GOP lawmaker blames Bush for Tiananmen massacre

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) on Friday blamed former President George H. W. Bush for the massacre of student protesters in Tiananmen Square 25 years ago.

{mosads}At a House Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing that featured several leaders of the Tiananmen protest, the congressman said Bush should have been more vocal in support of the Chinese students taking a stand for democracy in 1989.

“I believe that had the president of the United States at that time, Herbert Walker Bush, let the leadership of the Communist Party know that if they massacred the people in Tiananmen Square, there would be a major price for them to pay, that massacre wouldn’t have taken place,” Rohrabacher said. “And today not only would there be democracy in China, but the world would be a safer — a more peaceful — place.”

Rohrabacher also claimed that had the Tiananmen bloodbath taken place during a Reagan presidency, “this would be a different world, and China would be a different place.”

“It is a disgrace that the United States did not make the leadership of the Communist Party pay for the crime that they committed against the people of China,” Rohrabacher said.

The death toll from the June 3-4, 1989, attacks has never been released.

A spokesman for Bush declined to comment.

This is not the first time Rohrabacher has gone after a Bush. In 2010, he tweeted that former President George W. Bush was “not a class act” and “destroyed the GOP.”