On Wednesday, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with the survivors of the horrific Tiananmen Square Massacre on its 31st anniversary in Washington DC. The State Department offered no details on what was discussed but said in a statement, “We mourn the victims of June 4, 1989, and we stand with the people of China who continue to aspire to a government that protects human rights, fundamental freedoms, and basic human dignity.”
Tiananmen Square was a watershed moment in the People’s Republic of China’s history. It changed the way the communist country went about its business in the coming years and how but all the hopes of having a political-liberal regime in mainland-China breathed its last with the quashing of the pro-democracy movement.
In the wake of Wuhan virus pandemic, which majorly has been the doing of China, countries around the globe are trying to corner Beijing and Tiananmen Square is the perfect ammo for it. Beijing gets riled up anytime, any country brings to life the ghosts of 1989. Pompeo meeting the survivors is being done to apply pressure on the nerve that hurts the Communist regime the most.
31 years ago on June 3-4, the Chinese government launched a bloody massacre against student activists and teachers who had gathered there with the hopes to bring Democracy in the country. The majority of them were killed while those who were left were eventually forced to flee the country and seek refuge abroad.
Xu Qinxian, a former major general of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army was court-martialled, jailed for five years, and expelled from the Communist Party of China (CCP) after he refused the order to use force against demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.
Over 10,000 were killed
In what became known to the whole world as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, braindead troops with assault rifles and huge tanks killed several thousand demonstrators trying to block the military’s advance towards Tiananmen Square.
China never released an official death toll from the incident but a declassified document, written little more than 24 hours after the massacre, gives a much higher death toll than the most commonly used estimates which only go up to about 3,000. It is estimated that over 10,000 innocent Chinese were killed in the rebellion by the authoritarian regime.
Websites get blacklisted on the day
In China, June 4 has been nicknamed “internet maintenance day” for the number of websites that go offline around the anniversary, their owners deciding that being dark is safer than accidentally publishing something which could provoke the ire of the authorities.
The republic of the Tank Man
The iconic image of the Tank-man standing his ground in front of the Chinese tanks is one of the most recognizable photos of the entire human civilization. The image of Tank Man quickly became a powerful symbol of both the bloody events of 4 June 1989 and of non-violent resistance, but the identity of the ‘unknown rebel’ and his fate remains unknown.
Many people in China are still unaware of his existence and only a handful of photographers were able to record the event without having to destroy their materials.
CCP has censored everything related to Tiananmen Square
China does not even recognize that this ever happened, and censors all content on it. To-date not many Chinese know of the magnitude of the Tiananmen massacre as the state government and the state-owned media has kept them in oblivion. Any whisper or proof about the June 3 or 4 event is culled down to a tee in mainland China and around. Even if the Chinese know a little about it, they have been misled to believe it was a terror attack on their nation.
The survivors mentioned earlier who met Pompeo urged him and the USA that they should try and educate the Chinese citizens about the “truth” of the events of June 4.
Xi Jinping’s to-be wife and Tiananmen Celebration
Xi Jinping’s wife Peng Liyuan is infamously known for a picture where she is singing to the Chinese troops following the bloody massacre where possibly thousands were killed. The image is living proof about Peng Liyuan’s involvement in the greatest human massacres of all time. Although the image was swiftly taken down of Chinese social media platforms but as is the case with the Internet, nothing is ever permanently deleted here.
The image still does the rounds of the internet routinely, especially during the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, despite the Chinese trying their best to censor it.
Hong Kong—History repeating itself?
The famous annual vigil of Hong Kong that is taken out in the memory of the Tiananmen Square massacre has for the first time been banned citing COVID-19 fears. Hong Kong is on a similar trajectory as the calls for democracy have been steadily rising. Because the media is independent at the moment in Hong Kong, China has not been able to penetrate as much as it would have liked but you can expect restrictions from Beijing if it is able to find its way around with the controversial bills.
With last year’s Extradition bill and last month’s National Security Bill, China is trying to quash the freedom movements in Hong Kong just like it had done 31 years earlier in Tiananmen.
China needs to be held accountable
The little land-locked European nation of the Czech Republic has given us a little example of how to take on China and show the truth of Tiananmen square to the world and the oblivious Chinese.
The Czech Republic put up signs about the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre for their Chinese tourists pic.twitter.com/wygGBAf2OQ
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) April 26, 2020
The time has come now that the world is brought level on terms with the unspeakable atrocities the Chinese have undertaken on humankind. From the killing of pro-democracy protestors in Tiananmen Square to Falun gong persecution to the Uighur Muslims to the spread of deadly SARS and now COVID-19 which has killed thousands—China needs to be held accountable for its every single sin and made to pay the reparations it so dearly owes us all.
