Lee Kwan Yew's views on Tianamen Square

Lee Kwan Yew presents an interesting case for Dang Xiaoping’s reaction to the revolutionaries at Tiananmen Square.  As opposed to the western view, Lee Kwan Yew contested that Deng’s attack on the protesters was actually beneficial to society.  Further, it represents a fundamental difference in the way that the East and the West view society and the individual.  While any East Asian will tell you that the stability of a society is much more important than the happiness of an individual, Americans and other westerners’ contend that the happiness of the individual is the most important.  Understanding this, it is clear that, to an easterner, Deng’s decision to kill many protesters is justified in the eyes of the Chinese, as he was merely trying to keep China stable, an idea which, after decades of political strife, must have seemed very appealing to the Chinese people.  Therefore, we cannot simply write off the Tiananmen Square as a breach of human rights and an atrocity, but rather, we must look at it through the East’s eyes and understand that the issue may be much more complex that many of us would like to admit.