President Xi is stifling the wave of protests against his rule while the death of a former long-time Chinese leader reminds the world of a time when China veered away from harsh dictatorship and emerged as a wealthy nation mingling old-time capitalism with communism.

By attacking the protesters with every conceivable means, ranging from repression of the internet to police round-ups of demonstrators, Chinese authorities appear to have turned back — temporarily — the worst threat to the regime since 1989.

It was in the spring of that year that thousands gathered for the historic demonstrations on Tiananmen Square at Beijing and also at other cities. They were defeated with military force, producing the famous photograph of a single protester facing down a Chicom tank.

In this week’s events, the government, and the Chinese Communist Party that’s the center of power in the country, showed a slight willingness to compromise. It is lifting restraints in some areas that are intended to stop the spread of Covid.

The start of the pandemic was first reported in the central industrial city of Wuhan nearly three years ago. The new concessions, however, should not be taken as a willingness to go easy on demonstrators.

While authorities were reportedly easing up in the southern city of Guangzhou, say, the police were handcuffing protesters, throwing them into vans, and taking them to jail. The communists cannot be truthful about this without eroding their grip.

Mr. Xi, who won in October an unprecedented third term as the party boss, clearly sees the outbreak of protests as a severe challenge to his rule that has to be put down before it begins seriously to jeopardize his power.

Ironically, Mr. Xi is the longest-ruling Chinese leader since Jiang Jemin, who has died at the age of 96, and Mr. Xi also ranks as the longest-serving party general secretary since Mao Zedong, who died in 1976. Look at the contrast, though, between Mr. Xi and Jiang.

Jiang appeared as a genial figure as China recovered from the bloody crackdown on Tiananmen, in which at least 10,000 people died. He served as party general secretary for three years as well as chairman of the central military commission, the post held by Deng. He became president in 1993 and held the post for the ensuing decade.

Mr. Xi, in contrast, has tightened central rule, rounded up dissidents, and dismissed critics. 

Ominously, the party issued a statement promising to “resolutely crack down on illegal and criminal acts that disrupt social order.” The priority, the communists made clear, was to “effectively maintain overall social stability.” Xinhua confirmed Jiang’s death as a result of “multiple organ failures” but said not a word about the protests.

The unrest has put American leaders on the spot after little more than two weeks since President Biden and Mr. Xi met on the sidelines of the G20 parley on Bali, where for nearly three hours they reviewed topics ranging from Taiwan to human rights.

That was before China’s Covid restraints precipitated the current protests. American officials have begun gingerly making noises about “the right to peacefully protest,” while such Republicans as Senator Rubio have berated the administration as “cowardly.”

The White House and Department of State have yet to issue a formal comment, though they might not be able to resist saying something. Neither is showing any backbone amid the start of the long campaign for the presidential election in 2024.

The American ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, said the Chinese people have “a right to make their views known” and “to be heard.” That right, he said, “should not be hindered with, should not be interfered with.”

Then again, too, that right has never been vouchsafed in any country since the idea of communism first sprang from the head of Karl Marx. 

In contrast to Washington’s defense of Ukraine, the rhetoric from the administration would do nothing for the protesters except highlight how tyrannical a communist system is. And invite a kind of propagandistic mockery.

Typically, the Chinese press advises Americans to worry about their own internal problems and communist officials denounce criticism as “interference.” It brings back memories of Tiananmen Square at which demonstrators built a huge replica of the Statue of Liberty.

That was a kind of appeal by the Tiananmen protesters to Americans to rescue them before Chinese troops poured in at the behest of China’s leader, Deng Xiaoping. Several weeks later, Jiang Zemin emerged as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.

Jiang held the post for three years before becoming chairman of the central military commission. As president, his greatest accomplishment was to preside over the reform movement, initiated by Deng.

In those reforms, Jiang pressed for a market economy that would somehow not conflict with communist ideals. He promoted relations with America and other Western countries, forming close relations with President Clinton, who praised him as “a man of extraordinary intellect” and “good imagination” at a time of change.

That Jiang was such a pleasant-seeming person, though, could not obscure the reality that China is a dictatorship. It ruthlessly suppressed, say, the Falun Gong, a cultish movement seen to undermine central rule, and other attempts at democracy.

Those attempts even included, briefly, a would-be opposition party. Suppression is the reality of the dictatorship that protesters are confronting as police round up thousands of them, sending them to jail and ultimately to trials in which death penalties for leaders are highly likely, if the aftermath of Tiananmen is any guide.