has come at the cost of pollution, corruption, and political repression. Joining me to talk about tianamen and the past, present, and future of china, from washington, d. C. , evan osnos of the new yorker magazine. He was their china correspondent from 2005 to 2013. He is the author age of ambition chasing fortune, truth, and faith in the new china. Orville shell from the asia society. He has covered china since 1970 and written more than 10 books. Nick kristof is a columnist and former correspondent for the new york times. In 1990 he shared a Pulitzer Prize with his wife, cheryl. Xiao qiang is the editor in chief of the China Digital times. His site focuses on censorship and political discourse in chinese cyberspace. And in boston, chai ling, one of the student leaders in Tianamen Square in 1989 and number four on chinas most wanted list. Im pleased to have all them here for an important conversation about an important day in chinese history. Welcome. Thank you. Rose let me go back, orville, and tell me about that day and what led up to it, and beginning, i assume, with how the student began to come and what the death had to do with it. It was an extraordinary episode i think in not just chinese history but any history, to be in the square during the weeks leading up to june 4 was like being at some incredible festival, almost, the feeling of sort of elation as if something had lifted. The press for the first time was absolutely free. People all across chine arp watching whats happening, and it was an amazingly a feeling of sort of sudden lack of repression, and everybody, i think, believed that this was an inflection point. Rose a moment of change. They would never get this thing this jeanie back in the bottle. But, of course, that was a very naive assumption. And his death had what to do he had been pushed out of power earlier in connection with student protest, and hard liners thought he hospital cracked down hard enough on them. He was no champion of liberalization, but given what had happened to him, and unfai unfairness of that students try to mourn his death when he died. And at beijing University People put up signs, things like the wrong man died. That gradually grew into a call to honor him and calls for an end to corruption for greater economic justice, and the government complicated it by calling for a pregz, and the students protested against a very harsh peoples daily editorial. And this all snowballed in a way nobody could have imagined when it began. Rose where were you . I was there every day at beijing university, in the protests and that night i was there when the troops opened fire. Rose did you at some point believe it was going to end badly . After martial law, we became nervous that was one possible outcome. And i would say the student were overwhelm although they couldnt imagine this would end with bloodshed. There were some older folks who warned this was precisely what would happen if the party got pushed into a corner. And i guess i you know, it was hard to imagine, especially when the soldiers initially came in, unarmed, and relaxed, but then, you know, it there was that nervousness it would unfold exactly as it ended up doing. Rose what did the students want . Well, the students had slowing expansion posters and leaflets, louded speakers, a spokesperson like chai ling, and talking to hundreds of foreign journalists every day. I think the basic demands from more Political Freedom, freedom of expression, and democratic reform is clear and obvious. But,sh, as a mass movement, there are so many different streams of emotions and that at this rare moment it all exploded. That came out from different walks of life, and even beyond Tianamen Square. But if i have to put one word to it dont make things too complicated that was a rare moment the Chinese People enjoyed the sense of freedom and we want freedom. But thats also a very cruel, cruel conflict with the reality, that moment of truth who is ruling china and how they ruled it. Rose tell me i want to pronounce it correctly or have you help me you were a protege of his, a student of his . I was at university, yes, he was my president. Rose you were out of the country . I was out of the country. I left china in 1986, came to here, the university of notre dame, studying astrophysics. At the time, when students were in Tianamen Square, i was here doing my ph. D. Thesis. But when i watched everyone on the square, i knew i could be one of them if i was in china, wieb definitely one of them. So when i saw what happened on june 4, i actually went back as a result from the United States, went back to china. It is a moment that for the entire generation, for the entire country, we never thought we were living in such a decisive but also tragic moment to face ourselves. What is freedom, and what is the real truth were living in. Rose and how much progress have you made towards freedom since Tianamen Square . China has changed a lot. And in many ways, peoples lives are freer, but not in Political Freedom dimension. As you mentioned in your beginning, its a wealthier country. I have not been back to china since ever since 89. That was my last trip because of my political activities, but but everyone who has been there, of course, the high rises, stock market, the rising economy everything. But this, also, the price of 1989, its closed the door to political liberation. The authorities are so afraid to revisit that question again. And the legitimacy of the regime after the massacre is entirely dependent on economic performance. And that is becoming more and more fragile. Today, im watching china on the internet every day. The number of banned key words that you cannot search, or sometimes even type into the chinese social media, about tianamen, its mindboggling. You can not type Tianamen Square. You cannot type june 4. Until yesterday, you could not search the word today because if you search that, it shows up all the memorial discussions. Therefore, the authorities had to ban the word today in the search engine. Thats how sensitive this topic is 25 years after the massacre. Rose does the government have reason to are they right in believing if they dont maintain this tight political repression that their hold is so fragile that they will be overthrown and the party will lose control . That is their fear. Rose is that fear well founded . The fear is founded after the massacre, because after that point, theres no way to retrieve from what they have done to the people. Rose evan you just wrote a book and we talked about it here on the program at the table. Reflect for us how the government sees Tianamen Square today, and with this economic liberalization, why arent they more confident . The government is acutely selfconscious about what happened in 1989. Officially what, it says was that this was in its own way a tragic but necessary step on the path of chinas economic rise. Youll see the government put out a statement the other day saying we have been always perfecting rule of law in our political and social institutions. They have trained young people in china today, people who have grown up in the last 25 years, to believe that had the demonstrations in Tianamen Square and elsewhere in the country, had they not been put down, that chinas economic rise would have been impossible. Thats the story. And yet, at the same time, what you see and what xiao described today, theyre not interested, theyre not willing to put that argument up for an open debate. So thats why on the internet, for instance, instead of saying, look, we stand by our decisions. We stand by the political choices we made. They say we dont want to have this conversation. We dont want to revisit it. The judgment that was made after the tomorrow oil as its described in chinese, after the turmoil of 1989, thats the judgment that stands today. Therefore, it is almost entirely undiscussed in any public way in china. Rose chai ling joins us now. Thank you for coming. Youre more than welcome. Thank you. Rose take us back to 1989 and what you were doing and what you were thinking and how you were able to escape. Yes, 25 years ago, at this hour, i was with our last 5,000 students, peacefully at Tianamen Square. We were shocked in disbelief to discover that instead of listening to our cry out for freedom, the government sent tanks and troops to silence our dream. And it was all sort of emotions came in. And it was just basically confront something called death, and give up everything we had ever hoped for in our lives, for ourselves, for our families, for our nation. So i told the students the stories of a group of ants on the hill, the hill caught fire. They had to go down the hill to survive, so they rolled up and became one ball, and the outside ants burned to death but the inside survived. And i told the student we were like the ants on the frontier of our nations freedom and through our sacrifice air, new china will be born. And after i shared that, and i saw everybodys spirit lift up because everybody was depressed and sad and sorrowful and in pain. So in that moment, i turned around back to look into the darkness of the northern part of Tianamen Square, the forbidden city, where the Chinese Government gave the order of a full massacre. And i felt this flood of warmth came out from my heart, flowed toward them, is that great wishes and love for the leaders of china, even they just declared massacre on us, and for the soldiers moving towards us through the tanks and machine guns. And we had nothing but love for them. And looking back and we were also, you know, looking into the darkness for all the generations, about coming up. Those who never know us and doesnt know yes yet. And we wish for the best for them. So i know looking back, that is love from god to china, and china has been proved as a result of that great prayer and wish. Rose i appreciate your the strength of your own religious belief. Let me just ask once again. How did you escape . I was put on the most wanted list, and had to escape, hide out in china for 10 months before i was able to finally to come to freedom and was rescued by a group of really craimgous buddhist believers. It was their faith to save my life because they wanted to preserve the hope for thina. And they were so courageous. They started with a couple of people and eventually expanded into a network of 200 families. And during that time of intense terror, persecution, and every day my friends and colleagues who were put on the most wanted list would be discovered, their great prize hand out for my head. Even under that kind of high proper, these people never betrayed us, never hand us in. So my last journey was to be put into a cargo boxed in a boat for four nights and five days and we were finalliablliy able to comeo hong kong and paris and eventually america. Rose i will come back to you in a moment, but i want to review the decision by to do this. Having this fear, having grown up in a time when china was chaotic lived through the cultural revolution as well. And earlier periods. I think that was in the back of their mieppedz, and they historically had not been shy of shedding blood. They had earlier tried to send in they earlier tried to use the police. That had failed. They tried to sunday in troops who were unarmed, and that had failed. And i think by the night of june 3, xiao ping wanted to shed blood and scare people. I dont think this was a matter of this is the only way to get to Tianamen Square. Rose were there strong voices in the council of government not to shed blood . There were voices but not strong ones. The communist party leader at the time, reviewed the party leader. The party leader entitled. Entitled, thats right. Rose very good point. He refused to implement the order and offered to resign. His aid, the same thing. Another politburo member, was kind of wavering. But china wasnt ruled by the polit pro. It was ruled by the older, octegennarian hard liners, and they prevailed. Rose who had been there since the revolution. Thats right. At the end of the day, it wasnt as if it was very close. Therthere was some army resista, but not a lot. And there was passive resistance of the kind of chai ling described. What they give the order to open fire, people opened fire. Rose what was the reaction of the United States and our government and other governments around the world . Well, it was one of enormous shock, particularly when people saw the drama that was being played out as the armies marched down for the second time towards Tianamen Square. And at that point, they were using live fire. And xiao ping interestingly enough, aid a few days afterwards, this was a storm that was bound to come. And i think what he meant by that was he could sense building within this structure of a oneparty state that there were forces that were going to sooner or later, rupt, and i think as nick suggests, in the leninist scheme of thing oneparty system, discipline, orthodoxy there really is no other possible response except repression. Otherwise, you risk overthrowing the party, exactly what happened in russia, in the soviet union and there was a sphere of russia . Well, russia hadnt happened at that point, but there was a deep and abiding sense that the party, if it yielded on this important question of a split within its own ranks and didnt repress those people in the street, it would lead to its downfall and i could say maybe he was right. I would push back at that. It seems to me, the party fit had gone in the other direction, actually, if the octogen aryans had stepped down, something would have happened more like taiwan, where you would have had the communist party have free speech have, elections that were manipulated, that it might actually win. Except, nick, i think had that happened, i agree. But i dont think that could have happened given the fact that it wasnt simply xiao ping. He had a group of elder revolutionaries who never would have allowed that to happen. I agree with orville, but i want to add something. Orville mentioned the Leninist Party has this couldnt come the other way. I would even put this tragic event in the long history of chinese political history, that china never tolerated dissent. Rebels were dissent opinions, are the most crushed, always killed. Not only family. All relatives. That is never a tolerant there is never a political tolerance to the political rebellion. When the students and particularly the citizens stopped the troops into beijing from the eyes of xiao ping, thats rebellion and captain be tolerated. It has been crushed in order to rule china. That is in every china rulers head. It doesnt have to be a Leninist Party or not. Rose what do you think most governments would have done if in fact there were this kind of rebellion in the center of area capital . Most governments would have used riot control equipment. They might have detained some people. There would have been free speech. There would have been a discussion about it. There might have been political repercussions. But, you know, they would not have sent in an army the same brutality. Ive covered lot of wars, but ive never seen an army