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Tiananmen square falls silent as tight security surrounds symbolic anniversary Tiananmen square falls silent as tight security surrounds symbolic anniversary
(about 2 hours later)
China marked 30 years since the deadly Tiananmen Square massacre on Tuesday with a wall of silence and extra security after arresting activists and tightening internet censorship in the run-up to the politically sensitive anniversary. China was marking 30 years since its deadly crackdown on student demonstrators in Beijing with silence and extra security measures on Tuesday.
On a grey, overcast day, police checked the identification cards of every tourist and commuter leaving the subway near Tiananmen Square, the site of the pro-democracy protests that were brutally extinguished by tanks and soldiers on 4 June, 1989. The nation’s government has worked to suppress discussion of one of the darkest chapters in its history, when Beijing deployed tanks and troops to put down a countrywide movement calling for democratic reforms. In the lead up to the anniversary, activists have been detained and internet controls tightened.
Foreign journalists were not allowed onto the square at all or warned by police not to take pictures. On Tuesday, security forces were deployed throughout Tiananmen Square in Beijing, where on the evening of 3 June through the morning of 4 June, 1989, hundreds if not thousands of people were killed.
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo marked the occasion by hailing the “heroic” movement of 1989 and denouncing a “new wave of abuses” in China. But in China, the Communist party made sure the anniversary remained in the distant past. Several activists were detained in the run-up to 4 June, while popular livestreaming sites were conspicuously offline for “technical” maintenance. Crowds of tourists were waiting to pass through security to have their ID card scanned and bags checked. Plainclothes and uniformed police patrolled the perimeter of the area. An armoured police car was stationed along a street leading to the square. Asked about the extra checks, a police officer said: “Today is a bit special.”
Over the years, the party has censored public discussion of the protests and massacre that left up to 10,000 people dead, according to secret diplomatic cables, ensuring that people either never learn about what happened or fear detention if they discuss it openly. Official media on Tuesday made no mention of the anniversary, instead featuring articles about Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s promotion of garbage sorting, an environmental campaign.
China has issued few statements about the Tiananmen crackdown, which is largely omitted from history books. When pushed to comment, officials justify the government’s use of force as necessary for stability and development. Following a period of international isolation after the crackdown, the Chinese economy grew at breakneck speed in the 1990s and 2000s.
China’s defence minister, Wei Fenghe defended the crackdown as the “correct” policy to end “political turbulence” at the time in response to a reporter’s questions at a conference in Singapore on Sunday.
'Sacred day': Chinese remember Tiananmen killings by fasting'Sacred day': Chinese remember Tiananmen killings by fasting
The party and its high-tech police apparatus have tightened control over civil society since President Xi Jinping took office in 2012, rounding up activists, rights lawyers and even Marxist students who sympathised with labour movements. On Monday, the state-run tabloid Global Times praised the government’s response, calling it a “vaccination” for Chinese society providing “immunity against any major political turmoil in the future”.
Countless surveillance cameras are perched on lampposts in and around Tiananmen Square. “It’s not that we don’t care. We know what happened,” said a driver for the DiDi ride-hailing service who was born in 1989. Meanwhile foreign journalists were either not allowed to enter the square or were followed when they did. Plainclothes police blocked journalists from taking photos by opening umbrellas in front of them.
“But how can I tell you, the DiDi app is recording our conversation in the car,” he said. “But today’s China has changed. If you have money you have everything. Without money you dare not open your mouth.” The search terms “Tiananmen” and “6,4 30,” were blocked on the microblog Weibo, and “6,4” as the episode is known in China turned up results like the address of a compound or a type of gun.
It was largely business as usual at Tiananmen on Tuesday: hundreds of people, including children waving small Chinese flags while sitting on their parents’ shoulders, lined up at the security checkpoint before dawn to watch the daily flag-raising at the square. In the weeks leading up to the anniversary, social media users were not allowed to change their usernames and a video platform disabled some of its comment functions.
But the line moved slowly due to extra security – with IDs matched on facial recognition screens – and dozens were unable to watch the event. Despite the censorship, some Chinese citizens have found ways to mark the day, by referring to it elliptically. One user posted a photo of himself standing in front of Mao Zedong’s portrait, which faces Tiananmen Square, in the early morning hours. “Paying respects,” he wrote.
When asked whether it crossed her mind that she was visiting the square on the 30th anniversary, a nursing school graduate in her 20s from eastern Shandong province said: “What do you mean? No, it didn’t cross my mind.” Activists in China said they planned to fast for the day, barred from being able to commemorate the event in any public way. In neighbouring Hong Kong, activists are permitted to commemorate the event with an annual candlelight vigil attracting about 180,000 people.
Her mother jumped in to say, “We don’t think of that past.” “This year, with the 30th anniversary more people will be coming in,” said Chauk-Yan Lee, a former legislator. Lee was a young labour organiser in 1989 and was in Beijing on 4 June.
But there were rare public acknowledgements of 4 June this year. But activists are coming under pressure in Hong Kong. On Sunday, Hong Kong deported an exiled dissident and former Peking university student, Feng Congde, who had come to the city to attend the vigil.
China’s defence minister, General Wei Fenghe, on Sunday defended the crackdown as the “correct” policy to end “political turbulence” at the time. Hong Kong immigration is not required to give reasons for its decisions, but legislator Regina Ip told the Guardian she believes it was likely because Congde intended to go to the vigil. “Hong Kong allows our people to hold the annual June 4 candlelight vigils, they have a right to express their views, to remember whatever happened 30 years ago. But we don’t have to allow high profile dissidents to come in and stir up further emotions. What’s the point?”
The state-run tabloid Global Times hailed the government’s handling of Tiananmen as a “vaccination” for Chinese society that “will greatly increase China’s immunity against any major political turmoil in the future”. Gao Yu, a journalist who attended the protests in Beijing has been “traveled” away from the city and will be kept under close watch today by security minders. “I can only remember [the students] in my heart,” she said.
Pompeo sharply disagreed on how China had evolved as he hailed the “heroic protest movement” in a statement for the anniversary. Other internet users posted a quote by a famous Chinese writer, Lu Xun, in 1933, remembering a group of young writers who had been killed by government forces. The night is long, the road is also long. It’s better I forget, not to mention it. But I know that even if it weren’t for me, there will always be someone who remembers them.”
“Over the decades that followed, the United States hoped that China’s integration into the international system would lead to a more open, tolerant society. Those hopes have been dashed,” Pompeo said amid a tense US-China showdown on trade.
Pompeo denounced the “new wave of abuses” by China, including the mass incarceration of Uighur Muslims in the far-west Xinjiang region, and urged a full account of what happened 30 years ago.
In spring 1989, students and workers gathered at Tiananmen Square – the symbolic heart of Chinese power – demanding democratic change and an end to corruption, inspiring protests across the country.
After seven weeks of demonstrations, the government deployed tanks and soldiers who chased and killed demonstrators and onlookers in the streets leading to the square.
“We never expected that,” Wang Dan, who was a 20-year-old protest leader in 1989, told AFP in a recent interview in a Washington suburb. “To open fire on people, that was beyond our expectations,” said Wang, who ended up on the government’s most wanted list and was imprisoned before going into exile.
“There is no reason to be optimistic for China now if you look at what’s happening,” another Tiananmen protest leader, Zhou Fengsuo, told AFP in New York. “It’s darkening day by day, [what] was unimaginable a year ago, now it’s becoming reality. Even 1984, the novel, couldn’t go that far.”
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