"Their own army was firing wildly at them'

Today is the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

We recall it well. All spring the nightly news reported on the democracy protestors with naïve hope. It seemed a new era was dawning in China, glasnost and perestroika in Beijing.

Then Deng Xiaoping sent in the tanks.

This was a clue, a warning really, of what China really was and is.

And our elites ignored it.

After the tanks Bush sent Brent Scowcroft to Beijing to reassure Deng that nothing would change. In the 90s Madeline Albright toasted Deng. China was brought into the WTO and even awarded the Olympic games.

The elites knew, they just knew that bringing China into their transnational institution would make them change.

The elites were wrong. They always are.