How much is freedom worth?

Poland, 1990: Ten years after demonstrations by the Solidarity trade union, political reform had arrived. Poland was finally a democracy. But my friend from Gdansk wasn't happy — and it was my fault.

"You had the chance," Tadeusz said. "Solidarity was gaining power. The food shortages frightened Prime Minister Jaruzelski. Public pressure would have forced him to resign. But instead, America sent shipments of food, and that allowed the communists to stay in power for several years."

The news from South Africa confirmed this thinking only a few months later, when the apartheid government admitted that international sanctions had destroyed the local economy. South Africa then adopted a policy of openness and equality. Sanctions can work — if everybody participates.

Would you actively support a militaristic communist regime? I didn't think so — but I'm not talking about North Korea. I'm talking about China, which everyone supports by buying goods that could have been made in a democracy, but are instead made in the People's Republic.

Twenty years ago today, hundreds or perhaps thousands of peaceful demonstrators on Tiananmen Square were murdered for demanding open political discussion and the freedom to criticize their government. Many of those who weren't killed were sent to forced-labor camps for ten years or more, and nearly all written reference to the massacre was erased. Most of today's Chinese don't even know it happened.

The Chinese Communist Party has referred to "long-term transition", and I do believe that they aim to achieve democracy in small steps by about 2050. Sudden moves, such as Russia made, could bring disaster. The United States seems to understand and respect this.

Through Chinese films, we see that some freedoms have emerged: people are now allowed to complain openly about things like pollution and public health. But they still cannot choose their leaders, and they risk arrest when trying to get around the censors. What can the West do?

Both major political parties in the U.S. now admit that their 47-year boycott of Cuba hasn't led to the resignation of anyone named Castro. The U.S. has therefore decided to let Americans with Cuban relatives travel to the island, and it may soon lift the remaining sanctions as well.

The U.S. proudly boycotts Myanmar (Burma), a country that doesn't produce anything — but, as Tadeusz would point out, America also offered to keep the regime in power by sending food when a typhoon struck. (Myanmar refused the offer for the most part, but Zimbabwe accepted a similar one.)

Ordinary people are obviously caught in the middle. Do boycotts help or harm them? I refuse to buy anything from China that I can get from a non-fascist country (and I'm nearly alone in doing so). But all the people I've met from the Chinese mainland have been kind and friendly. Should I be hurting them for their own good?

Sure, Mr. Pei, who ran the physics lab at my university, merely chuckled — and didn't answer — when my lab partner asked him if he was a spy. But there was also Professor Hsieh, who gave me valuable career advice, and Xiaowei, the architecture student who offered to cook Chinese food for me.

Recently, I was in the baggage-claim area of a North American airport, where a flight from Beijing had just landed. An older Chinese couple were struggling to pry free a cart they had paid for. They weren't strong enough to pull and push at the same time; so I helped them, using a quick move perfected by years of air travel.

You should have seen the way they smiled as they bowed deeply and repeatedly in a show of thanks. They'd struggled to free the cart — just as others have struggled to free them. But would they understand the comparison?

* Further reading: Voices from Tiananmen Square, with essays by student leaders and other protesters; Almost a Revolution by Shen Tong, a personal memoir by one of the protest leaders; and the eye-opening new work Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang. Also be sure to watch online the PBS documentary The Tank Man, about the lone man who, for a short while, stopped a column of tanks from entering Beijing.