1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre

U.S. urges China to come clean on Tiananmen anniversary

Reuters

BEIJING -- The United States urges China to make a full public account of those killed, detained or who went missing during a crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said.
The Chinese government sent tanks to quell the June 4, 1989 protests, and has never released a death toll. Estimates from human rights groups and witnesses range from several hundred to several thousand.
The Tiananmen crackdown is a taboo subject in China and 29 years later it remains a point of contention between China and many Western countries.
In a statement on Sunday the recently appointed Pompeo said he remembered “the tragic loss of innocent lives”.
“As Liu Xiaobo wrote in his 2010 Nobel Peace Prize speech, delivered in absentia, ‘the ghosts of June 4th have not yet been laid to rest’,” Pompeo said referring to the Chinese dissident who died last year while still in custody.
“We join others in the international community in urging the Chinese government to make a full public accounting of those killed, detained or missing,” Pompeo added.
China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment and there was no mention of the day in state media.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to gather later in the day in Hong Kong to mark the anniversary, the only place in China where such large-scale public commemorations happen.
On Tiananmen Square, security was tight as is usual for the anniversary, with no signs of any protests or other memorial events.
Foreigners’ passports were checked by Chinese police at a checkpoint nearly a kilometer from the square. 

A Reuters reporter was turned away and told that unapproved “interview activities” were forbidden in the square on Monday.
In their annual open letter, the Tiananmen Mothers, who represent the families of those who died, said the government was guilty of serious disrespect by ignoring their requests for redress.
“Such a powerful proletarian dictatorship apparatus is afraid of us: the old, the sick, and the weakest and most vulnerable of our society,” they wrote in a letter addressed to Chinese dictator Xi Jinping.
In Taiwan, the democratic and self-ruled island China claims as its own, former president Ma Ying-jeou said in a statement it was important to face up to history to help heal the families’ wounds.
“Only by doing this can the Chinese communists be seen by the world as a real great power,” wrote Ma, under whose administration ties with China dramatically improved.

Come to express anger over Xi Jinping, Hong Kong June 4 vigil organiser says

Lee Cheuk-yan says they want to reignite interest among young people in democracy in mainland China after university student unions stayed away last year
By Kimmy Chung

The organisers of the annual candlelight vigil marking the June 4 Tiananmen Square crackdown have called for more Hongkongers to attend and express their anger at Xi Jinping before his expected visit to the city in late June.
The organisers also hope to reignite youngsters’ passion for democracy by inviting a high school boy band to perform. 

The rise of localism has driven university student unions away from the vigil.
“It is a very important opportunity to tell Xi Jinping that Hong Kong people are very angry at what he has done in both China and Hong Kong ... The suppression of human rights in China and the suppression of democracy in Hong Kong,” Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China secretary Lee Cheuk-yan said.
“Hong Kong people know very well that the whole so-called chief executive election was fake ... and was controlled by Beijing,” he added.

Lee said the leadership election would give extra meaning to the 28th anniversary vigil this year, in addition to remembering those who sacrificed themselves for democracy in 1989.
Xi is expected to visit the city to mark the 20th anniversary of the city’s handover to China on July 1.
Hong Kong is the only place on Chinese soil where large-scale events to mark the June 4 crackdown are held. 

Support has waned in recent years as more people, especially youngsters, believe the city should focus on its own fight rather than democracy in mainland China.
The attendance last year was down to 125,000 -- the lowest since the 20th anniversary vigil in 2009, according to the organisers. 

The organisers expect around 100,000 to take part this year but refuse to predict an exact number. “Our biggest obstacle is our apathy... I think what we need to do is to reignite the passion for political reform in Hong Kong and China,” Lee said, adding that he believed Hongkongers were still passionate about the issues.
It will be the second year that university student unions will be absent from the stage. 

To represent the voice of the next generation, the organiser has invited high school boy band Boyz’ Reborn to compose a song and perform at the vigil. 

A representative of the Tiananmen Mothers will speak by video link.

Who will remember my father, Gui Minhai?

By Angela Gui

The author with her father, Gui Minhai, in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1994.

It’s a strange thing to mourn someone who has disappeared.
You talk about the person and catch yourself saying that he was, instead of he is. 

You find a book on sale that you know he would like, but you do not buy it because you don’t know whether you will see each other again. 

You send email upon email just to say hi but never receive a response. 

After 365 days, it seems increasingly unlikely.
But really, mourning is neither enough, nor allowed, when the Chinese state decides to have a person disappear. 

Today marks a year since my father, Gui Minhai, was abducted while on vacation in Thailand, for publishing and selling politically “sensitive” books.
His tiny Hong Kong apartment is empty, the books and the porcelain teapots collecting dust. 

The once rapidly growing industry specializing in books about mainland politics, in which my father’s was one of the leading bookstores, has gone unusually quiet. 

People whisper of self-censorship; some titles are deemed too risky to write, to publish, to print — to read. 

By kidnapping five booksellers, two of whom are European citizens, China has shown that it is possible to successfully diminish perhaps one of the most effective spaces for critical thinking and democratic political participation.
In China, the abduction of my father has been presented as a voluntary surrender to the infallible Chinese law enforcement. 

Not once acknowledging their failure to produce proof that my father ever left Thailand legally, the Chinese government has pieced together a story of him — as an immoral criminal — choosing to return to China out of guilt from causing a traffic accident in 2004. 

In a video aired on state-owned TV (where his T-shirt keeps changing color), my father performs a robotic, yet occasionally overly emotional, “confession.” 

When the Chinese foreign ministry held a question and answer event during the Lianghui, or “Two Sessions,” earlier this year, questions about the Gui Minhai case were dismissed with reference to his family “stirring up trouble.”
A year on, I still can’t contact my father. 

It still isn’t clear where he is being held.
Quartz reported in January that even Chinese citizens were expressing skepticism in social media about the official explanation to my father’s disappearance. 

But how long before that doubt has been erased by China’s panoptic censorship apparatus? 

In articles on the Tiananmen massacre — blocked in China, of course — the majority of Chinese students today is estimated to know hardly anything about the events on June 4 27 years ago. Members of the group Tiananmen Mothers, a support group founded by mothers of the massacre victims, have been detained and placed under strict surveillance for having the audacity to mourn their children.
Who will remember my father and Causeway Bay bookstore in 27 years? 

The Chinese most likely will not. 

With a history that is so easily manipulated, and an international community that is ready to swallow that manipulated history whole — using economic interests and a skewed image of “Chinese culture” as a nervously presented excuse — we must remember. 

We must remember because keeping memory alive, through writing and publishing, is so radical it has become a political act.
So who will remember Gui Minhai? 

Perhaps those countries that are usually so quick to assert their democratic values will take responsibility toward their citizens and demand concrete actions of China, instead of repeating empty condemnations. 

Or perhaps the world will stand by as more foreign citizens will disappear — because they don’t fit into China’s increasingly narrow political agenda.