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importance in summing up the party's policy.
One article in the New York Times described the Chinese idea of
democracy in these terms:

The Ministry of Justice admits to holding more than 2,000 "counter-revo-
lutionary" political prisoners, a number that has declined in recent years.
But countless thousands of other political and religious prisoners of con-
science are in labor camps and mental institutions. In a heavily policed so-
ciety, little has changed since 1979, when young intellectuals like Wei
Jingsheng and Xu Wenli pasted up on Democracy Wall their calls for re-
form... Wei went to prison, where he remains today, and Xu is a political
hermit. 76

As we have seen, although the Chinese government claims that
everyone is free to express his thoughts, Chinese citizens are not per-
mitted to criticize the regime or senior party officials and their actions,
nor are they allowed to publish such criticism. The party strictly moni-
tors all views that conflict with its own. People are punished on the
grounds of state security if they issue the slightest criticism. Those who
do are detained, and can be kept for months without being taken to
court and without their relatives being notified of their whereabouts.

THE TIANANMEN SQUARE MASSACRE
On June 4, 1989, the world once again witnessed the brutality of
communist China. University students in Tiananmen Square demand-
ing greater democracy and freedom found themselves opposed by their

own country's army. The Chinese government paid no attention to the
fact that the protestors were their own citizens, only 19 or 20 years old.
In the view of communist China, the important factor was the existence
of a potential threat to the state, and the Politbureau decided that the
university students did in fact represent a threat. That decision led to

Communist China’s Policy
of Oppression in East Turkestan