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As Hong Kong deployed hundreds of police to monitor the anniversary, Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te promised that Beijing’s brutal crackdown on protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989 would not be forgotten.
Tuesday marked 35 years since Chinese troops stormed into the square where students and workers had been camped for weeks, opening fire and killing hundreds, possibly thousands. No official death toll has ever been released.
“The memory of June 4 will not fade in the raging torrent of history,” Lai said in a Facebook statement, adding that Taiwan, a democratic island claimed by Beijing, “will strive to ensure that this historical memory will live forever.”
The Tiananmen Square protesters wanted political reform and were unhappy with the government’s economic policies and widespread corruption. Party leaders dismissed them as “counter-revolutionaries”, and after the crackdown, many of the protesters fled overseas.
Since then, discussion of the Tiananmen Square incident has become taboo in mainland China.
Until 2020, Hong Kong was the only Chinese territory to hold a memorial for the crackdown, with thousands gathering at an annual vigil in Victoria Park.
The event has now been banned and its organisers jailed.
Eight people were recently arrested on suspicion of sedition over social media posts related to the Tiananmen Square protests, the first arrests under the new national security law, which is part of China’s comprehensive 2020 national security law and is being implemented in Hong Kong.
The South China Morning Post reported that hundreds of police were deployed to monitor “sensitive” locations, with several officers occupying the rally site in Victoria Park.
On Monday night, performance artist Sanmu Chen was taken away by police after drawing the Chinese characters “8964” in the air, representing the date of the crackdown. Chen’s lawyer told AFP the artist was later released.
“The truth must not be erased.”
Meanwhile, Chinese people and Hong Kong exiles joined activists from Canada, Britain, the United States and elsewhere to remember the events of June 1989.
More than 2,000 people attended the Toronto rally, including the mayor, a rally was also held on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, and a series of events in London included public debates, exhibitions and theatre productions.
Campaign group Hong Kong Watch stressed the importance of remembering June 4.
“Free people must take responsibility to ensure that June 4, 1989, is never forgotten,” said Benedict Rogers, founder and executive director of the organization. “We must ensure that candles are lit and memories are remembered in every corner of the world to honor the courage and sacrifice of those who protested in 1989. The truth must not be erased.”
These are photos I took in May and June 1989, the last one from the 12th floor of a Beijing hotel. Thirty-five years on, the world and China have changed a lot, but does 1989 still matter? Or will it just fade into the memory of fewer and fewer people? And will it eventually? pic.twitter.com/MOLHVVDB42
— Bill Bishop (@niubi) June 3, 2024
This is an old flame that the HK Alliance used to promote #June 4th Candlelight vigils #Hong Kong Thirty years on. The Hong Kong Alliance has been shut down, its leaders imprisoned, and banned from gathering since 2020, but Hong Kongers around the world have carried on its torch. #FightForFreedom. pic.twitter.com/ZkHT5vfP2P
— Hong Kong Democratic Council (@hkdc_us) June 3, 2024
Taiwan’s Lai, who was sworn in last month after winning January’s presidential election, said the Tiananmen Square massacre was a reminder that “democracy and freedom are hard-won.”
Beijing has not ruled out using force to seize control of Taiwan, and conducted two days of military drills around the island just days after President Lai Michel took office.
In his post, Lai praised Taiwan’s transition from an authoritarian military regime to a thriving democracy, writing that “any respectable country” allows its people to have a voice.
“Social change often depends on diverse opinions, so any political power should be brave enough to listen to the voices of its people, especially the younger generation,” he said.
“We must use democracy to build consensus, meet tyranny with freedom and confront the rise of authoritarianism with courage, and rise to the challenges together,” he said.
China has denounced Lai as a “separatist” and, like her predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, has said Taiwan’s people should decide their own future.
Taiwan will hold its own Tiananmen Square commemoration on Tuesday evening.
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