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OpinionComment
Tom Plate
Tom Plate

Opinion | Trump and the US should focus on George Floyd rather than Hong Kong and Tiananmen Square

  • The United States does not have the moral standing to lecture others on how to handle their internal divisions while America burns
  • America needs to lead not by following others’ questionable practices but by offering truly enlightened governance born in its own heart

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Illustration: Craig Stephens
Tom Plate

Failure is not an option for any self-respecting superpower, but history’s guarantees for nations are few. For big as well as small, survival can prove a struggle. So, while humility might not be the top-ranked virtue of prudent superpowers, internalising at least a healthy measure of it would seem wise. A singular anniversary later this week, and a series of sad events this past week in the United States and elsewhere, make this point emphatically.

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On June 4, 1989, the government of the People’s Republic of China came to an existential crossroads. In the wake of widespread domestic protests, its rulers unleashed Chinese military units to suppress serious social eruption around Tiananmen Square and elsewhere in China. Beijing’s judgment was that it had no other way to forestall impending civil war. The head of the government then was Deng Xiaoping, by any rational assessment the greatest Chinese leader of modern times.

Who is to say he was wrong? Many in the West and some – quietly – in China.

Even today, while celebrating historically unprecedented economic success, China is haunted by the ghost of that dark moment. Stable and just nations should not have to push the panic button of pure military force to maintain stability. The best social order is more or less of the consensual kind. However momentarily effective, brute force invariably signifies underlying failure.

Around this time every year, the international Never-Forget-Tiananmen commentariat gears up for its ritual piling on of political piety. In wailing cascades of long-form print, as well as staccato tweets and videos, it strives to keep alive the global memory of that crackdown. It’s possible that this show of concern will fade this year, suddenly overtaken by ugly events at home in the US.

03:56

Unrest spreads across the US fuelled by outrage over police killing of George Floyd

Unrest spreads across the US fuelled by outrage over police killing of George Floyd
Throughout the West, cities from Berlin to London, and from Los Angeles to Portland have exploded into street protests. In the past seven days, many Americans, sick of the sight of police officers who kill black citizens – on top of their frustration with extended Covid-19 self-confinement – have been pouring into urban centres. Not unlike those fed-up Hongkongers, they are full of rage at inept and criminal law-enforcement governance.
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