Tiananmen Now; Did the 1989 uprising matter? A student leader answers that question, alongside never-before-seen images of that fateful day.

Byline: Wang Dan, Wang is a Ph.D. candidate in history at Harvard University.

Fifteen years later people are still trying to divine the significance of the events that led to the Chinese government's brutal crackdown in Tiananmen Square. As one of the student leaders of that protest, I am frequently asked to recall those days and speculate on what might have been. Why did we assemble when we did? Did the students press for too much? Could the bloodshed have been avoided? Did the leadership learn any lessons? They are all important questions, and they are probably beyond what any one person--even someone who was there--can answer. But in retrospect, lurking in the background there is perhaps a bigger question: did the protests at Tiananmen Square matter?

To consider this, it's important to remember the rationale behind the uprising. Nowadays all people seem to recall is that the students were in favor of democracy. Who can forget that 10-meter-high plaster-and-Styrofoam statue of Lady Liberty? But, in fact, we raised the issue of democracy because of a more fundamental demand at the time--that is, the eradication of corruption. Students and intellectuals believed that the only way to root out government corruption would be through the establishment of democratic institutions.

Of course, the scale of corruption in 1989 looks absolutely petty against the massive looting of the state that goes on today. In the intervening years citizens have been unable to establish independent anticorruption institutions, and public pressure has diminished because of fears of retribution. Indeed, any enforcement measures have remained the prerogative of the political establishment--only the party polices the party. But the issue is probably the greatest obstacle to the country's continued development. I still remember friends' saying, at the time, that reforms would not be enough--that if the party didn't make some room for the people to govern themselves, economic growth would mean only that authorities had even greater spoils to divvy up. Their concerns now seem prophetic.

But if that was our basic ...