Tiananmen Square: 20 Years Ago

Twenty years ago in Beijing, hundreds and hundreds died when the Chinese government used military force to halt pro-democracy demonstrations by the Chinese people.

The Chinese have taken measures to prevent the country's citizens from marking the anniversary.

From the New York Times:

China blanketed Tiananmen Square with police officers on Thursday, determined to prevent any commemoration of the 20th anniversary of a military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters that left hundreds dead.

Visitors to the sprawling plaza in central Beijing were stopped at checkpoints and searched, and foreign television crews and photographers were firmly turned away. Uniformed and plainclothes officers, easily identifiable by their similar shirts, seemingly outnumbered tourists.

A few pursued television cameramen with opened umbrellas trying to block their shots — a comical dance that was shown on CNN and the BBC. There was no flicker of protest. Other than the intense police presence and the government’s blockage of some popular Internet services, the scorching hot day passed like any other in the capital.

The scene was vastly different in Hong Kong: throngs gathered at a park on Thursday evening for an enormous candlelight vigil on the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests.

The organizers said 150,000 people joined the vigil, tying the record set by the first anniversary vigil in 1990 and dwarfing every subsequent vigil. The police estimated the crowd at 62,800, their largest estimate for any vigil except the one in 1990, which they put at 80,000.

I think we forget how precious our freedom is and how blessed we are. We forget that we still need to fight to preserve it.

From the Associated Press:

Xu Jue, the mother of student protester Wu Xiangdong who was killed during the Tiananmen crackdown 20 years ago, has been prevented by police from visiting her son's grave to mourn his death, a human rights watchdog said Thursday.

The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy quoted a statement by Xu as saying that she was caught by police Wednesday night when trying to sneak out of her house to go to the grave, and police presence around her house has been beefed up since then.

She said she believed police would take her to somewhere else for detention Thursday along with other members of Tiananmen Mothers, a group set up by some 200 parents of the dead students.

"In over 20 years, the authorities never revealed what really happened nor talked to the victims' families," Xu said in the statement. "Instead, they have been restricting personal freedom of citizens in violation of the Constitution. We therefore strongly condemn the authorities."

Hong Kong's Cable TV reported that families arriving at a public cemetery in Beijing where some of the slain students were buried were soon evicted by police after they drew media attention.

Another human rights advocacy group, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, listed 65 activists, including Xu Jue, who have been subjected to harassment from officials in order to prevent them from organizing or taking part in activities to commemorate the Tiananmen massacre.

"These individuals have been taken into police custody, had their movements restricted, been forced to leave their homes, or otherwise threatened or monitored by police," it said.

It's heartbreaking that the families of those massacred aren't allowed to visit the graves of their dead loved ones on the anniversary of their deaths.

I don't understand why Leftists want to embrace the ideology of this sort of oppressive regime.

All nations are not equal.

Claudia Rosett, the Wall Street Journal, shares her memories of what she saw at Tiananmen Square. Her experience gives her a special perspective on what it really means to be oppressed and be free.

It's now 20 years since I ran through a cross-fire of tracer bullets, heading into Beijing's Tiananmen Square in the early hours of June 4 to witness the end of the uprising in which millions of Chinese, in the spring of 1989, peacefully seized control of their own capital and demanded democracy.

In a long career as a reporter, which has included both tanks and gunfire elsewhere, there is no story I have covered that has been more haunting, inspiring and important than that Tiananmen uprising. And there is no story that, in its plotline, has been more heartbreaking.

Tiananmen was -- and is -- important because that spring of 1989 was the only time in the despotic, 60-year history of the People's Republic of China that the people themselves enjoyed the chance to speak, debate and assemble freely. What they did with that freedom, by the millions, was call peacefully for China's government to institutionalize those rights. They called for democracy and marched under banners bearing exactly that word. They asked for the right to choose their leaders and hold them to account.

When China's Premier Li Peng declared martial law on May 19, just over two weeks before the actual crackdown, the people of Beijing set up bus and truck barricades and camped out in the streets to block any army advance. More whimsically, they created obstacle courses of noodle carts and potted plants. They were looking not for violence but for liberty. In the words of one white-collar worker, typical of many who helped man the barricades, "I think the most important thing for China is democracy and freedom."

And when China's rulers finally ordered the army to open fire and move in, these protesters tried desperately to hold their ground. Behind me as I ran into Tiananmen Square in those early hours of June 4 was a huge crowd -- ordinary citizens, not students -- who had poured into the streets, trying to stop the soldiers from reaching Tiananmen.

On one of the broad avenues leading into the square I had watched that crowd mount a last-ditch defense -- torching barricades, clutching bricks and bottles, facing into the gunfire. How many died on that road alone we still don't know.

...At the time, I was working for the editorial pages of this newspaper. In the story I filed later that day to New York, I closed with the observation that by dawn on June 4 the Chinese army had already destroyed the white statue of liberty built by the protesters and that no doubt the square, tidied and thoroughly policed, would soon be available again for official functions. I noted that it would be important to remember the heroes of 1989, the people who carried banners to Tiananmen demanding democracy, the people who that spring cried out so many times: "Tell the world what we want. Tell the truth about China."

Since the Tiananmen uprising of 1989, China's rulers have loosened the economic strictures enough to allow remarkable growth -- testament to the vibrancy of the Chinese people given even half a chance. Out of this, China's rulers have devoted enormous resources to projects meant to suggest they run a modern nation -- sending astronauts into space, convening conferences on the climate, and hosting the 2008 Olympics.

Count me unimpressed. The real sign of modernity will come when China opens up its political system enough so that the country's leaders no longer fear June 4 but treat the Tiananmen uprising with the honor it deserves.

During the protests, on one of those warm spring evenings just before the crackdown, I was wandering around Tiananmen, notebook in hand, and came across a young man sitting in a beach chair on the monument where the demonstrators were soon to make their last stand. He had a question about what happens when you get your dream of democracy: What then? As he put it: "I know what China is dreaming. What is America dreaming?"

The answer of free societies, the old American dream, is that you may choose for yourself. Freedom, in the framework of a true democracy, allows individuals to weigh their own talents, skills and ambitions, choose their own trade-offs, and chart their own dreams. That gives rise to innovation, exuberance and prosperity of a kind that no government can plan or centrally command into existence.

Her column is a must-read. It's excellent.

When I think of the oppression described by Rosett, I think of how thankful I am to live in our great nation. I want to protect it.

Reflecting on what happened in Tiananmen Square 20 years ago and what's happening in China today provides me with inspiration.

I want to remain vigilant to prevent the erosion of my freedoms and to refuse to allow the government to envelop the private sector and swallow it.

I don't like the sort of changes that Obama and his comrades have pushed on me. I don't like what he intends to do in the future.

Why are so many of us willing to give up our freedoms?

Why are we willing to give more power to the government?

Why are we willing to relinquish personal control and let the government determine the course of our lives?

Why are we willing to allow a bloated bureaucracy put limits on our dreams?

As the young man said to Rosett, "I know what China is dreaming. What is America dreaming?"

Actually, I think remembering Tiananmen Square may be just as important for Americans as for the Chinese.

Are WE going to ignore the lessons of 20 years ago?

No surrender. Be the guy standing in front of the tanks.