12China’s Communist Party
leaders want their people
to help build a “beautiful,
democratic” society. I know, because
I’ve seen the propaganda slogan, by
the side of a road in Beijing, exhorting
passing drivers to do their bit. This
mantra was announced on two
prominent red statues standing at
an intersection a couple of miles
from Tiananmen Square.
The day I saw it was exactly 30 years
after the vast protest in the square was
crushed by the army on 4 June 1989.
The democracy that China’s leaders talk
of now is very, very different from the
democracy that the gathered masses in
the square wanted three decades ago.
This year, I encountered reports
of police checking the IDs of more
people than usual around the square
on 4 June. The barriers surrounding
the pole that is the centre of the daily
flag-raising ritual were set wider than
usual. But there were no large-scale
special measures in place for the 30th
anniversary of the protests. There
didn’t need to be.
There is no official commemoration
of what’s known colloquially here as
64 or 6489, referring to the date of the
state crackdown. Hundreds – more
likely thousands – of people died that
day. Some were crushed by tanks; others
were shot. Most died in the roads
approaching the square. Some soldiers
who targeted those people protesting
were turned on, or even lynched by,
crowds of protestors. Yet, despite theThirty years
ago, pro-
democracy
protests in
Beijing were
suppressed
with lethal force – yet are
barely mentioned in China
today. BBC correspondent
Robin Brant asks why
1989’s Tiananmen Square
demonstrations have been
erased from its memory
Why China
has forgotten
‘Tank Man’
horrific end to what was a peaceful
protest, it is barely mentioned in
China today.
A colleague of mine reviewed several
Chinese school textbooks to look for
accounts of the protest and its suppres-
sion; they found no mention. The
official historical record of that time
from Xinhua, China’s state-run news
agency, refers only to the “political
turbulence” in Beijing.
The long-lens photograph (pictured
right) of ‘Tank Man’, a lone individual
with shopping bags blocking a column
of tanks on 5 June, the day after the
violence, is the iconic image of those
few tumultuous days – in the west, at
least. In China, it’s far from a widely
recognised image. To this day, it’s
not known who he is or was.
Official revisionism has been hugely
successful, and it has been reinforced
by China’s ever-tighter control over the
internet within its borders. Only with
a type of technology called a virtual
private network (VPN), which can
circumvent state censorship, can
people here read about the ‘turbulence’
of 1989. And many are nervous to even
discuss awareness of that kind of
system. One family friend, who asked
if I had visited Beijing to report on the
30th anniversary of the Tiananmen
Square protests, wouldn’t refer to
a VPN out loud in conversation.
The early hours of that Sunday in ear-
ly June marked the death of democratic
reform in China. But economic reform
followed – not a broad, incrementalInside
Story
Robin Brant is China correspondent for
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