Imagine the world if the students in Tianamen Square had been victorious

Today is the 20th Anniversary of the massacre at Tianamen Square. Imagine how the world might have been different if those students and workers who so bravely and peacefully faced down soldiers and tanks would have triumphed in their demands for a more democratic society.

While the rest of the world pays tribute to those brave students and workers, including tens of thousands of people in Hong Kong the Chinese government is doing everything possible including banning Twitter and dire warnings to bloggers who have come up with subtle forms of protest like taking their sites down for maintenance in the days around June 4.

In those thrilling days in the spring of 2009, literally millions of students and workers took to the streets across the country asking for a more democratic society. When I visited China on a holiday about a year before, I felt like I was in the a pre-revolutionary society.

Some members of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party were supporting opening up the society both to capitalist economic ventures and to democratic reforms. People we met were enthusiastic about both. But I'll never forget the debate I heard in the Democracy Park in Shanghai where students wanting to practice their English debated whether what they wanted was a democratic socialism or a capitalist road. It was a very open, very sophisticated discussion. There was no doubt a serious current among the students who wanted democracy but not capitalism. I was amazed and excited. The decision of the Chinese leadership to savagely repress the movement for democracy while enthusiastically embracing the move towards capitalism, was truly heart breaking.

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