According to Xi Jinping and his CCP, all this is in service of providing stability and order, the better to pursue what the Global Times, in praising the lessons of Tiananmen, 1989, called the “socialist path with Chinese characteristics” that has enabled China’s “remarkable progress that amazed the world.” What they don’t mention is that it is possible — quite demonstrably so — with far better systems, under vastly better rule, to make remarkable progress without sacrificing freedom. Back in the 1980s, when China was just beginning to emerge from the needless destitution and murderous mortal agonies of Mao’s communism, places such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea were bringing us the Asian miracle, combining growing freedom with greater prosperity. These were feats far more remarkable and worth emulating than China’s contorted and dehumanizing system. Yes, you can have both wealth and freedom; that’s what’s underpinned the modern developed world. But you can’t have both in Xi Jinping’s China, where in order for the Communist Party to keep control, wealth and power must be constantly segregated from any “misled” impulses toward freedom, democratic choice, and individual dignity. These are affronts and threats to the party, whether they arise at home or as inspiring examples abroad. Thus did China’s communists transform Tiananmen from a place of democratic hopes in the spring of 1989, to a heavily guarded showplace where China’s communists can entertain dignitaries and parade the tanks and missiles with which they plan to shore up plans for sharing their system with the world, like it or not.