30th Anniversary

Inflatable 'Tank Man' appears in Taiwan ahead of Tiananmen Square crackdown anniversary
By Oscar Holland

An inflatable artwork depicting the infamous "Tank Man" incident has appeared in the heart of Taiwan's capital, Taipei, nearly two weeks before the 30th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing.
Recreating a widely-known image from China's ill-fated 1989 pro-democracy protests, the provocative sculpture has been installed outside the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, one of Taiwan's most visited tourist attractions.
The sculpture is reportedly the work of Taiwanese multimedia artist Shake, whose previous projects have explored history, identity and geopolitics. 

Her balloon artwork recreates the moment when an unidentified man stood before a row of tanks in a Beijing street following a military crackdown. 

Estimates of the death toll from the crackdown range from several hundred to thousands. 

An official death toll has never been released.

"Tank Man" sculpture installed in front of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.

Outside China, "Tank Man" has become one of the 20th century's most iconic images. 

After the initial standoff, famously captured by American photographer Jeff Widener from the balcony of a nearby hotel, the unknown man was filmed climbing up to the tank's turret and speaking to a soldier inside, before dismounting.
The image Widener shot for the Associated Press soon spread around the world, and is now the most recognized symbol of the bloody crackdown. 

It was taken the day after the so-called "June Fourth Incident," in which China's military cleared Tiananmen Square of protesters who had gathered to call for democratic reforms.

American photographer Jeff Widener's famous images was captured from the balcony of a nearby hotel. 

The incident remains a sensitive topic in China, and the "Tank Man" image -- along with recreations and parodies of it -- are regularly subjected to online and media censorship.
Taipei's Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, named after the defeated leader who fled to the island after the Communist revolution in 1949, is considered one of the city's top tourist sites, attracting, invariably, visitors from the mainland. 

According to statistics from Taiwan's Tourism Bureau, almost 2.7 million visitors arrived on the island from China in 2018.
The monument's grounds have become a popular site for public art. 

Earlier this year, American artist KAWS installed a 36-meter-long (118 feet) inflatable of one of his signature characters, Companion, at the spot.
CNN has reached out to Shake and Taiwan's Ministry of Culture for comment.

Tank Man Revisited: More Details Emerge About the Iconic Image

By Patrick Witty

A Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Changan Avenue in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

28 years ago, Jeff Widener ran out of film during the most important assignment of his life.
The brutal crackdown at Tiananmen Square was underway and Widener, a photographer for the Associated Press, was sent to the square to capture the scene. 

"I rode a bicycle to the Beijing Hotel," Widener says. 

"Upon my arrival, I had to get past several Chinese security police in the lobby. If they stopped and searched me, they would have found all my gear and film hidden in my clothes." 

But there, in the shadows of the hotel entrance, he saw a long-haired college kid wearing a dirty Rambo t-shirt, shorts and sandals. 

"I yelled out, 'Hi Joe! Where you been?' and then whispered that I was from AP." 

Widener remembers. 

He asked to go to the young man's room. 

"He picked up on it," says Widener, "and out of the corner of my eye I could see the approaching security men turn away, thinking I was a hotel guest."
The young man was an American. 

His name was Kirk Martsen.
Martsen told Widener that he was lucky to arrive when he did. 

Just a few minutes earlier, some hotel guests had been shot by a passing military truck full of Chinese soldiers. 

Martsen said hotel staff members had dragged the bodies back in the hotel and that he had barely escaped with his life. 

From a hotel balcony, Widener was able to take pictures with a long lens—but then he ran out of film. So he sent Martsen on a desperate hunt for more, and Martsen returned with one single roll of Fuji color negative. 

It was on this film that Widener captured one of the most iconic images in history, the lone protester facing down a row of Chinese tanks.
"After I made the image, I asked Kirk if he could smuggle my film out of the hotel on his bicycle to the AP office at the Diplomatic Compound," Widener says. 

"He agreed to do this for me as I had to stay in the hotel and wait for more supplies and could not risk being found out. I watched Kirk from my balcony, which was right over the area where the security was. In what seemed to be an eternity, Kirk unlocked his bike and started to pedal off, although a bit awkwardly because all my film was stashed in his underwear. Five hours later, a call to Mark Avery at the AP office in Beijing confirmed that the film had arrived and been transmitted world-wide. What I did not know until 20 years later was what actually transpired after Kirk pedaled the bicycle away."
On the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, I wrote an article detailing each story behind the four different versions of the iconic scene on the Lens blog of the New York Times. 

At the time of publication, Widener wasn't sure if the young man's name was Kirk or Kurt. 

Soon after, Widener says, that changed: "I was on the computer and that familiar 'You've Got Mail' rang out on AOL. I could not believe who it was from. After 20 years, Kirk had found me because of the article in the New York Times."
Widener discovered that Martsen encountered gunfire and more soldiers after he left with the precious film and that he became lost trying to navigate back streets to find the Associated Press office. 

Martsen went to the U.S. embassy and handed over the film to a U.S. Marine at the entrance, and told the embassy to forward the film to the AP office.
"Kirk risked his life," Widener says. 

"If not for all of his efforts, my pictures may never have been seen."
The next day, the image appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the world.

Jeff Widener

Years later, the BBC flew Widener back to China to revisit the Square where he made the iconic photo. 

While walking down Changan Avenue toward the square, Widener met a German teacher sitting on the sidewalk smoking. 

Widener introduced himself and they had lunch. 

They were married in July 2010. 

"If anyone had told me that I would return from that bullet-riddled street 20 years later to meet my future wife, I would have thought them nuts," Widener says. 

"Fate has a strange sense of humor."

Tank Man at 28: Behind the Iconic Tiananmen Square Photo

By Kate Pickert

When Jeff Widener looks at the most important photograph of his career, it makes him think about failure. 

Like most news photographers, Widener is often worried that he will be absent during a critical moment and miss a critical shot. 

And like many of the most important photographs in history, Widener’s Tank Man almost didn’t happen. 

“I don't have it on my wall,” says Widener, “because every time I look at it, it reminds me how close I came to messing it up.”
In 1989, Widener was a picture editor for the Associated Press in Southeast Asia. 

As political turmoil and student protests heated up in Beijing that spring and summer, Widener was dispatched to China to cover the melee. 

Day after day, he would leave the AP bureau inside the U.S. diplomatic compound in Beijing and ride to Tiananmen Square to shoot pictures. 

At first, the assignment seemed relatively safe and straightforward. 

“The square was actually very organized. They had street sweepers. They had sort of a security ring all the way to the top, where they had printing presses. There were long lines of people getting food,” says Widener.
But around June 3, Widener’s job became more dangerous as the chaos and violent clashes in Beijing spilled into the streets. 

In one particularly terrifying encounter, a Chinese man approached Widener and opened his jacket. Inside was a machete dripping with blood. 

On another occasion, Widener was hit in the head with a rock, shattering his camera, causing a concussion and nearly killing him.
Widener’s leftover headache from the incident was still throbbing on the morning of June 5. 

His AP bosses in New York wanted someone from the bureau to go to Tiananmen Square, where government troops initiated a major crackdown on protesters the night before. 

The AP photographers on duty drew straws. Widener got the short one. 

With film stuffed down his pants and camera equipment hidden in his Levi’s jacket, Widener pedaled off in the direction of the Beijing Hotel, which stood at the edge of the square. 

After narrowly evading security in the lobby with the help of a sympathetic American exchange student, Widener made his way to a sixth-floor room.
In between sleeping off his headache, he photographed the events outside from the hotel room’s balcony. 

“There were tanks pushing burnt-out buses. There were people riding around on bicycles,” Widener remembers. 

“Occasionally, there'd be a little tinkle of a bell, and it would be a guy in a cart with a body or somebody dying, blood everywhere.”
Then suddenly, a column of tanks began rolling by and a man carrying shopping bags walked in front of them. 

Widener raised his camera and paused, anticipating the perfect moment to snap the shutter. 

“I waited for the moment that he would get shot, and I waited, and I waited,” says Widener. 

“And he wasn't.” 

Instead, the man waved his arms in front of the lead tank as it tried to proceed around him and eventually, he climbed on top of the hulking metal. 

While this was happening, Widener realized he was armed with the wrong speed film and too far away to get a good picture. 

A piece of equipment to improve the shot was on the hotel room bed, several feet away. 

Should he leave his balcony perch and get it? 

“It was again a huge gamble, and I've always gambled. So I went back to the bed, and I got it,” says Widener.
The result is an iconic picture of defiance in the face of aggression. 

“I was just relieved that I didn't mess up,” says Widener, whose photograph appeared on the front pages of newspapers the next day from New York to London and has been known since as one of the greatest news photographs of all time.
“Here's this guy who is obviously just out shopping, and finally he's just had enough " says Widener. "I assume he thinks he's going to die. But he doesn't care because for whatever reason—either he's lost a loved one or he's just had it with the government, or whatever it is—his statement is more important than his own life."
Tank man was pulled away by several others on bicycles and has never been identified, but, in a sense, he’s been with Widener for the past 25 years. 

“If somebody had a way of checking my brain thoughts, this guy probably goes through every single day. Because he's become a part of me.”