n the late 1980s, China was abuzz with excitement and possibility as new ideas, personal freedoms, and economic opportunities were flowing in from the West like a river to wash away the dirt of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

During these hopeful times, I was among a group of young student leaders who led calls for political reform to match the new thinking and bring China into the modern world with dignity. We organized rallies and made speeches at schools and squares all across the country, and we fervently believed the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party would listen. Instead, our movement was crushed by a wave of tanks and the tragic events of June 4th, 1989 in Tiananmen Square that so many of you watched with horror on television.

So much was lost that day—and it was not just the lives of so many brave Chinese that we cried over. Also lost was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to live freely in a democratic China with the very brightest of futures.

Not long after the Tiananmen Square Massacre, I was arrested and jailed, and, along with thousands of other demonstrators, subjected to many months of torture and depravation. During these dark times spent in very dark places, many of my friends died; and to this day, some Tiananmen survivors are still being held in jails or forced labor camps.

Sadly, a whole new generation of Chinese youth knows nothing about what happened at Tiananmen. While we in the West can freely access the videos and images on the Internet associated with the massacre, all of this content has been ritually “cleansed” from the Chinese web by a vast army of censors.

I have now spent half my life fighting against such censorship and for freedom and democracy in China. More than ever, I fervently believe that this is what every thinking person outside of China must clearly understand:

More than two decades after Tiananmen, the totalitarian tiger has still not changed its stripes. In fact, unlike more stable countries, China’s spending on police and social control is now rising even faster than China’s skyrocketing defense budget!

It is with no small irony or anger that I note it is many of the very same Communist Party officials who supervised the beating, jailing, and killing of my fellow students in the wake of Tiananmen who are today orchestrating the relentless persecution of religious followers like the Falun Gong and the harsh repression of peaceful minorities like the Tibetans and the Uighurs. It is also the very same Chinese Communist Party that has been so quick to crack down on all political opposition movements like the Charter 08 manifesto and the rising Jasmine Revolution Movement; and the only change is that this new century’s ruling clique is ever more cunning, more clandestine, and technologically more sophisticated.

Today, as I live comfortably, safely, and free in New York City, I can understand why it is so hard for those in the West to see the Chinese Communist Party clearly for the dangerous enemy that is—to both the people of China and the rest of the world. After all, the leaders in Beijing look very personable on TV, and they now quite strategically refrain from the threatening anti-West rants of Mao.

But facts are facts and the truth is the truth. And as the pages of this incredibly powerful book unfold, you will be confronted with fact after incontrovertible fact that the rulers in Beijing continue to brutally suppress the voices of China’s own people even as they systematically flood the world with dangerous products, use a potent arsenal of mercantilist and protectionist weapons to destroy the economies of America and the West, and rapidly arm themselves with the best weapons systems their elaborate spy network can steal from the Pentagon.

I can also understand why these sobering facts and harsh truths may be at odds with your own personal experience. As a tourist to China, you may have taken an enjoyable cruise down the Yangtze, been mesmerized by the Terracotta Soldiers, walked in exhilaration along the Great Wall, or been utterly fascinated by the Forbidden City. Or you may even be an American business executive in Shanghai or Shenzhen making money hand over fist and being hosted to fabulous meals with no reason to see anything but blue skies and a yellow brick road ahead. Unfortunately, most Americans never see the other face of China and how the Chinese people have paid for all this “progress” with a dramatically damaged ecosystem, corruption, social injustice, human rights abuse, poisonous foods, and most seriously, the moral degradation of their souls.

Although I miss China, America has become my beloved second home; and the support of my beautiful wife shows me every day why America is the strongest country in the world. I also see this strength in so many small things in America, like the bumper sticker that reads, “Freedom Is Not Free.”

I personally know how true that statement really is. I also know that the cost of freedom isn’t always about fighting a military battle. It also includes the individual, political, and economic sacrifices of peacefully defending human rights and standing up for the principals of liberty and democracy.

Demanding that we live up to these principles as Peter Navarro and Greg Autry do in this deeply moving book can never be the wrong choice; and that is why it is long past time for the citizens of the world to truly stand beside the Chinese people—and not the brutally repressive and antiquated regime that rules them. If there is one abiding truth that stands above all after Tiananmen, it is that only a free and democratic China will benefit the world.

—Baiqiao Tang, Tiananmen Square protester and co-author of

My Two Chinas: The Memoir of a Chinese Counterrevolutionary

New York City

March 23, 2011