While Donald Trump has clearly stated that he didn't endorse the Tiananmen crackdown, he did so by reiterating that it was the communist regime's "strength" successfully crushing a "riot". Wu'er Kaixi isn't amused.
But the rise of Donald Trump signals the end of illusions: and Chinese dissidents have clearly clung to theirs.
Trump is simply stating a fact as he sees it: that the pro-democracy movement of 1989 never really stood a chance. In his realist worldview, a nonviolent protest against a violent authoritarian state cannot possibly succeed unless the state itself ultimately sides with the protesters. Whereas the Soviet communist empire fell because its own leaders no longer wanted to preserve it at the cost of its own citizens, Chinese communism survived because its leaders fiercely did. Now you can call China's government exceptionally evil because of this, but that doesn't change the cold hard facts.
Deep down, though, Chinese dissidents still don't acknowledge that a violent uprising was - and remains - the only option for political change because they have been systematically excluded from the existing power structure. At the end of the day, the alternative is simply nonexistent.
A Trump presidency should shatter these illusions that have paralyzed the Chinese political opposition for so long. How Chinese reformers adjust their expectations and strategies thereafter is an open question, but first the fantasies must be eliminated once and for all.
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