Tiananmen still taboo in China after all these years
| Beijing
Chinese Internet censors went into overdrive on Tuesday, desperately blacking out any reference to the 24th聽anniversary of the military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, which falls today.
Indeed 鈥渢oday鈥� was one of the banned words on Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. If you searched for it, you were told that 鈥渁ccording to relevant laws, regulations, and policies, the results cannot be shown.鈥�
Nearly a quarter of a century after a student-led reform movement ended on June 4, 1989, with the military occupation of Tiananmen Square and the deaths of hundreds, possibly thousands of people, the whole affair is still taboo in China.
Since the government ruled the demonstrations 鈥渃ounter-revolutionary鈥� no Chinese language newspaper has ever recalled them, no Chinese leader has ever referred to them, and citizens are not allowed to remember them.
Three activists in the southern city of Guangzhou were locked up last week because they applied for a city permit to hold a Tiananmen memorial march. A group of mothers whose children were killed in the crackdown and who have sought an official reckoning of the event ever since, wrote despairingly to President Xi Jinping last week that 鈥渢o this day all our efforts have been in vain. We have received not a single response from the government.鈥�
And frankly, this officially imposed amnesia has done the job the government intended it to do.
Political activists and 鈥渄issidents鈥� recall the tragic events, of course, and do their best to communicate the fact that they have not forgotten. Like journalist He Gang, who yesterday posted 鈥淚 remember that year. Passion on fire鈥� on his blog, they find elliptical ways around the censor.
But they are a handful of voices. The vast majority of Chinese citizens pay the occasion no mind, and most people under 35 are not even aware of what 6/4 signifies.
Still, the paranoia that the censors displayed on Tuesday 鈥� banning any combination of digits that might add up to 64 or 89 鈥� suggests that the authorities are by no means comfortable in their seats of power.
The mood in China is certainly very different from the 1980s, when the universities and the press were in political and intellectual ferment. Today, the dead weight of ideological orthodoxy stifles any debate about political reform and 鈥渄emocracy鈥� is not a rallying cry for many Chinese citizens.
Instead, they are much more likely to be angry about the way in which their government has failed to take care of practical matters in the headlong rush for economic development. And they are not shy to express that anger.
Recent street protests in the southwestern city of Kunming against a gas factory reflected widespread environmental concerns. Angry comments on the Chinese web today about the locked doors that trapped victims of Monday鈥檚 deadly poultry factory fire suggested that corrupt safety inspectors may have played a role.聽
In the minds of democracy activists, of course, such practical matters are not unrelated to broader philosophical questions. A properly elected government, subject to democratic oversight, might have felt obliged to provide better protection for the country鈥檚 environment and its citizens鈥� lives, for example.
But this is not an argument that resonates with most Chinese citizens. Instead, they look to the authorities to show stronger guidance and control in order to correct society鈥檚 shortcomings.
For many liberals, official readiness to reconsider the ruling Communist Party鈥檚 harsh judgment of the Tiananmen protests would be a key indicator that the government was ready for political reform. (Get a sense of what the mood was like a year after the protests)
There is little sign of that, however. Rebutting a statement from Washington marking the Tiananmen anniversary, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei insisted that 鈥渁 clear conclusion has already been made concerning the political turmoil that happened in the late 1980s,鈥� and that 鈥渢he path we have chosen serves the fundamental interest of the Chinese people.鈥�
That kind of statement, coming on top of a recent crackdown on independent-minded intellectuals, does not bode well for the sort of future some liberals foresaw under new President Xi. The Tiananmen Mothers were blunt in their open letter to the president. After 24 years 鈥渙ur hope is fading,鈥� they wrote, 鈥渁nd despair is drawing near.鈥�
