Tiananmen Square Anniversary

It's anniversary time. The Tiananmen Square protests and slaughter of thousands of unarmed protesters by government military and police in China happened 25 years ago, but you would never known it if you lived in China. It's still a thoroughly banned topic there.  June 5th was the anniversary and one need to only look at the huge number of armed police and other security personnel, June and every other month, on all roads leading to the square in central Beijing to see that the dictators in China are worried that the economy freedom there might spill over into the personal freedom realm.

When I first visited China and Tiananmen Square in 2002 I was struck by how many police were on the square, about how few citizens of China dared walk on it and,  further, about how even mention of the massacre of the Chinese protesters by the Chinese police was frowned on. When I myself mentioned the incident to a Chinese tour guide he turned red and raced from the subject almost instantly. It's a typical reaction among China's residents, who are apathetic about talking "politics". It seems that the dictatorship has successfully intimidated the masses from even discussion of democratic possibilities and convinced them that freedom of speech is a completely foreign concept.

Starting a couple of months before the June anniversary of the 1989 slaughter, hundreds of those brave enough to criticize the government and relatives of people killed in 1989 were detained and harassed  in a security crackdown that activists consider the most extensive since the massacre a quarter of a century ago.  It worked because this 25th anniversary came and went with little public show.  Dictators have long memories and they know that what keeps them in power is to control information and beat down anyone who dissents.  Government censors, and web site editors who know that they must self censor or wind up in custody for "threatening the state security", keep the internet clear of all references to the Tiananmen movement for more democracy in China.

I find that even when I bring up the subject in private E mails with my Chinese E friends I get  from them a quick shift of the subject. It verifies that in China the economic progress in China that the dictators have brought through the implementation of a free market is enough to keep the locals from complaining about the lack of personal freedoms lacking there. Apparently, in China, economic prosperity is a higher value than personal freedom.

China blocks many overseas web sites, especially those with the capacity to spread information quickly or that would enable citizens to organize. They include Face book, Twitter and You Tube and newspapers like the Wall St. Journal.  Most residents accept the blocking as a fact of life when living in China. But they see the government's lies and control with acceptance, not dissent.  But even a dictatorship has some dissenters, and China's are a very small and beleaguered group that is largely ignored by the average Chinese resident.  Detentions, disappearances and intimidation have mostly silenced them. They include human rights lawyers, dissidents and mothers of students killed by army bullets and the local, often foreign university educated,  intelligentsia.

The Chinese media are forbidden from mentioning the 1989 democracy movement.  Too, the Chinese police also often tell  foreign journalists from TV stations and news agencies to warn them not to report from the square at the risk they would lose their Chinese work visas. That kind of intimidation of foreigners in China is a violation of the Chinese government's repeated claims to guarantee freedom to foreign journalists to conduct reporting work in China. But then, dictators promise and say much they know isn't true because no one holds them to any standard of accountability.

So as to that anniversary I must say that I am thankful that I am lucky enough to not a citizen of China.