Hong Kong police searched and detained scores of people on Sunday with four people arrested for "seditious" intent, as authorities tightened security for the 34th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, Reuters reported. Police said four people had been arrested for seditious intent and four detained for "breaching public peace" near Victoria Park, the space where for years, activists and regular citizens have gathered on the Tiananmen Square anniversary. What happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989? Hong Kong activists say such police action is part of a broad campaign by China to crush dissent in the city that was promised continued freedoms for 50 years under a "one country, two systems" formula when former colonial power Britain handed it back in 1997. Located in Beijing, Tiananmen Square is a city square which has borne witness to many important events in China’s history, including Mao Zedong’s proclamation of the founding of the country in 1949. It is enclosed on one side by the Tiananmen Gate, on whose other side is the Forbidden City – China’s historical seat of power for the royals for nearly 500 years, beginning in the 15th century. But it is best known to the outside world for the events of June 3-4 in 1989, when one of the few instances of widespread dissent was witnessed in China’s modern history. The story begins a few years earlier, when Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, in 1978, decided to liberalise and open up the Chinese economy to the outside world. The unleashing of market forces in China led to a dramatic change in its markets, opportunities for employment and for society in general. But even as expectations post the reforms were high, there was also increasing discontent by the mid-1980s. Issues of as nepotism and rampant corruption in the new economic system, where leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), ended up bagging favourable contracts for opening businesses and factories, irked ordinary Chinese citizens. Over time, protests against this grew and they also saw demands for greater freedom of speech, removal of censorship, and overall democratisation of the Chinese polity. These protests were often led by students and the youth and college campuses became hotbeds of dissident activities. The movement crystallised in the spring of 1989, with the death of the former General Secretary of the CCP Hu Yaobang, who was seen as supportive of democratic reforms. On the day of Hu’s funeral on April 22, thousands of students occupied Tiananmen Square, the historic square in the heart of Beijing, seeking greater political freedoms. In the subsequent weeks, an estimated 1 million demonstrators joined them, transforming the gathering into a mass movement with protests in other cities as well. Martial law was then introduced by the CCP in Beijing in the last two weeks of May 1989. On June 3-4, troops and tanks proceeded to Tiananmen Square, opening fire at or crushing unarmed protesters who stood in their way. The extent of the violence is not fully known. The Chinese government has claimed that 241 people were killed and 7,000 injured. According to the UK, documents released in 2017 showed some 10,000 people were killed. The image and video of a man with a flower standing in front of a tank to halt its movement have become an important hallmark of the day and people’s resistance to the Chinese state. And how does China see Tiananmen Square’s protest? Beijing has seldom acknowledged the events on June 4, and when it does so the government’s crackdown on the movement is justified for what it sees as unnecessary protests. In June 2019, during the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore, then Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe described the Tiananmen demonstrations as “political turmoil that the central government needed to quell”. He added, “The government was decisive in stopping the turbulence, that was the correct policy.” A 2021 editorial article in the state-run news outlet Global Times echoed the sentiment, saying “If the incident 32 years ago has any positive effect, that is, it has inoculated the Chinese people with a political vaccine, helping us acquire immunity from being seriously misled… The leadership of the Communist Party of China has saved the fate of the nation at a critical juncture. In mainland China, any mention of the Tiananmen Square crackdown is taboo and the subject is heavily censored. Not just public gatherings marking the day, but the internet, too, is frequently censored for even coded references to the dates June 4 or the year 1989 around this time every year. As a result, most Chinese people who were born after 1989 have little knowledge about the events from June. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning, asked about the government's response to events around the world to mark the anniversary, told a regular briefing in Beijing on Friday that the government had already "come to a clear conclusion about the political turmoil in the late 1980s". In democratically governed Taiwan, the only part of the Chinese-speaking world where the anniversary can be marked freely and openly, activists prepared a memorial at Taipei's Liberty Square with flowers of mourning and a "Pillar of Shame" statue. Vice President William Lai, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party's candidate in a presidential election next January, wrote on his Facebook page that what happened in Beijing in 1989 must be discussed and remembered. "The event commemorating June 4 has continued to be held in Taipei, which shows that democracy and authoritarianism are the biggest differences between Taiwan and China," he said. (With Reuters inputs)
