Twenty years since Tiananmen... Now what?

In the fall of 1989, I rode down Chang-an Avenue late at night, with a friend sitting on the back of my Flying Pigeon bicycle. It was just months after exuberant demonstrations by young Chinese had been crushed by the military. It was silent, except for our singing, and the thunk-thunk-thunk made by the bike tires, as we rode over indentations created by the heavy tanks that rolled through back in June. Soldiers posted at short intervals along the street next to Tiananmen Square and opposite, in front of the Forbidden City, stood erect, not turning their heads, but following us with their eyes as we passed.
These were truly dark days in China. At Radio Beijing, where I had gone to work as an English broadcast editor, one of the senior editors was in prison, after broadcasting news of the bloody crackdown early that morning of June 4. Others spent their days drinking tea--unable to work as journalists, or quit their "work unit" which controlled many aspects of their lives, including housing. Some younger journalists, who had just months earlier been on the edge of the journalistic frontier in this authoritarian state, were now copying their scripts out of the People's Daily, voicing them for air, and calling it a day. Economic reforms stalled, evidently while political foes did battle--a battle that only leaked to the public in unsatisfying dribs and drabs.
Eventually--and it was a long wait for political reformers and aspiring entrepreneurs alike--there was a breakthrough. When de facto leader Deng Xiaoping went on his symbolic "Southern Tour" in the spring of 1992, it marked the re-start of reforms. Most were economic to start, but it opened the country up, restarted the stock markets, fired up investment reforms. In the halls of power to a small extent--and to a much larger extent where Chinese citizens saw opportunities to build civil society--there was political change.
Among the most remarkable freedoms--to travel outside China--has come as a product of economic reform. Among my old Chinese friends, many are cosmopolitan and wealthy by any standard, successful business people who travel worldwide, without any real thought of fleeing China. The most astonishing moment for me was meeting a long-time friend from Beijing while riding the tram up Tabletop Mountain in South Africa. He was there on business, I on vacation.
Last year, while reporting on the aftermath of the massive Sichuan earthquake, I met Chinese nonprofit groups--some working to provide aid, others acting as watchdogs to the relief effort, and people who had simply come on their own to volunteer wherever they could. This demonstrates a kind of independence that was unthinkable a few decades back.
And yet, it's been 20 years, and there is no way to demonstrate as the students and young professionals did at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Ministers of Christian churches, activists for Tibetan rights, lawyers for dissident figures continue to be arrested. Demonstrators from the Falun Gong sect disappeared into prisons, or worse.
Many Chinese would argue that the multi-party democracy is not right for China. There is a fear that democracy would foster chaos, and damage economic progress needed to provide for the country's 1.3 billion people. Nationalism helps provide cohesion in China--bolstered by events like the recent Beijing Olympics--but if anything tends to hamper freedom.
So I continue to wonder: Now, 20 years down the road from the disaster of Tiananmen, how can China move forward to greater freedom, while keeping up the impressive momentum it has achieved in other ways?