https://www.scmp.com/rss/500821/feed China was gripped by a pro-democracy movement in 1989, triggered by the death of reformist ex-leader Hu Yaobang. Mass street protests, weeks-long sit-ins and hunger strikes at Tiananmen Square by students and residents became the order of the day as demonstrators complained about corruption and demanded greater democracy as well as government transparency. The social unrest culminated in a brutal military crackdown on June 4 ordered by Beijing that effectively ended the movement and continues to... en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com A dissident legal scholar who was jailed for two years in China after taking part in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement was killed on Monday in his law firm’s office in New York, where he had settled after seeking asylum in the US, police said. Li Jinjin, 66, was stabbed to death in the city where he had long worked as an immigration lawyer, even as he continued to advocate publicly for the many people jailed or killed by Chinese authorities during the nation’s democracy... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3170487/tiananmen-square-protester-turned-lawyer-killed-his-new-york?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3170487/tiananmen-square-protester-turned-lawyer-killed-his-new-york?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 15 Mar 2022 04:18:17 +0000 Hong Kong officials on Tuesday night cited health grounds in banning an annual June vigil commemorating the Tiananmen Square crackdown. The Leisure and Cultural Services Department, pointing to the Covid-19 pandemic, said the organisers’ application for the use of Victoria Park on June 4 would not be processed. The statement came hours after the application for a letter of no objection for the planned rally was submitted to police by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3131219/does-hong-kongs-tiananmen-square-vigil-flout-national?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3131219/does-hong-kongs-tiananmen-square-vigil-flout-national?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 27 Apr 2021 04:19:56 +0000 The South China Morning Post was a big winner at this year’s Online Journalism Awards honouring the best of digital reporting and storytelling from around the world. The Post triumphed on Saturday in the “general excellence in online journalism” category for large newsrooms over its coverage of the Hong Kong protests, coronavirus pandemic and 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. During the tumult of 2019’s anti-government unrest and the emergence of the health crisis at the turn... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3105942/south-china-morning-post-wins-big-online-journalism-awards?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3105942/south-china-morning-post-wins-big-online-journalism-awards?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Oct 2020 09:32:50 +0000 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/series/3099997/tiananmen-square?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/series/3099997/tiananmen-square?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 08 Sep 2020 05:43:54 +0000 At least three vigil organisers and media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying will be prosecuted over the gathering of thousands in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park last week to mark the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, police have told them. News of the prosecutions came as activists were expected back on the streets on Friday to mark last year’s June 12 protest, in which police fired tear gas and rubber bullets for the first time in dispersing tens of thousands besieging the city’s administrative... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3088665/hong-kong-police-tell-tiananmen-vigil-organisers-and-media?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3088665/hong-kong-police-tell-tiananmen-vigil-organisers-and-media?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 11 Jun 2020 11:55:53 +0000 Zhao Ziyang, who sympathised with the student-led Tiananmen democracy movement three decades ago, was finally laid to rest on the outskirts of Beijing on Friday – 14 years after his death. The interment of ashes of the former general secretary of the Communist Party and his wife, Liang Boqi, took place a day after the 100th anniversary of Zhao’s birth. There was no official commemoration of the anniversary. Friday’s ceremony followed long, drawn-out negotiations between Zhao’s family and the... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3033535/low-key-ceremony-zhao-ziyang-who-opposed-tiananmen-crackdown?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3033535/low-key-ceremony-zhao-ziyang-who-opposed-tiananmen-crackdown?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 18 Oct 2019 06:44:36 +0000 Global companies with interests in China have long trodden carefully on the subjects of Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan and Tiananmen Square. On these issues of sovereignty, both the Chinese government and Chinese consumers have punished disagreement with the official line. There is much at stake. China has become the world’s largest market for luxury goods. This year, according to researchers eMarketer, it will overtake the US as the world’s largest market for all kinds of consumer goods combined. Hong... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/3032516/apple-nba-brands-have-bowed-china-amid-hong-kong-pro?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/news-trends/article/3032516/apple-nba-brands-have-bowed-china-amid-hong-kong-pro?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 11 Oct 2019 06:31:58 +0000 The accepted trigger for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy demonstrations was the government’s introduction of the extradition bill. However, the extradition bill may not have been the spark that set off of the pro-democracy demonstrations, though it served as a focus for pro-democracy sentiment. The actual trigger may have been the 30th anniversary of the crushing of the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square, which was recalled powerfully and painfully in Hong Kong. The sentiments associated with... https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3025345/hong-kong-may-be-new-tiananmen-square-centre-democratic-movement?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3025345/hong-kong-may-be-new-tiananmen-square-centre-democratic-movement?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Sep 2019 22:45:05 +0000 Vladimir Lenin once quipped that it was better to fall fighting in the streets than in some minister’s antechamber. Such a fate, he acknowledged, was even too cruel for a liberal. Elsewhere, he extolled the virtues of “learning” in the streets, with many failed attempts at revolution likely before success. Lenin’s success can be questioned, but without a doubt Marxism-Leninism found successors in China, as Comrade Xi Jinping repeatedly reminds us. Suffice to say that China’s Communist Party... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3025321/tiananmens-lesson-if-hong-kongs-protesters-want-fight-beijing-will?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3025321/tiananmens-lesson-if-hong-kongs-protesters-want-fight-beijing-will?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Sep 2019 22:30:12 +0000 Li Peng was not the “butcher of Beijing”, but he certainly was an embarrassment. Awkward and homely, bumbling and bashful, he was a loyal apparatchik pushed far beyond his own meagre talent, a tech nerd out of his depth and forced into a wholly inappropriate role at a historic moment. The protesters on the streets of Beijing in the spring of 1989 loved to hate him and it was not hard to see why, even if he was picked on for the wrong reasons. His imperious airs, his unbridled arrogance made him... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3019908/li-peng-wasnt-butcher-tiananmen-just-man-who-took-fall-deng?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3019908/li-peng-wasnt-butcher-tiananmen-just-man-who-took-fall-deng?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 24 Jul 2019 19:00:11 +0000 Even in death at a great age, long after he last held high office, former premier Li Peng remains most readily identified with controversy. He died at 90 this week in the 30th anniversary year of the June 4 crackdown in Tiananmen Square which defined his career. Earlier this month, government experts had to reassure the public over fears aired on social media for the safety of the Three Gorges Dam he was instrumental in having built, amid heated debate at the time. Li is best remembered in Hong... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3019964/controversy-follows-li-peng-his-grave?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3019964/controversy-follows-li-peng-his-grave?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 24 Jul 2019 13:39:16 +0000 Late premiers Li Peng and Zhou Enlai have come to occupy two very different places in the Chinese consciousness, one hugely controversial, the other a national hero. While Zhou remains a cherished leader to most Chinese, Li will forever be remembered for his controversial role in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown – sealed by his appearance on national television on May 20, 1989, angrily declaring martial law in Beijing. Li’s death, at the age of 90, was reported by China’s official news agency... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3019723/li-peng-chinas-technocrat-communist-warrior-who-rose-top?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3019723/li-peng-chinas-technocrat-communist-warrior-who-rose-top?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 23 Jul 2019 16:30:09 +0000 Li Peng, one of China’s most influential but controversial political leaders, died at the age of 90 in Beijing late Monday night, state media reported. State news agency Xinhua described Li’s death as a great loss for the country, hailing him as a great communist leader and statesman. But human rights activists and dissidents called him a “sinner”, holding him responsible for the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989, when hundreds of people, perhaps more than 1,000, died. Li, the... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3019792/former-chinese-premier-li-peng-dies-aged-90?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3019792/former-chinese-premier-li-peng-dies-aged-90?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 23 Jul 2019 11:00:22 +0000 Bullets and Opium: Real-Life Stories of China After the Tiananmen Square Massacre, by Liao Yiwu (trans. by David Cowhig, Jessie Cowhig and Ross Perlin), Atria/One Signal Publishers, 5 stars “Years have passed,” poet Liao Yiwu writes in Bullets and Opium: Real-Life Stories of China After the Tiananmen Square Massacre. “The butchers are winning.” Sceptics and apologists whose hackles may be raised by his use of the word “massacre”, let alone “butchers”, should be the first to read Liao’s new... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3015526/people-who-cannot-forget-tiananmen-crackdown-and-lives-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3015526/people-who-cannot-forget-tiananmen-crackdown-and-lives-it?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 23 Jun 2019 11:00:16 +0000 Other than my general support for freedom from arbitrariness, there is a specific reason for my participation in the marches on June 9 and 16. In September 2018, when I was preparing the final draft of a paper for an international conference in China, all delegates received an email from the organiser. It informed us: “One more thing to remind you, among the audiences of our October conference there will be someone sent by the Chinese National Security Bureau to check our speakings, to record... https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3015021/i-marched-hong-kong-because-carrie-lam-and-her-government-failed?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3015021/i-marched-hong-kong-because-carrie-lam-and-her-government-failed?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 20 Jun 2019 00:00:06 +0000 Exiled Tiananmen Square protest leader Wang Dan and more than 20 other Chinese activists are lobbying the United Nations’ human rights body to investigate the 1989 crackdown over “gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms”. Wang and 21 others, backed by the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group, submitted a complaint to the UN Human Rights Council, a Geneva forum which opens its next three-week session on June 24. “We request the HRC investigate the gross violations of human... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3014762/tiananmen-exiles-seek-un-investigation-1989-crackdown?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3014762/tiananmen-exiles-seek-un-investigation-1989-crackdown?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 17 Jun 2019 03:07:57 +0000 There hasn’t been a week, if not a day, over the past year without some sort of breaking news about US-China relations. Now more than 12 months into the trade conflict, and after the 11th round of talks failed in early May, it has gone well beyond just repeated escalation of tariffs. Washington and Beijing have both toughened their rhetoric and intensified the confrontation by expanding retaliatory measures to other areas. US President Donald Trump has moved to blacklist Chinese telecom firm... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3013625/us-china-trade-war-trump-and-xi-are-locked-worlds-largest-game?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3013625/us-china-trade-war-trump-and-xi-are-locked-worlds-largest-game?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Jun 2019 03:00:18 +0000 I refer to your article, “Hong Kong keeps Tiananmen crackdown memory alive with ‘record-breaking’ mass vigil” (June 5). For a city to stand by an ideal for 30 consecutive years is, in itself, a record and an achievement. As such, we should all be proud of the huge turnout at Victoria Park on Tuesday evening. Being a diligent local citizen, I have attended the vigil quite a few times in the last decades. The atmosphere of unity and brotherhood is strong. Attendees help each other to light and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3013455/keeping-tiananmen-flame-alive-30-years-hong-kong-should-be-proud?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3013455/keeping-tiananmen-flame-alive-30-years-hong-kong-should-be-proud?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Jun 2019 00:00:12 +0000 At the opening of his new exhibition in Hong Kong last week, artist Ma Desheng gave a special performance in tribute to the Tiananmen Mothers ahead of the 30th anniversary of the June 4 crackdown on pro-democracy protests in China. The wheelchair-bound 67-year-old chanted a prayer for peace in several languages and placed on the gallery floor his drawings of the outlines of women faces. Their hair progressively turns from black to grey, the same colour of his own, long flowing locks, symbolising... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3013363/chinese-rebel-artist-ma-desheng-tiananmen-artistic-freedom?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3013363/chinese-rebel-artist-ma-desheng-tiananmen-artistic-freedom?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 Jun 2019 05:00:16 +0000 Tuesday night’s candlelight vigil marking the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown was both poignant and powerful. The crowds, young and old, who gathered in Victoria Park provided a fitting memorial to those who died when pro-democracy protests were crushed by the military in Beijing in 1989. Participants sang songs, shouted slogans, or were just there to remember. The attendance was, no doubt, swollen by concerns about plans to introduce a new extradition law allowing crime suspects to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3013276/tiananmen-vigil-message-wins-numbers-game?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3013276/tiananmen-vigil-message-wins-numbers-game?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Jun 2019 13:56:11 +0000 Organisers of Hong Kong’s annual vigil for the victims of the Tiananmen Square crackdown said they took their biggest ever donations haul following a record turnout to mark the incident’s 30th anniversary, which pan-democrats claimed as a sign of residents’ increasing willingness to back their movement. The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China received more than HK$2.7 million (US$344,356) during the June 4 vigil on Tuesday night. It was the highest amount... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3013184/hong-kongs-tiananmen-square-memorial-vigil-yielded-record?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3013184/hong-kongs-tiananmen-square-memorial-vigil-yielded-record?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Jun 2019 05:47:03 +0000 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau marked the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on Tuesday by expressing “real concerns” about China’s human rights record, prompting a swift reaction from Beijing. Diplomatic relations between the countries have deteriorated since December, when police in Vancouver detained Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer Sabrina Meng Wanzhou on a US arrest warrant. Trudeau said Canada continued to call on China to “respect human rights, to... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3013170/canada-voices-real-concern-about-human-rights-china-30th?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3013170/canada-voices-real-concern-about-human-rights-china-30th?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Jun 2019 04:51:06 +0000 For an event marking a dark moment of modern Chinese history, there were a striking number of American flags. One of them was wrapped tightly around the star of the show, a 2,000-pound statue of “Tank Man,” the unknown Beijing resident captured in the most iconic photo of the time, single-handedly staring down a column of tanks, grocery bags in hand. On Monday, around 300 people descended on Liberty Sculpture Park in Yermo, California, a 36-acre strip of sand and sagebrush on the south side of... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3013125/tank-man-statue-rises-california-desert-park-democracy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3013125/tank-man-statue-rises-california-desert-park-democracy?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2019 22:28:18 +0000 US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met more than 30 survivors of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on Tuesday in Washington, one of a number of events in the US capital commemorating the 30-year anniversary of the Chinese government’s brutal repression of pro-democracy protests. Several of those protests’ former student leaders, who had travelled to Washington from around the country, were hosted by Pelosi – the United States’ most powerful Democrat – in her offices and included prominent human rights... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3013124/pelosi-its-personal-us-house-speaker-meets-tiananmen-survivors?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3013124/pelosi-its-personal-us-house-speaker-meets-tiananmen-survivors?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2019 22:24:41 +0000 A record turnout of more than 180,000 people, according to organisers on Tuesday night, turned Hong Kong’s Victoria Park into a sea of candles in an emotionally charged vigil to mark the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. After months of political turmoil and mounting concerns about diminishing freedoms, brought to a head by the government’s recent push to change the city’s extraditions laws to allow criminal suspects to be sent back to mainland China, Hongkongers came out in... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3013115/hong-kong-keeps-tiananmen-crackdown-memory-alive-record?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3013115/hong-kong-keeps-tiananmen-crackdown-memory-alive-record?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2019 22:00:08 +0000 A Chinese cartoonist whose anonymous political satire earned him both comparisons with Banksy and the wrath of Beijing has outed himself as a former law school student who became politicised after watching a Tiananmen Square documentary in a dorm room. Badiucao, whose subversive pieces regularly mock President Xi Jinping, has revealed his face and his personal story for the first time in the hope it will help protect him from the Chinese authorities. He says he and his family have been under... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3013116/cartoonist-badiucao-chinas-banksy-drops-his-mask-mark-30th?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3013116/cartoonist-badiucao-chinas-banksy-drops-his-mask-mark-30th?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2019 17:53:15 +0000 On a night to remember, as on so many before, they came in their tens of thousands to mourn the Tiananmen dead. But this year’s candlelight vigil in Hong Kong had additional significance: it was a barometer of opposition to the government’s controversial extradition bill. While they remembered the bloodshed that occurred 30 years ago in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, many of those in the record-breaking crowd in Victoria Park on Tuesday said they also felt compelled to attend the annual vigil to... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3013112/record-180000-turnout-hong-kong-candlelight-vigil-mark?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3013112/record-180000-turnout-hong-kong-candlelight-vigil-mark?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2019 16:04:24 +0000 Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen vowed on Tuesday to safeguard democracy and freedom in Taiwan as activists held a memorial rally in Taipei to mark the 30th anniversary of the crackdown on pro-democracy protests in mainland China. In a tweet addressed to “freedom-loving friends in Hong Kong and China”, Tsai said: “Rest assured that despite threats and subversion, Taiwan will unconditionally defend democracy and safeguard freedom.” She continued: “As long as I am president, Taiwan will never bow... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3013105/president-tsai-ing-wen-promises-defend-democracy-taiwan-marks?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3013105/president-tsai-ing-wen-promises-defend-democracy-taiwan-marks?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2019 14:27:34 +0000 America’s top diplomat chastised Beijing on Tuesday over its violent 1989 suppression of demonstrations demanding reform and democracy. The same could be said about the US’ response 30 years ago in the immediate aftermath of the crackdown in central Beijing, where hundreds of civilians were killed as Chinese troops moved to retake Tiananmen Square. The bloodshed quickly prompted economic and political sanctions against China from Western nations. But 30 years later, Beijing has all but given in... https://www.scmp.com/politics/us-state-department-condemns-tiananmen-crackdown-30th-anniversary/article/3013050?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/politics/us-state-department-condemns-tiananmen-crackdown-30th-anniversary/article/3013050?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2019 11:17:21 +0000 Hongkongers gathered in record numbers, organisers said on Tuesday night, to mourn those who lost their lives in a bloody crackdown on democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China said well over 180,000 had attended the annual candlelight vigil, contrasting with last year’s 115,000. Police put the figure at 37,000 on Tuesday night and 17,000 in 2018. Public opposition to the government’s controversial... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3013023/crowds-gather-hong-kongs-victoria-park-mark-30th?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3013023/crowds-gather-hong-kongs-victoria-park-mark-30th?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2019 11:00:40 +0000 Perry Wong was born on January 10, 1989, less than five months before the People’s Liberation Army stormed Tiananmen Square. It is a year that has left an indelible mark on his life, and he developed a strong incentive to learn more about the bloody suppression of the pro-democracy movement. Wong was born in Guangzhou and moved to Hong Kong with his family in 1996, a year before the city’s return to Chinese rule. “I got some ideas about the crackdown in my childhood, but the first time I learned... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3013059/hong-kong-teachers-whose-lives-are-inexorably-linked?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3013059/hong-kong-teachers-whose-lives-are-inexorably-linked?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2019 10:00:13 +0000 Japanese diplomats holed up in the embassy in Beijing at the height of the Tiananmen Square crackdown incinerated classified documents and planned to escape on bicycles as they feared the Chinese army would storm the building, an official stationed in the capital in 1989 has said. In an interview with Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper, former diplomat Morio Matsumoto recalled the tension in the city on June 4 three decades ago as the Chinese military launched its armed response to the democracy... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3013041/tiananmen-square-japanese-diplomats-feared-chinese-troops-would?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3013041/tiananmen-square-japanese-diplomats-feared-chinese-troops-would?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2019 08:30:11 +0000 For acclaimed playwright Candace Chong Mui-ngam, the June 4, 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square is a subject an artist must tackle “at least once in their lifetime”. She may have been only 12 years old when People’s Liberation Army soldiers opened fire on the student protesters, but the incident left a strong imprint on her mind. Throughout her career, the subject would pop into her head every now and then., A breakthrough came when she had her first child,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3012976/june-4-tiananmen-crackdown-revisited-candace-chongs-play-may?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3012976/june-4-tiananmen-crackdown-revisited-candace-chongs-play-may?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2019 07:00:14 +0000 There were few reminders on the streets of Beijing on Tuesday of the bloody crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests 30 years ago. But there were some signs of underlying tension and a handful of people marking the moment. In Tiananmen Square, the epicentre of the demonstrations, security was as tight as usual and the national flag-raising ceremony in the early morning went off without a hitch. But one American English professor watching the ceremony said she was aware of the... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3013022/quiet-reminders-tiananmen-chinas-capital-forgetting?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3013022/quiet-reminders-tiananmen-chinas-capital-forgetting?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2019 06:34:53 +0000 Thirty years after it was crushed by China’s army, the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement is being commemorated in art, literature, public rallies and even synth pop. Hong Kong singer Anthony Wong Yiu-ming’s latest release, Is It a Crime, recorded with long-time musical partner Tats Lau, is finding an audience by doing just that. The two make up the group Tat Ming Pair, long a staple of the city’s Canto-pop music scene. Released in May, the composition has been banned in China, where all... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3013001/hong-kong-singer-anthony-wong-scores-hit-tiananmen-song?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3013001/hong-kong-singer-anthony-wong-scores-hit-tiananmen-song?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2019 05:00:15 +0000 This is about the downside to overwrought moralising. For, inconvenient truths must be carefully considered on this day marking the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising and suppression. Much is at risk, given the ethical framework through which the United States views China, and vice versa.   The truths presented here are not so obvious. The American perspective tends towards rank propaganda, a reconstruction of the past, driven by the political interests of the present, even as... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3012891/june-4-perhaps-us-should-forget-tiananmen-if-we-are-ever-move-anger?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3012891/june-4-perhaps-us-should-forget-tiananmen-if-we-are-ever-move-anger?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2019 01:00:09 +0000 Hong Kong is bracing for a momentous June 4 commemoration, with as many as 180,000 people expected for a candlelight vigil, calls for student localists to return to the rallies, and a new Tiananmen movement museum flooded with visitors. Organisers expected a large turnout for two reasons – past and present: the 30th anniversary of Beijing’s military crackdown on student protesters in Tiananmen Square and the current controversy over a proposed bill that would allow Hong Kong to hand over... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3012957/hong-kong-braces-big-crowds-and-high-emotions-june-4-vigil?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3012957/hong-kong-braces-big-crowds-and-high-emotions-june-4-vigil?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 04 Jun 2019 00:00:06 +0000 The brutal military crackdown on peaceful protesters in Beijing 30 years ago might have saved the Communist Party’s rule, but it has since become a cross to bear for the People’s Liberation Army. Today, the world’s largest fighting force is still haunted by the Tiananmen Square tragedy in 1989, despite efforts to rebuild its image. After the bloodshed, it was the military that suggested the pro-democracy student movement be referred to not as a “counter-revolutionary rebellion” but as a time of... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3012956/how-tiananmen-crackdown-left-deep-scar-chinas-military-psyche?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3012956/how-tiananmen-crackdown-left-deep-scar-chinas-military-psyche?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Jun 2019 22:00:16 +0000 Over the past decades, I have been highly conflicted about the Tiananmen crackdown. The Western media has repeatedly emphasised the brutal suppression of the thousands of Chinese students at Tiananmen Square in Beijing in June 1989. These noble-minded young people had assembled by the hundreds of thousands that spring, demanding reforms, democracy and the end of corruption and nepotism in the Communist Party. The reports in the Western press gave the impression that Chinese troops and tanks... https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3012879/tiananmens-story-hasnt-been-told-truthfully-china-can-change?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3012879/tiananmens-story-hasnt-been-told-truthfully-china-can-change?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Jun 2019 19:20:05 +0000 China has accused US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of “prejudice and arrogance” after he issued a vehement condemnation of China’s human rights record on the 30th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on protesters calling for democracy. “We urge the Chinese government to make a full public accounting of those killed or missing to give comfort to the many victims of this dark chapter of history,” Pompeo said in a statement issued at 12.01am Beijing time, almost 30 years to the hour after tanks... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3012958/mike-pompeo-blasts-china-anniversary-tiananmen-square-crackdown?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3012958/mike-pompeo-blasts-china-anniversary-tiananmen-square-crackdown?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Jun 2019 17:11:14 +0000 Thirty years ago today a military crackdown to clear a student-led pro-democracy protest from Beijing’s Tiananmen Square left hundreds, perhaps more than 1,000 dead. The killings shocked the world and have had a lasting impact on China including Hong Kong in particular. Much has changed since then. Focus on economic development that has lifted hundreds of millions from poverty has helped Beijing in its efforts to sweep the events of June 4, 1989, under the carpet. But they still haunt the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3012947/there-every-reason-why-beijing-must-revisit-its-june-4-verdict?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3012947/there-every-reason-why-beijing-must-revisit-its-june-4-verdict?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Jun 2019 13:46:45 +0000 A week after armed forces cleared Tiananmen Square the Beijing Public Security Bureau distributed a circular of the pro-democracy movement’s 21 most wanted leaders.  Photographs and names of the students were repeatedly broadcast on television and printed in newspapers throughout the country. Here’s what happened to all 21 student leaders Tap here to launch this special feature https://www.scmp.com/infographics/china/society/article/3012382/chinas-21-most-wanted-aftermath-tiananmen-square?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/infographics/china/society/article/3012382/chinas-21-most-wanted-aftermath-tiananmen-square?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Jun 2019 11:00:07 +0000 For 30 years, Maria has been haunted by what she saw in the small hours of June 4, 1989, as she hid behind a heavy metal gate near Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing. She was in Beijing on a work trip at the time, and was curious about the student-led pro-democracy movement that had swept her country. Maria, then 25, was visiting the protesters when word spread that the army’s tanks had arrived and soldiers were firing on the demonstrators. She then ran into a small building on Nanchizi... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3012894/washington-tiananmen-vigil-attracts-first-timers-30th?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3012894/washington-tiananmen-vigil-attracts-first-timers-30th?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Jun 2019 10:00:08 +0000 When Canadian journalist Arthur Kent filmed two student protesters on the steps of a monument in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square at about 3am on June 4, 1989, he had no idea who they were. He never found out what became of them, and has spent the last three decades trying to track them down. Last week, Kent finally got hold of one of the two protesters, whom he described as a “young couple” in the footage he shot, which has been newly restored. Kenneth Lam Yiu-keung, a Hong Kong student leader who... https://www.scmp.com/politics/canadian-journalist-arthur-kent-tracks-down-tiananmen-square-protester-he-filmed-30-years-ago/article/3012855?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/politics/canadian-journalist-arthur-kent-tracks-down-tiananmen-square-protester-he-filmed-30-years-ago/article/3012855?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Jun 2019 09:03:28 +0000 China’s defense minister offered a stern justification of Beijing’s bloody crackdown on the 1989 pro-democracy movement days before its symbolic 30th anniversary. Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Wei Fenghe said the Tiananmen crackdown had contributed to China’s prosperity in a rare public address on the event. “That incident was political turbulence,” he said on Sunday at the annual Asia defense summit, in response to a question from the audience. “The central government’s... https://www.scmp.com/politics/chinas-defense-minister-reinforces-stance-tiananmen-crackdown-warns-military-action-against-taiwan/article/3012854?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/politics/chinas-defense-minister-reinforces-stance-tiananmen-crackdown-warns-military-action-against-taiwan/article/3012854?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Jun 2019 09:02:39 +0000 30 years ago, thousands of students and activists descended on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to protest against government corruption and demand democracy. The protests were crushed in the early hours of June 4, 1989 by Chinese tanks and troops. Hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand, civilians were killed. But today no signs of the protests or the crackdown are memorialized in the square. Browse the gallery, above, to compare photos from the protests with contemporary scenes in central Beijing. https://www.scmp.com/china/tiananmen-square-pictures-then-and-now/article/3012823?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/china/tiananmen-square-pictures-then-and-now/article/3012823?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Jun 2019 09:02:35 +0000 China was gripped by a pro-democracy movement in 1989, triggered by the death of reformist ex-leader Hu Yaobang. Mass street protests, weeks-long sit-ins and hunger strikes at Tiananmen Square by students and residents became the order of the day as demonstrators complained about corruption and demanded greater democracy as well as government transparency. The social unrest culminated in a brutal military crackdown on June 4 ordered by Beijing that effectively ended the movement and continues to... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3012851/tiananmen-square-30-years-after-chinas-crackdown?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3012851/tiananmen-square-30-years-after-chinas-crackdown?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Jun 2019 05:44:29 +0000 Beijing must “sincerely repent” for the bloody crackdown of pro-democracy demonstrators on and around Tiananmen Square three decades ago and promote democratic reforms, Taipei said on Monday ahead of the sensitive anniversary. Tuesday marks 30 years since the People’s Liberation Army opened fire to end the student-led unrest. Chinese authorities ban any public commemoration of the event on the mainland and have never released a full death toll. Estimates from human rights groups and witnesses... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3012850/repent-tiananmen-crackdown-taipei-urges-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3012850/repent-tiananmen-crackdown-taipei-urges-beijing?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Jun 2019 05:43:26 +0000 When Canadian journalist Arthur Kent filmed two student protesters on the steps of a monument in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, at about 3am on June 4, 1989, he had no idea who they were. He never found out what became of them after a bloody crackdown by the People’s Liberation Army swept the area, and had spent the past three decades trying to track them down. Last week, Kent, who captured other scenes of the event on film, finally got hold of one of the two protesters, whom he described as a... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3012830/after-30-year-search-canadian-journalist-arthur-kent?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3012830/after-30-year-search-canadian-journalist-arthur-kent?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Jun 2019 03:38:26 +0000 Sometime around June 4, 1989, rumours circulated that Deng Xiaoping had said that 200 lives were a small price for China to pay for 20 years of stability. While China clearly did not gain 20 years of stability, the case can be made that, in retrospect, by allowing the purge of the entire liberal wing of the Communist Party, June 4 brought “great unity” to that leadership, which has facilitated China’s rise to great-power status. The decade of the 1980s was intellectually vibrant. China was... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3012616/why-tiananmen-squares-real-legacy-may-be-communist-party-unity-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3012616/why-tiananmen-squares-real-legacy-may-be-communist-party-unity-and?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Jun 2019 01:00:10 +0000