Celebrating the “Unknown Rebel”

26 years ago today, the whole world watched as a lone Chinese hero stood in front of an advancing column of tanks, refusing to stand down in the face of authoritarianism.

On the 26th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square, we’re reflecting on the importance of individual liberty while reading old catoinstitute​ articles on the bone-chilling act of valiant defiance at Tiananmen Square.

“China has made substantial economic progress, but the ghosts of Tiananmen are restless and will continue to be so until the Goddess of Liberty is restored,” writesJames A. Dorn in this  #ThrowbackThursday Cato@Liberty post from the 20th Anniversary.

“Because the Communist Party departed from orthodoxy and allowed a greater degree of economic freedom, 680 million Chinese fled poverty between 1980 and 2010 and the rate of extreme poverty fell from 84% to 10% during the same period. However…China is still ruled by a regime that represses freedoms of the individual,” wrote Gabriela Calderon de Burgos on Cato’s Spanish language blog, Libremente, in honor of the 25th anniversary last year.

Imagine a world in which the Chinese government (and all others!) had respected its peoples’ rights of assembly and free speech. It might have looked something like this…..