AS the world focuses on China for the fifth anniversary of the June 4 massacre, Beijing has ordered hotels to pull the plug on CNN television broadcasts and tried to divert domestic attention elsewhere. Chinese officials complain of the West's obsession with Tiananmen and the crushing of the student democracy movement as if it had been no more than a passing hiccup. It is because it was no such thing that the anniversary must not be passed over in silence.
Compared with some of China's previous political convulsions, Tiananmen may seem relatively tame. Yet for hundreds of millions of Chinese both inside and outside the country it carries greater significance. Not only was it the first upheaval to have suchan immediate impact on international political awareness - it was also the seminal political experience for a generation for whom the Cultural Revolution was just a childhood memory. Older Chinese knew to treat the apparent political relaxation of the Beijing Spring with distrust. The protesters on Tiananmen Square had to discover the leadership's ruthless cynicism for themselves.
Tiananmen was also a powerful wake-up call for Hong Kong. Since 1984, the territory had accustomed itself to assuming Britain and China provide stability while Hong Kong delivered its own prosperity. The disappointment and anger which drove a million people to march through the streets reflected the realisation that Chinese rule after 1997 might not be so benign after all. In the five years since the crackdown, human rights in China have hardly improved. Dissidents are harassed and jailed. Political freedoms are non-existent. Religious worship is interfered with arbitrarily. Journalists are jailed for spying. Sentences for economic as well as political crimes are harsh.
Discontent continues to simmer close to the surface. The causes of the unrest that boiled over in 1989 - arbitrary government, economic disruption and rampant corruption - appear to have worsened in the past two years.
Yet while the anniversary has attracted media attention, governments have once again begun to come to terms with the fact that China is an indispensable partner politically and economically.
Most European governments followed former United States President George Bush in making peace with China during the Gulf War, and despite the occasional - and costly - flirtation with Taiwan, most have continued to court Beijing. Under President Bill Clinton, however, the US tried and failed to use trade as a lever to force improvements in human rights. To the victims of the 1989 military crackdown, and of China's continued political repression, that policy gave a glimmer of false hope.
