Candlelight vigil to mark Tiananmen Square anniversary
Tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents were set to hold a candlelight vigil today to mark the 16th anniversary of China’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
In Beijing, security was tight and there were no signs of public commemorations on the giant square, where 1989 student-led protests ended when soldiers and tanks attacked, killing hundreds of people.
China’s Communist Party has eased many of the social controls that spurred the student-led Tiananmen protests, but still crushes protests against the event - or any activity that it fears might threaten its monopoly on power.
But in a handful of other cities, some tried to keep the memory of the brutal crackdown alive.
A senior Chinese diplomat who abandoned his post and is seeking political asylum in Australia came out of hiding today to speak at a Sydney rally to observe the anniversary.
Chen Yonglin, 37, the consul for political affairs at the Chinese consulate-general in Sydney, said he was defecting because of a lack of freedoms in China. He gave examples of what he claimed were kidnappings, life imprisonment and executions of dissidents by Beijing.
“I feel very unsafe,” Chen said. “In 16 years, the Chinese government has done nothing for political reform. People have no political freedom, no human rights.”
Chen has been in hiding with his wife Jin Ping, 38, and their six-year-old daughter since he walked out of the Chinese consulate in Sydney a week ago. He had worked there for four years.
Chen said he hoped Australia’s government would offer him protection “so I will not have to hide again from today”.
In Beijing today, the government tightened security – as it usually does around June 4 – at Tiananmen Square, where tourists were watched by extra police and paramilitary troops. There was no hint of public mention of the event.
The anniversary, always sensitive for communist leaders, is especially touchy this year because it is the first since the death in January of Zhao Ziyang, the former Communist Party boss who was purged in 1989 after sympathising with the protesters.
In Hong Kong, the former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, many remain intensely emotional about the crackdown, when China’s army advanced on the square – ignoring the pleas of thousands of civilians – and killed unarmed students and pro-democracy activists.
Every year, tens of thousands of Hong Kongers commemorate the event with a candlelight vigil – the only one held on Chinese soil. Many feel a duty to speak out because they have freedoms of speech and assembly that don’t exist on the mainland.
But Donald Tsang, the front-runner campaigning to become Hong Kong’s next leader, today urged the public to be rational about the event, saying China has made great strides in improving its economy and people’s livelihood.
“I had shared Hong Kong people’s passion and impetus when the June 4 incident happened. But after 16 years, I’ve seen our country’s impressive economic and social development,” Tsang said. “My feelings have become calmer.”
Tsang said developments in China have also benefited Hong Kong. He was speaking on a phone-in radio program about his campaign.
His comment on Tiananmen drew fire from at least one caller, who attacked Tsang for suggesting that “economic achievement can wash away crime”.
Organisers of today’s vigil said this year’s theme is to demand that China face up to its past and “learn from history”. They said Beijing was condemning Japan for whitewashing its Second World War crimes, while forgiving itself for its own brutality in Tiananmen Square.
“Chinese leaders only know how to demand other countries to respect history and learn their lessons, but are not willing to face their own bloodstained past,” vigil organisers said in a statement.
A retired senior Chinese official, Li Pu, also called on Beijing to vindicate the 1989 pro-democracy movement, which was branded a “counter-revolutionary riot” by the Communist leadership.
“The students made big mistakes, but the government’s military crackdown was even worse. It was extremely wrong to send troops against ordinary people,” Li, former vice president of China’s official Xinhua News Agency, said in an interview with Hong Kong’s government-owned radio RTHK.
Li was a friend of Zhao Ziyang, who spent his last 15 years under house arrest.
“History will give Zhao Ziyang justice. Some years later, June 4 must be vindicated,” he said in the radio program aired yesterday.
