The memorial activities stretched on for days and weeks, and into the spring. At times, over a million people were gathered, exchanging memories of Zhou Enlai, praising a more civil kind of Communist China, and —unavoidably—

reminding each other that Zhou was not one of the “Gang of Four” radicals who were sowing chaos and violence across China, imposing the harsh, irrational conditions of “reform” known as the Cultural Revolution. The Zhou memorial became a place for dissident poets to gather, and for groups of Chinese citizens to voice their grievances in writing or in conversation, calling for government reforms.

By the account of Shen Tong, one of the leaders of the 1989 Tiananmen student movement, the gatherings would start early in the day and stretch late into the night. People would copy down the writings of the poets who offerred xiaozibao in honor of Zhou’s legacy. With Tiananmen Square, the largest public square in the world, milling with people talking politics and public service, until 11pm, there was a real spirit of civic reform brewing. By early April, the regime had seen enough.

The Gang of Four was becoming concerned that the pro-Zhou activities were really a “counterrevolutionary” conspiracy, aimed at bringing down Communism in China altogether. An announcement was made that all citizens must vacate the square. On 4 April 1976, the Beijing mayor requested over the loudspeakers that all people vacate Tiananmen Square or “suffer the consequences”. The People’s Militia moved in and rimmed the square, barring entry or exit. Some families were able to flee, as soldiers stood aside.

By morning, the memorials to Zhou had been completely dismantled, the hand-crafted paper flowers, the poetry, the portraits of Zhou, the wreaths and other tokens of popular affection. When the people of Beijing found the Square empty and their voices silenced in this way, there was unrest. Some describe what took place as rioting, others as gatherings or protests. The military cracked down, arrested thousands of demonstrators, and by most accounts, many were killed. (There is no known definitive accounting for those who died in that first Tiananmen Square crackdown.)

That crackdown, and the deaths and displacements suffered by countless families across China as a result of the Cultural Revolution, took root in the minds of a generation. Politically aware young people who understood the arbitrary nature of the regime’s loyalties (to individuals, to ideals, to the people) retained a high degree of skepticism about the nature of power as concentrated in the hands of party officials.

Whether they were the top of the regime or the low-level work unit managers, arbitrary punishments or demands of factional support were commonplace: people were living under the constant pressure of political propaganda and threats and examples of severe retribution for disobedience. It was those pressures, along with the sustained devaluation of human life and personal abilities or tastes that created an environment where the old guard were viewed as a danger to the future wellbeing of China.

The pro-democracy activists who gathered in Tiananmen Square in 1989 understood the history of the 1976 repression and the crimes of the Cultural Revolution, though such topics were and still are taboo in mainland China. The tension between leaders who believed in their own inherent right to conceal past crimes and to use public ignorance to continue their reign and the knowledge that could not be erased from the minds of those who had lived real repression was what put the government so at odds with the student movement.

Though many of the demands of the 1989 student movement were met, in part due to historical (economic and political) imperative, real democratization of government has not occurred. The crackdown in 1976, like the Cultural Revolution before it (on a far more massive and tragic scale) and the 1989 massacre after it, was about preventing democratization even in the slightest degree. That legacy continues to this day, as the regime continues to bar any mention of the events of June 1989.

• Originally published 5 June 2009, at CafeSentido.com

Now, as we mark the 20th anniversary of that tragic day, the Chinese government seeks to prevent any amount of dissent or “unrest” that might stem from public recognition of the crimes committed by government forces on that day. We now know, however, that the decision to launch a violent military assault on the pro-democracy demonstrators, was a deliberate decision taken by the Central Committee of the ruling Communist party, over the objections of its then secretary general Zhao Ziyang. Zhao resigned in protest, tried to warn the demonstrators to disperse for their own safety, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest for his dissent.

In May, Café Sentido reported:

The private memoirs of former Chinese Communist party (CCP) leader Zhao Ziyang are to be published, as we near the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests and the massacre that ended them. The diaries will be published this month, under the title Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Zhao Ziyang.

Zhao was secretary general of the central committee of the CCP from 1987 until he was deposed due to his opposition to the government’s hardline crackdown on student demonstrators gathered in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, in June 1989. Zhao was subjected to 16 years of house arrest, and died in 2005. But the journals were so secret, their existence has not been confirmed until now.

In those diaries, Zhao called the massacre of peaceful demonstrators at Tiananmen Square “a tragedy to shock the world”, and clearly stated it could have been averted, had any of the party leadership sided with his view that the demonstrators should be permitted to protest or otherwise be peacefully dispersed. The violent crackdown remains to this day one of the great signs that liberalization of China by trade and engagement has been a moral failure.

Fully 20 years on, the Tiananmen massacre remains a source of intense government censorship. Major internet firms like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! were permitted to operate within China only on condition that they would bar access to any sites that speak of the massacre. Those who criticize the government for such acts are still detained, held without trial, even “disappeared”.

In 2005, Sentido —now Café Sentido— reported that China’s president Hu Jintao had declared the launch of a “smokeless war” on press and dissidents. Hu’s goal was to impose a severe crackdown on the freedom of Chinese individuals and groups to voice criticism for the government’s policies, without leaving the obvious “smoke” that would signal a fire of intimidation or abuse. The closing of internet cafes across China —usually on false claims of public health hazard, fire hazard, or building code violations— ensued.

In 2007, China began implementing temporary rules for foreign journalists, relaxing the restrictions on their movements inside China, in an effort to win favor among the world’s media, in advance of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. But Chinese journalists were being detained in increasing numbers, in an effort to control the nation’s public image by removing potentially offensive content those reporters might produce. The point was not lost on foreign media, who also complained they were banned from broadcasting live from Tiananamen Square.

Also in September 2007, a New York Times reporter, Zhao Yan, was released after being jailed for 3 years on allegations of publishing state secrets. At the time, at least 35 journalists and 51 cyber dissidents were known to be in Chinese jails. An unknown number of less visible critics or ordinary citizens who had sought redress for grievances against corrupt officials, or those close to them, was —and is now— also being held.

In December 2008, Reporters without Borders (RSF) condemned the Chinese government’s renewed constraints on media freedoms in a press release:

Reporters Without Borders condemns the Chinese government’s censorship of the websites of certain foreign news media such as Voice of America and the BBC and certain Chinese media based outside mainland China, which have been rendered inaccessible inside China since the start of December.

“Freedom of information is widely violated in China,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Right now, the authorities are gradually rolling back all the progress made in the run-up to this summer’s Olympic games, when even foreign websites in Mandarin were made accessible. The pretence of liberalisation is now over. The blocking of access to the websites of foreign news media speaks volumes about the government’s intolerance. We urge the authorities to unblock them again.”

Tensions are high, as reformists and critics of the government seek to recognize the anniversary and hold those responsible for the massacre accountable, at least in the court of public opinion and in the eyes of history. AFP reports:

China’s Communist leaders have made any discussion of the brutal quelling of the student-led demonstrations — in which hundreds, maybe thousands, were killed — taboo, but dissidents say the public could yet hold them accountable.

“People remember this date because they want the Communist Party to take responsibility for the crimes it committed,” said 53-year-old Qi Zhiyong, who lost a leg after being shot by troops near Tiananmen Square.

The United States House of Representatives passed a resolution this week, by a margin of 396 to 1, calling on China to officially recognize the massacre, support a UN-backed independent investigation into the atrocities committed at Tiananmen Square, and free all political prisoners. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had unfurled a banner in Tiananmen Square, in 1991, critical of the government’s crackdown, but has chosen to make her demand for prisoner release in private in 2009.

Pelosi says she personally petitioned Pres. Hu for the release of 10 prisoners. She specifically named Hu Jia, a dissident the EU has awarded its Sakharov prize for freedom of thought. One California Congressman said on the House floor: “Twenty years ago this day, the government of China affirmed to the world that it is a criminal enterprise that is perfectly willing to murder unarmed people to stay in power”.

In the weeks leading up to the anniversary of the massacre, Chinese officials have gone as far as to remove specific pages from foreign news publications that make any reference to the crackdown or to efforts to suppress the free flow of information relating to the crackdown. Some fear the disapperance of critics and journalists could accelerate as the government seeks to bury the memory of the 1989 massacre of unarmed protesters.

To this day, the official story is that a violent network of plotters, seeking to overthrow the government, was successfully subdued in a responsible way. But even with that version of events, very little historical information is permitted to circulate in Chinese media, and it is expected the major media outlets in China will be officially barred from recognizing the anniversary at all.

• Originally published 3 June 2009, at CafeSentido.com

Zhao was secretary general of the central committee of the CCP from 1987 until he was deposed due to his opposition to the government’s hardline crackdown on student demonstrators gathered in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, in June 1989. Zhao was subjected to 16 years of house arrest, and died in 2005. But the journals were so secret, their existence has not been confirmed until now.

According to The Times newspaper of London:

So sensitive is this document, the first memoir ever to be made public by such a senior Chinese party official, that even its existence had been kept a closely guarded secret. Speculation had been rife during his nearly 16 years of house arrest and after his death in 2005 as to whether the man with the most intimate knowledge of the events of June 3-4 1989, had provided his own account of those dramatic days.

Zhao reportedly describes how on 17 May 1989, in a top-level secret meeting with party “elders”, like Deng Xiaoping, a decision was made without even a vote by the politburo to declare martial law. Despite objections from Zhao Ziyang, the nation’s leaders planned a violent, military-based crackdown to end pro-democracy demonstrations.

Zhao resigned his office. He writes of those troubled days, “At that moment, I was extremely upset. I told myself that no matter what, I refused to become the General Secretary who mobilised the military to crack down on the students.” On 19 May, he went to Tiananmen Square and with then aide (now Chinese premier) Wen Jiabao at his side, delivered a tearful plea to students to end their demonstrations peacefully and disperse.

What Zhao wrote of the events of 3 June 1989 is the first known account acknowledging the government’s massacre of innocents. He wrote of the dark emotion at witnessing the crackdown, knowing it had been planned, observing: “On the night of June 3rd, while sitting in the courtyard with my family, I heard intense gunfire. A tragedy to shock the world had not been averted, and was happening after all.”

A top aide to Zhao Ziyang, Bao Tong, says there is no doubt as to the authenticity of the memoirs, but that he was unaware of their existence until after Zhao’s death. Bao had been jailed for 7 years as part of the government’s effort to eliminate all history of dissent as to the events leading up to and taking place at Tiananmen Square. Bao says Zhao’s family had no knowledge of the existence of the memoirs, because the former party leader had sought to protect all of those close to him.

The Times reports:

The recordings include conversations in which he answers questions as well as sections that are apparently dictated from a now-vanished written document. The tapes took Mr Zhao about two years to make and he then found a way to pass them to several trusted friends. The materials were hidden and gathered together after his death, but much of the process remains a secret.

The former aide said the memoirs will serve as “an extremely valuable historical document both for China and for the West”.