‘Tracked for life’: China relentless in erasing Tiananmen crackdown

Fan Baolin says he sneaked out of China last year to escape surveillance used to deter him from more activism

Fan said when he visited Beijing on the Tiananmen protests’ 30th anniversary, police called and order him to return home

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Hong Kong’s annual vigil for victims of the Tiananmen crackdown was banned for the second year in a row. The city was the only large-scale public gathering on Chinese soil to remember the 1989 crackdown. Photo: AP Photo

Published: 11:23pm, 3 Jun 2021Updated: 8:59am, 4 Jun 2021

The ruling Communist Party of China’s deadly 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests never ended for Fan Baolin, who served 17 years in prison and says he sneaked out of the country last year to escape surveillance that included cameras trained on his flat and pressure on his family to deter him from more activism.

Fan, who took part in the demonstrations and later worked for the party’s vast security apparatus, was arrested in 1999 for giving activists abroad confidential documents about surveillance of Chinese pro-democracy exiles.

Released in 2016, he became among those who still are watched by the party a generation later in an effort to erase public memory of the protests in the heart of Beijing.

“Once you are on the Chinese government’s blacklist, you will be tracked for life,” Fan said ahead of Friday’s anniversary of the June 4, 1989, military attack on protesters. He spoke in another Asian country and asked that it not be identified while its government considers his request for asylum.

Party leaders have imprisoned or driven activists into exile and largely succeeded in ensuring young people know little about June 4. Still, after more than three decades and three changes of leadership, they are relentless in trying to prevent any mention of the attack that killed hundreds and possibly thousands of people.