June 4th, 1989

The bloodbath that saw thousands killed (the official number is not known) culminated on the nights of June 4th and 5th (even some time after) initially started as a months-long protest against the political corruption rife in the communist government and oppression that stifled the masses. The months-long protest was supported by local civilians and attended by students from in and outside the city.

Now, no one wants to talk about it and it's business as usual:

The crowds began to gather at Tiananmen Square in the early hours of a day that marked 30 years since soldiers opened fire in the heart of Beijing, bloodying the streets with the bodies of unarmed student protesters.

But the people who came Tuesday showed no obvious sign of assembling to commemorate the hundreds, perhaps thousands, who died here in 1989. They came instead bearing selfie sticks, bright red ball caps and bags of deep-fried dough sticks – tourists from across the country who raised their arms for smiling pictures, mimicking the gesture made famous by Chairman Mao Zedong. One woman broke out into a finger-snapping, foot-stomping dance before the portrait of Mao that stares out onto the square. Others joined a lengthy queue, eager to gaze in reverence at his preserved body in an adjacent mausoleum. ...

What happened 30 years ago?” a reporter suggested.

You mean, to commemorate 70 years, he responded. It’s a reference to the anniversary of the founding of Communist China in 1949, an event that will be marked with much fanfare in October of this year by the modern leaders who have inherited the apparatus of power once helmed by Chairman Mao.

The events of 1989 – the student protests across the country, the sudden appearance of critical reporting on state media, the grisly end to it all – received no such attention on Tuesday. Marks of quiet remembrance circulated between friends using coded language on chat apps. But internet searches for June 4, 1989, and related terms yielded no information. Censors blocked CNN’s website, while Reuters articles about Tiananmen were purged from financial terminals. Police already acted weeks ago to place former student protesters and other activists under house arrest, keeping them from making public displays.

China’s foreign ministry, however, offered a stern rebuke to critics, accusing U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of “lunatic words and idiotic nonsense” and the European Union of making groundless accusations while interfering in China’s internal affairs. “The development path China has chosen is totally correct and is firmly supported by public,” said spokesman Geng Shuang on Tuesday.

Mr. Pompeo, in a statement earlier in the day, said hopes of China becoming a more open and tolerant society “have been dashed.” He added that “China’s one-party state tolerates no dissent and abuses human rights whenever it serves its interests.” The European Union said it “continues to mourn the victims and offers its condolences to their families.” Canada, in a brief statement posted to the Facebook site of its consulate in Hong Kong, said: “Today, we pause to remember the tragic events that took place 30 years ago on June 4th, 1989.”

But such words were kept from Chinese audiences, as were a pair of unusual official mentions of Tiananmen history. On Sunday, Defence Minister Wei Fenghe told a Singapore audience that China’s measures to stop the “political turbulence” were the “correct policy,” saying “China has enjoyed stability and development” as a result. On Monday, the Global Times, a Communist Party-owned newspaper, published an English-language editorial that called the bloody suppression of the protests a “vaccination for the Chinese society” that “will greatly increase China’s immunity against any major political turmoil in the future.”

The Global Times did not print the editorial in Chinese, and Mr. Wei’s remarks appeared nowhere on Chinese media, which on Tuesday broadcast images of current protests in Sudan, and of a new logo for the 70th anniversary celebrations, an emblem described as “a new page turning in China’s history.”

On Tuesday, the only visible sign of something unusual stood on the streets around Tiananmen Square, where men in shirt-sleeves kept vigilant watch. A taxi driver nearby says they’re plain clothes police.

In China, few “even realize this is a day that should be remembered,” said Louisa Lim, author of The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited. Those who do remember “have been so cowed into submission by very visible punishment of acts of remembrance that people don’t dare any more.”

Further:

The battle of Beijing is best seen from the Bejing Hotel, just northeast of Tiananmen Square. Yesterday, stunned tourists stood on their balconies smoking cigarets and watching tanks run right past the hotel.

They were kept up all night by machine-gun fire. Yesterday morning, they saw soldiers deliberately fire into the backs of fleeing crowds.

"They are crazy, absolutely crazy," shrieked a French tourist watching in horror.

(source)

A full shot of one of the most iconic (a word used properly here) photographs of the entire incident. One man stood in the way of a train of tanks sent in to mow down the protesters. It's baffling to think of the lengths a government will go to crush its own people and even more baffling to wonder why we allow this to happen.