Myrdal's view of the Chinese Communist Party as a political model expired after Mao Tse-tung's death, and Myrdal was highly critical of Deng Xiaoping's rule. In keeping with this dim view of China's new leadership, he condemned the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre and described the Beijing government as "a military regime of the fascist type." In 1997, however, Myrdal publicly revised this opinion, saying he had come to the conclusion that although the protests had merit, the government crackdown had ultimately become necessary in order to prevent China from collapsing into internal conflict. Therefore, he said, "he question can not be whether it was moral or immoral to shed blood on the square of Heavenly Peace in the summer of 1989, but whether it was necessary or not in order to prevent a Bosnia in billion-size proportion and a possible Pacific war. If it was necessary, as I now believe, then it was right and moral. If it was not necessary, then it was wrong and criminal." This view met with little understanding in Sweden and would often be invoked by critics as evidence that Myrdal's politics were beyond the pale. Myrdal subsequently softened his criticism of China, describing its global rise in positive terms as evidence of a global reordering.