If you need any further evidence that time indeed flies, on Tuesday we will remember the thirtieth anniversary of the Communist Party of China sending tanks against its own people to crush the peaceful pro-democracy protests centred around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

Who can forget the lone Chinese man, with his two bags of shopping, standing astride the middle of the street, stopping a column of People’s Liberation Army armour (and what a sad irony that name is)? It has become one of the most iconic images of the twentieth century and a powerful illustration of a struggle between an individual and...