The news that as many as 20 individuals in the Chinese village of Dongzhou were shot and killed by communist troops Tuesday night is an opportunity for Washington to reassess relations with Beijing. The Bush administration’s reaction to the massacre so far has been muted; yesterday, after we inquired, a State Department spokesman expressed concern to us and called for adherence to the rule of law. But yesterday afternoon, the Web site of the American Embassy at Beijing was touting President Bush’s week-old remarks on World AIDS Day. Nothing about Dongzhou. The White House marked Human Rights Day with a fine statement calling attention to prisoners of conscience in Syria, but with nary a mention of the deaths in Dongzhou. Even the Chinese communist government yesterday called the killings “wrong,” blaming them on a commander. The Chinese, to date, have been more critical of their own behavior than the Bush State Department has been.

Yet for an administration that styles itself as devoted to spreading freedom and democracy throughout the world, the deaths in Dongzhou represent an opening that can lead to progress. China, with 1.3 billion people, is the largest country in the world that lacks political freedom. Protests there against land seizures are what apparently prompted the massacre. The demonstrations indicate that the ideas of John Locke – that the chief end of a civil society is the preservation of property – are taking hold even in Communist China. Locke wrote in 1689 in his Second Treatise on Government “the people finding their properties not secure under the government, as then it was, (whereas government has no other end but the preservation of property) could never be safe nor at rest, nor think themselves in civil society, till the legislature was placed in collective bodies of men, call them senate, parliament, or what you please.” Concern about property rights, in other words, is a building block of democratization.

The protests for property rights show the opportunity for the spread of freedom and democracy in China. The massacre of the protesters shows the threat to freedom that is posed by the Chinese government, or at least elements within it. The Associated Press reports that the shooting lasted for 12 hours. The New York Times reports, “Numerous accounts said that the authorities had thrown corpses into the sea and burned bodies after the killings. Villagers said they had counted 13 bodies floating on the sea.” This is what President Bush has, in other contexts, shown no hesitation to describe as “evil.” It would be an appropriate word for him to use on this occasion, perhaps in comments calling for an independent international inquiry into both the massacre and the infringements on property rights that led to it.