MANILA: When a government is known to censor truth and suppress freedom of speech, why do its citizens easily take to the streets in protest against their Asian neighbors? The Chinese liberals and pro-democracy groups have kept their silence on China’s territorial encroachment in Asia long enough.

In an ethics symposium I attended in Washington, D.C. six years ago, the Tiananmen massacre of 1989 was discussed as an example of a government’s attempt to suppress democracy. A Chinese national reasoned that the People’s Republic’s military only responded in self-defense. He said doreign powers instigated and backed the revolution to destabilize the government. The death tolls were exaggerated and the government blameless. The participants which had representatives from at least 15 countries was in an uproar. Everyone knew that those students died for democracy and were silenced by the iron hand of Deng Xiaoping.