30th Anniversary

Tiananmen Anniversary Draws Silence in Beijing but Emotion in Hong Kong

By Amy Qin and Austin Ramzy

Thousands of people gathered at Victoria Park in Hong Kong on Tuesday, the 30th anniversary of the crackdown on a student-led democracy movement at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

BEIJING — Thirty years after Chinese soldiers killed hundreds, possibly thousands, of demonstrators in Beijing and other cities, memories of the violence remain fraught, with China detaining activists, tightening censorship and denouncing calls for a full accounting of the bloodshed.
The 30th anniversary of the June 4 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters was tense in China on Tuesday, the strain heightened by a trade war with the United States and worries that Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese city that holds the largest public vigil for the dead, is losing its singular status and freedoms.
On Tuesday, China denounced Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement a day earlier honoring the protesters and criticizing continuing human rights abuses.
[Pressured by Beijing, a financial-information company removed articles about the massacre from data terminals in China.]

On Sunday, Defense Minister Wei Fenghe called it the “correct” decision, after being asked about it at a defense forum in Singapore.
In Beijing on Tuesday, there were only hints of the violence that engulfed the city 30 years ago. Security on the square was tight, and Chinese social media services were censored more vigorously than normal.

Security around Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Tuesday.

Some artists and intellectuals in the mainland have tried to speak out about the anniversary. 

While accepting an award last week at the Palace Museum across from the square in Beijing, the artist Zhang Yue spoke on stage about how he was “ashamed” to have made concessions to censorship in his artwork.
“As an artist, I didn’t fight hard for the right to freedom of expression for myself and others in my industry,” Mr. Zhang said, according to a copy of the speech provided by Barbara Pollack, a writer and curator who served on the selection jury for the award.
“Especially today, 30 years after June 4, to be standing so close to Tiananmen Square and accepting an award seems even more shameful to me,” he added.
News of Mr. Zhang’s speech was quickly scrubbed from Chinese media, and his current whereabouts is unknown. 

Yang Yang, whose Beijing gallery represents Mr. Zhang, said she had been unable to reach him.
Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an advocacy group, said it had documented 18 Chinese activists who were detained or disappeared ahead of the anniversary and another nine who were questioned or placed under house arrest.
The status of others is unclear. 

Jiang Yanyong, a retired Chinese military surgeon who treated wounded protesters in 1989, was reported in April to be in some form of detention. 

This year he wrote a private letter to Chinese leaders calling the Tiananmen massacre a crime, according to Gao Yu, a Chinese journalist.
In the days leading to the anniversary, many mainland residents reported difficulties connecting to virtual private networks, which some Chinese use to access Instagram and other websites and apps that are blocked in China.
Despite the blanket of censorship and self-censorship, some in China tried to post cryptic messages of remembrance. 

While censors were quick to remove posts on WeChat Moments, similar to a Facebook feed, some made it through the filter. 

There were poems, songs and photos of Tiananmen Square during happier times.

At the vigil in Hong Kong. Organizers estimated that more than 180,000 people attended.

On WeChat, some users posted “Bloodstained Glory,” a song originally written to commemorate the People’s Liberation Army and covered by Peng Liyuan, the wife of Xi Jinping, but since co-opted to recall the 1989 massacre. 

The posts were later taken down.
Others marked the anniversary privately, such as by fasting or holding candlelight vigils at home.
In Hong Kong, mainland tourists were among the visitors on Tuesday at the June 4th Museum, which was opened this spring by a pro-democracy group. 

They took photographs of the exhibits and discussed how to hide related books and pamphlets from mainland border officials when they returned home.
“There are too many lies and incomplete information in mainland China, so I came here for an ounce of truth,” said Mr. He, a man in his 50s who declined to provide his full name because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Mr. He came from the northern Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia to visit the museum and participate in the Hong Kong vigil. 

Organizers estimated Tuesday night that more than 180,000 people had attended that event, far more than last year. 

Turnout for the vigil has become a barometer of local discontent, and organizers had said they expected more people to show up not just because of the 30th anniversary, but also to vent growing anger over a government proposal to allow extraditions to the mainland for the first time.
The proposal has been criticized by foreign governments, human rights groups, lawyers and business associations. 

It inspired the biggest protests the city has seen since the 2014 Umbrella Movement and scenes of chaos in the city’s legislature as opposition politicians tried to thwart its progress.
“I can feel that the space for freedom in Hong Kong is tightening, so I finally made up my mind to come,” said Lee Yuet-ting, 43, who said he was attending the vigil for the first time. 

He shielded his candle from the drizzle, one point of light among tens of thousands.
Organizers of the vigil had also called for greater participation from students. 

In recent years some student organizations have curbed their support for local remembrances of the 1989 crackdown, saying they feel little affinity with China and that the memorials divert attention from calls for democracy in Hong Kong itself.

Turnout for the Hong Kong vigil has become a barometer of local discontent.

Gigi Chow, an officer with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s student union, said rallying for democracy in China would do little to advance the cause of democracy in Hong Kong.
“Our union believes that as Hong Kongers we should focus on Hong Kong first,” Ms. Chow said.
Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese control in 1997, closely watched the Tiananmen protests in 1989, looking for indications of the direction of their future country. 

For weeks in May 1989, hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents marched in support of the Tiananmen protesters.
After the Chinese government’s response turned violent, residents of Hong Kong helped smuggle protest leaders to safety. 

Each year’s vigil is the largest public memorial to those who died.
In Beijing, where such a vigil is impossible, crowds of confused tourists were turned away from the western entrance to the square on Tuesday by security officials citing “crowd control” measures.
At the eastern entrance, the line to go through the security check stretched down Chang’an Avenue. Sightseers grumbled and began jostling with one another as the wait to go through security passed the one-hour mark.
Peng Yubin, a 22-year-old college student from the eastern city of Jinan, said she was visiting Beijing with a friend. 

She said she had heard of the events of 1989 but was unaware that Tuesday was the anniversary.
“We read a little about it in middle school, but I don’t really know what it was about,” she said.
Ms. Peng said she was more familiar with the Mukden Incident, which marked the beginning of the Japanese invasion of China in 1931, than “64,” as the Tiananmen crackdown is referred to in Chinese for the date of the crackdown.
“My parents never talked to me about 64,” she said.

Australia’s Prime Minister ‘Surprised’ by State’s Secret Deal With China

The state of Victoria signed on with China’s Belt and Road initiative at a time when intelligence officials are concerned about Beijing’s influence.
By Jamie Tarabay and Vicky Xiuzhong Xu
Australia's prime minister, Scott Morrison, said it was not “cooperative or helpful” for the state of Victoria to sign an agreement with China without his government’s knowledge. 

SYDNEY, Australia — Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia was blindsided by reports that a state government had quietly sidestepped federal regulators and signed a deal with China to participate in that country’s contentious Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.
Mr. Morrison said this week that the agreement, signed last month between the governments of China and the state of Victoria, undermined the federal government’s ability to conduct foreign policy at a time when intelligence officials are concerned that China is trying to exert undue influence in Australia.
Mr. Morrison told reporters he was “surprised” that the Victorian government would involve itself in a “matter of international relations” without discussing it first.
“They know full well our policy on those issues and I thought that was not a very cooperative or helpful way to do things on such issues,” Mr. Morrison said.
Daniel Andrews, the premier of Victoria, said the deal would bring his state’s businesses “one step closer to unlocking the trade and investment opportunities of China’s ambitious Belt and Road initiative.”
Australian Quisling: Victoria's premier, Daniel Andrews, center, said the agreement would lead to “trade and investment opportunities” for the state.

Critics, however, have characterized Andrews as naïve for failing to understand how China has used the initiative to deepen its global influence by promising to help construct grand infrastructure projects.
Others have said Andrews cut a deal with China for politically opportunistic reasons: His state government goes to the polls in less than two weeks.
Whatever his motivations, the deal sets a precedent for China to sidestep national leaders in Canberra and court states individually.
“I think this is a big part of Beijing’s agenda, to say to other states and territories that being the last to sign up will be bad,” said Michael Shoebridge, director of the defense and strategy program at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a think tank.
“That would be consistent with Beijing’s approach with other negotiations internationally.”
It remains unclear exactly what the deal in Victoria will cover, but the Belt and Road projects in other countries have tended to be large in scale.
Under Xi Jinping, China has pledged trillions of dollars over the past five years toward the construction of roads, power plants and ports throughout Asia, Africa and Europe.
The Belt and Road initiative, a key foreign policy of Xi’s government, uses big infrastructure projects as way to win friends and spread influence.

The Gwadar port in Pakistan, part of China’s ambitious Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, a debt trap for vulnerable countries.

But the money often comes with strings attached.
Chinese government-controlled lenders offer sizable amounts of money through loans or financial guarantees to build airports, seaports, highways, rail lines and power plants.
That money comes with the requirement that Chinese companies be heavily involved in planning and construction, and Chinese employees are brought in for the work, minimizing the immediate economic benefits to the country hosting the project.
Pakistan has accepted billions of dollars in loans from China in recent years for infrastructure projects, the terms of which remain largely undisclosed.
China has pledged a total of more than $60 billion to Pakistan in the form of loans and investments for roads, ports, power plants and industrial parks.
But now Pakistan is seeking an emergency bailout loan of $8 billion from the International Monetary Fund, along with new loans from Saudi Arabia and China.
Sri Lanka, in debt over a port that was never viable, renegotiated the terms of its contract with China to repay billions for the investment and ended up signing the port over to Beijing under a 99-year lease. 
The deal last December crystallized international criticism depicting the Belt and Road Initiative as a debt trap for vulnerable countries.

Chinese construction workers in Sri Lanka, another country that has hosted Belt and Road projects. In many cases, the use of imported Chinese labor has reduced the economic benefit for host countries.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia recently canceled two major Chinese-linked projects, greenlighted by his since-ousted predecessor, that were worth more than $22 billion.
Australia has long had to balance its economic relationship with China against its strategic security alliance with the United States.
Ever since John Howard was prime minister more than a decade ago, Canberra has tried to keep both powers happy.
“Howard famously argued that Australia didn’t have to choose between its economic relations with China and the alliance with the United States,” said Michael Clarke, an associate professor at the National Security College at Australian National University.
“Clearly, both of those assumptions no longer hold with President Trump’s ‘America First’ approach and China’s assertiveness under Xi Jinping,” Mr. Clarke said.
The federal government, Mr. Clarke said, needs to clarify its position on whether Australian states are allowed to receive funding for Belt and Road projects.
Canberra may object to Victoria’s decision to sign on to the initiative, but the federal government has also signed a memorandum of understanding with China, which it, too, has kept largely under wraps.
In September, Steven Ciobo, then the trade minister, signed an agreement that would allow Australia and China to cooperate on infrastructure projects in third countries under the Belt and Road Initiative. The federal government has yet to make the details of that agreement public.
The Victorian government initially refused to divulge the contents of the deal it had signed with Beijing.
On Monday, however, it published a four-page document online.
“It says something about the culture of government and its distrust toward public transparency that both the federal and state governments chose not to disclose their MOUs,” said Euan Graham, a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute, a think tank.
“And there is a broader point here about how the government conducts its business.”
The reaction from other politicians — the opposition leader Bill Shorten has said he supports Victoria’s deal — and their attempts to use the news for partisan politicking have created even more fissures for China to exploit, Mr. Graham said.
“What the government needs to focus on is what’s good policy,” he said.
“Good policy toward China means a joined-up approach, and anything that allows those divides to be exposed is going to result in bad policy outcomes that China can at the very least rhetorically cash in on.”