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Hongkongers and mainlanders born in 1989 reflect on what Tiananmen Square means to them
On the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, we ask 25-year-olds from Hong Kong and the mainland for their opinions on the event and its legacy
This file image taken on June 3, 1989 shows PLA soldiers and students in front of the Great Hall of the People at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Photo: AFP
For some, being born in the year of Tiananmen Square serves as a constant reminder of what an autocratic regime is capable of when met with dissent. For others, the tragic event is merely a piece of history that continues to fade with the emergence of first world worries.
Exactly 25 years after the bloody crackdown, 25-year-olds from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland remain divided on their perception of June 4.
“This part of history is very taboo for us, the exact details are not very clear,” Sun Xuebin, a Shandong-born Beijing resident, said.
Sun, who now works in the education and training industry, says he didn’t learn about the event until he was 18. “My mother told me that my uncle was in Beijing at the time and she was worried he would end up in jail.”
A view of Tiananmen Gate on Wednesday June 4, 2014. Photo: SCMP Pictures
When asked to summarise the event, Sun said: “There was a power struggle between some very educated students and the party, and to preserve its power, the party declared martial law against the students and many innocent people died, I don’t know how many.”
Similarly, a Sichuan-native who only wanted to be known by his English name, Alex Li, said he did not learn about the event until he was studying abroad in France. Li recalled watching clips of a documentary on the incident with his dorm mate.
“We began searching for more videos online and ended up watching them late into the night,” Li said, “I thought it was absurd, how could I not know?”
“When I first learned about it, I got very emotional and even angry; the documentaries on the incident were obviously made with the intent of making people angry.”
Watch: Chinese mainland travellers visit Hong Kong June 4th museum ahead of 25th anniversary
“But now, I think the situation was not so simple as that. It could not have been just a student demonstration, I think some of the protesters in the square really enjoyed being leaders, not everyone was protesting for the right reasons” Li said.
In the digital age, mainlanders have more access to information than ever before, despite the authorities’ internet censorship and Weibo, a microblogging service, serves as a forum to express opinions online.
“I don’t feel like I’m not free, as the students in the documentaries probably did,” Li said. “But I have no interest in pursuing politics, I have enough problems of my own.”
In this June 4, 1989 photo, a rickshaw driver peddles wounded people to a Beijing hospital after they were injured during clashes in Tiananmen Square. Photo: AP
Since 1989, China has become the world’s second largest economy, behind only the US after years of unprecedented economic growth. Western lifestyles and products have flooded into the mainland, offering young adults like Sun and Li luxuries their parents never had. Some critics believe young people have become more materialistic and less politically aware.
“I worry about rent and my personal life. I know many people in government are corrupt, but I don’t feel the need to stand up to them,” Sun said.
Lin Junjie, a graduate student from the Graduate Institute of Building and Planning at National Taiwan University, said that he began learning about the incident around the fourth grade (age 9-10), but even now he finds it difficult to know how to feel.
“At first I was like everyone else, I felt like China was a dark and violent place with no freedom. But now, I can only say that the truth surrounding the incident was stifled and injustice was done, but I cannot relate to it,” he said.
In Hong Kong, where students like Lo Yan-chi took the path of social activism – he was among those who protested in the city against the high-speed railway to Guangzhou in 2010 – emotions run high.
“I didn’t realise there’s more to life than studying for exams before my secondary teacher showed us in class a documentary on the Tiananmen massacre,” said Lo, a cultural studies graduate from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“It’s moving to see that some young people back then could go that far and sacrificed their lives for the common good,” he said.
While the “nativist” movement in recent years has suggested that Hong Kong should sever its ties with the mainland and even stop holding the annual candlelit vigil to commemorate June 4, Lo insisted the ritual must carry on to “enlighten the politically apathetic”.
“Whether you like it or not, Hong Kong’s fate since the handover has become intertwined with China’s, and that’s why it’s essential for Hongkongers to better understand the nature of the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.
“Our generation will live to see what our hometown will become after 2047 and witness this growing sense of local identity transforming into a political force.”
Emerging social movement figures like Joshua Wong Chi-fung have made him more hopeful about the city’s future as young people demonstrate that they are already thinking about subsequent generations.
But those from his parents’ generation should not shy away from social activism, he said.
“They have a moral obligation to give back to their hometown after enjoying most of the benefits from the prosperity and economic boom during the 1970s and 1980s,” he said.
Zhang Xianling holds a photo of her son Wang Nan. Photo: Reuters
Before a field of lit candles, Hong Kong last night honoured the Tiananmen Mothers and the children they lost 25 years ago.
One of the founders of the support and democracy group, Ding Zilin , said in a taped video message to the crowd gathered in Victoria Park: "It has been a painful journey of life." For the first two years after the death of her son, Jiang Jielian, she said, life became unbearable.
Now, 25 years later, the mothers of Tiananmen Square's dead persist in their singular goal: for China's government to exonerate their children and disclose what happened when troops fired on protesters in June 1989.
"The crackdown didn't only kill and injure thousands of young people. It ruined their families," Zhang Xianling, one of the founders of the Tiananmen Mothers, said.
"The same misfortune has brought us together, as we all lost our loved ones in the 1989 bloody crackdown."
They face a government that has vilified the protesters and justified the army's violent response.
The group has tried to enlist support.
You Weijie , 61, widow of Yang Minghu, a civil servant, said that to prevent victims' families being silenced, she and four other group members began travelling beyond Beijing to other provinces and municipalities in October. She said the group recorded the testimony of more than 20 families in nine provinces and municipalities.
"I'm still unwilling to accept the fact that my son was shot dead," Jin Yaxi , who is 86 and lives in a remote village in Tongshan county, Xianning , Hubei , is quoted as saying on the group's website.
The parents of Wu Guofeng , a Renmin University student, speak of the difficulties they faced long after their 21-year-old son died in the protests.
"The authorities so far have still failed to give me a reason why my son was killed," Wu's father, Wu Dingfu , is quoted as saying. "In addition, local police have never stopped harassing me ... Every year, local officials prohibit us from openly burning offerings to my boy on the anniversary of his death."
Families kept mementoes of their loved ones, including oaths showing the students' passion for democratic reform, elegies by teachers and classmates, and writings and pictures produced by the students during the June 4 movement, You said. Some families had bloodstained clothing, studded with bullet holes.
The interviews and relics would be sent to the new Tiananmen memorial museum in Hong Kong to prod the Beijing authorities to divulge the truth about the crackdown, You said.
Zhang said they had had to halt the travelling campaign because authorities had increased surveillance of core group members since February. She said that police last month summoned You and the four others in the campaign to give statements. "But what they have done will not scare us off," she said.
Mo Shaoping (left) with the wife of jailed Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, Liu Xia. Photo: AFP
When tanks rolled into Beijing and troops opened fire to crush the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in the early hours of June 4, 1989, many people’s lives were changed forever.
Many gave up their dreams for a democratic China and focused on making a better living for themselves, but for a few, the event spurred them into dedicating their lives to their ideals.
Leading human rights lawyers Mo Shaoping and liberal intellectual Cao Siyuan were among them.
If there had not been a Tiananmen crackdown 25 years ago, Mo says he probably would have never embarked on a career as a human rights lawyer.
Mo, 56, is one of China’s longest serving and most prominent rights lawyers, having represented political activists, journalists and dissidents for nearly two decades.
Speaking recently about how he started defending government critics, he said it was his sympathy for people implicated for their links with the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement that spurred him to defend them.
In the 1990s, only veteran lawyer Zhang Sizhi and Mo would take on political cases, many of which involved former Tiananmen activists, he said.
"In those days, no other lawyers dared represent them. These people were deprived of their rights to be defended [in court],” he said.
“We were very isolated,” Mo said. “At the time, when you took up sensitive cases, the judiciary bureau would summon you and told you to uphold the party and the government’s image and [you] must give face to the court.”
He said he took up his first “sensitive” case in 1995, when the wife of veteran democracy advocate Liu Nianchun could not find other lawyers to defend him.
Liu was sentenced to three years of “re-education through labour” for helping organise a signature campaign calling for democracy and the rule of law upon the sixth anniversary of the crackdown on the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement.
Since then, he has defended former university lecturer Liu Xiaobo, who supported students on Tiananmen Square and later launched a signature campaign to urge the government to reassess the event. Liu was jailed three times before being sentenced again in 2009 to 11 years in prison on the charge of “inciting subversion” for co-authoring the Charter 08 democracy manifesto.
Mao’s other clients have included dissidents Jiang Qisheng and Zhang Lin, political activists Xu Wenli, Lu Gengsong and Zhu Yufu and writer Du Daobin.
Mo, who spent four years in the army as a young man, said he used to harbour “good feelings” towards the Communist Party and joined it in 1979. But the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989 shocked him.
Students go on hunger strike as several hundred students camp out at Tiananmen Square on May 14, 1989. Photo: AFP
"I thought the students did nothing wrong. How could the army open fire and use tanks on ordinary people?” he said.
The incident convinced him that one-party rule must be changed.
"If that doesn’t change, there won’t be genuine democracy and the rule of law,” he said.
"[The crackdown] strengthened my belief that a country should embark on the road of rule of law and constitutional democracy. It’s the best system to safeguard people’s freedoms and basic human rights … and makes a country genuinely prosperous,” he said.
Mo said the government must confront its mistake and disclose the historical facts about the June 4 crackdown. He said that would be a pretext to reconciliation and the elimination of animosity between the government and the people.
"As a starting point, you must disclose the truth. If you don’t tell people the truth, you will never gain the people’s understanding,” Mo said, adding that facts such as how many people were killed and which leaders ordered the troops to open fire have never been revealed.
"And if there is no reconciliation, there will be hatred forever, and the country has no future,” he said.
The life of Cao, 68, a leading liberal intellectual, was also completely changed by the Tiananmen incident. But 25 years on, his ideals still remained strong.
Throughout most of the 1980s, he worked in government think tanks researching economic reform issues, famously proposing and drafting the mainland’s first bankruptcy law. A year before the crackdown, he stepped down to join a private think tank to focus on pushing the authorities to take on political reform.
During the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement, Cao was one of the intellectuals asked by the government to persuade students to stop their hunger strikes and to return to their classes.
And days before the crackdown, Cao garnered signatures from scores of members of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee to urge the parliament to hold an emergency session to peacefully resolve the stand-off on Tiananmen Square. The move failed to stop the crackdown and the authorities investigated those who were involved.
For these efforts, Cao was accused of being a “black hand” who masterminded the pro-democracy movement, and he was arrested in the afternoon of June 3, just hours before troops descended on Beijing to suppress protesters.
Cao was secretly detained for nearly a year in Beijing’s Qincheng Prison, during which time he was repeatedly interrogated about his relationship with student demonstrators. The police did not immediately inform his family, and for months, they presumed he had died in the crackdown.
"There was no charge, no trial, no sentencing. It was illegal detention,” he reminisced recently. The authorities could not find evidence against him but didn’t want to release him either, he said.
Twenty five years later, Cao is still agitated by the failure of his efforts to prevent the tragedy.
"[The crackdown] was completely preventable – if the National People’s Congress could hold such a meeting, there would have been no need to open fire,” Cao said. “I tried my best to prevent this disaster from happening, but they didn’t take my advice.”
Cao blamed the country’s constitution for touting “the dictatorship of the proletariat”, which, in Marxist doctrine, justifies the use of “ruthless, extra-judicial oppression” against reactionary forces in the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The resulting lawlessness meant no one could be spared, he said.
"The manifestation of this was the troops opening fire. It was the suppression of the enemy class,” he said. “This [concept] is the root of all evils.”
He said the government must reassess its earlier verdict that Tiananmen was “counter-revolutionary unrest”, but what should be an even more urgent and workable task is for a new clause to be introduced in the constitution to bar the army or police from opening fire on civilians.
"To prevent the tragedy from happening again, can we depend on the leaders?” he asked. “We have to incorporate it into the system: the army and police cannot open fire on ordinary people.”
He said this suggestion should be the least difficult option for top leaders to accept in regards to addressing “the June 4 issue”.
He nonetheless insisted that the government must reverse the verdict on Tiananmen, saying reconciliation with Tiananmen victims and ordinary people could only happen when it admits its fault.
"When the verdict is reversed, then the Communist Party can lay down its burden,” Cao said, pointing out that after the party vindicated Cultural Revolution victims in the early 1980s, the country was able to carry out reforms and make progress.
"If the June 4 issue is not resolved, the country cannot progress,” Cao said.
Sin Wai-keung, 52, newspaper editor and former news photographer, poses in front of a projection of a photograph he took in Beijing in 1989, in Hong Kong May 22, 2014. Sin's photo shows a man standing in front of a column of tanks in Beijing on the morning of June 5, 1989. Recalling the moment he took the photo, Sin said, "Most important, it got photographed. I didn't think about the danger, or whether it would become an iconic image, as the news was still going on." Sin further said, "I believe there will be more important images on June 4th to surface in the future which fully describe the event." June 4, 2014 marks the 25th anniversary of the military crackdown on the pro-democracy movement at Beijing's Tiananmen Square. REUTERS/Bobby Yip
Lee Cheuk-yan, 57, lawmaker and chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, poses with a candle in the center of a pathway symbolizing a bright future at the June 4th Museum in Hong Kong May 28, 2014. Recalling his memories of his support for the pro-democracy protest, Lee said, "Before the crackdown, I thought it was the hope for China. Hearing the gunshots made it the darkest day of my life. Being detained for three days afterwards was a shocking experience to me." Lee further said, "Everything still feels like it happened yesterday. We maintain the spirit of the movement, but we have not achieved what the movement has been demanding." REUTERS/Bobby Yip
Lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung (R), 58, and worker Koo Sze-yiu, 67, pose with a mock coffin inside a factory building, where Koo made the coffin, in Hong Kong May 31, 2014. The two are some of the most prominent protesters in the territory, due to their radical gestures in demanding the redress of the military crackdown on the pro-democracy movement. Recalling his memories of the time, Koo said, "I was very angry and thought the regime had no future." Leung said, "If another pro-democracy movement occurs on the mainland and we protest, I guess we will face the Hong Kong garrison of the People's Liberation Army, and not Hong Kong police." The Chinese characters on the coffin read, "Eternal glory to the people's heroes". REUTERS/Bobby Yip
A framed photo of the late Szeto Wah, who was a lawmaker and chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, at a candlelight vigil on June 4, 2007, is seen in this photo illustration taken in Hong Kong on May 27, 2014. "To redress June 4" was one of the wishes of Szeto, who died in 2011 at the age of 79. REUTERS/Bobby Yip
Barrister Martin Lee, 75, a former lawmaker and founding chairman of the Democratic Party, poses with a model of the Goddess of Democracy statue at his office in Hong Kong May 21, 2014. Recalling his memory of the military crackdown, Lee said, "I immediately cried when someone phoned me telling me about it, as I couldn't imagine they would open fire on their own students and people." Lee further said, "I still think the massacre is wrong and it has to be redressed." REUTERS/Bobby Yip
Local businessman Chan Tat-ching, 70, poses at Victoria Park in Hong Kong May 26, 2014. Chan was the commander of "Operation Yellowbird", which, under his command, helped over 130 students and dissidents flee from mainland China, after the military crackdown on the pro-democracy movement. Chan has attended every annual candlelight vigil held at the park to commemorate those who died in the crackdown. Recalling his memory of the time, Chan said, "Initially I thought China was engaged in a big progress to allow student protests at Tiananmen Square for such a long time, but I started worrying when things developed." Chan further said, "I do not regret what I have done for the Operation. It is lucky that China's economy has improved since then." REUTERS/Bobby Yip
Columnist Johnny Lau, 60, a former Hong Kong journalist based in Beijing, poses in front of an installation of the Tiananmen Gate at the June 4th Museum in Hong Kong May 30, 2014. Lau witnessed the progress of the pro-democracy movement and the military crackdown in the Chinese capital between April and June 1989. Recalling his coverage, Lau said, "I didn't feel frightened but angry. How could they shoot ordinary residents who didn't carry any arms? I thought it was the result of an unbalanced power between authorities, which was not how a modern government should act. I need to maintain the historical truth for future generations to keep a record, and to judge."
REUTERS/Bobby Yip
Lawyer Kenneth Lam, 46, the former chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, poses beside an replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue at The Chinese University of Hong Kong May 30, 2014. Lam, who was studying at the university and was in Beijing supporting mainland students, was in one of the last batches of people to flee Beijing's Tiananmen Square early on June 4, 1989 during the military crackdown on the pro-democracy movement. Recalling his memory of the time, Lam said, "I felt shocked and sad when the soldiers used not plastic bullets or water cannons, but machine guns." Lam further said, "I am pleased to see after all these years more people, especially young people, standing on the bright side of humanity, and demanding the issue be redressed." REUTERS/Bobby Yip
A portrait of Chinese journalist Gao Yu is displayed by a protester in front of the national emblem of China during a demonstration calling for the release of Gao, Hong Kong publisher Yao Wentian and Chinese lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, outside the Chinese liaison office in Hong Kong May 11, 2014. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
A man points at a June 4, 1989 issue of a Chinese newspaper report of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, at a museum dedicated to the protests,
in Tsim Sha Tsui April 26, 2014. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
