20 Years On

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. I just returned from the very moving candlelight vigil in Victoria Park, attended by an estimated crowd of over 150,000 people. Alongside Operation Desert Storm and the OJ Simpson chase, Tiananmen was in the top 3 news events of my adolescence.

So on the twentieth anniversary we see quite a different manner of observing the event. In China, the Square has been completely sealed off and tens of thousands of police, military and plain clothes security officers have canvassed Beijing to disperse any gatherings of remembrance. Known troublemakers are being monitored and intimidated. Social networking sites like Twitter, Hotmail, Bing.com and others have been shut down and the central government has deemed this significant June 4th as (not joking) "National Internet Server Maintenance Day." Hmmm, coincidental and quite galling. Go to state newspaper's website www.chinadaily.com.cn and you'll see no mention of the event or its anniversary.

In Hong Kong, things are different. Though several Tiananmen student leaders who are now foreign dissidents were turned away by HK immigration this week, people are generally free to express themselves. Over 150K people gathered for a candlelight vigil in Victoria Park tonight. Outside of the park the streets were lined with people standing on ladders and milk crates sounding off into loudspeakers. A group staged a 'die-in' in Times Square, splattered in red paint sprawled over banners images of the massacre. Hong Kong is China, but tonight's behavior would certainly not fly in China.

I'll be in the Mainland all next week for work so I'll stop short of expressing too many opinions on the matter, lest the Internet 'watchers' decide to pass a negative word to the immigration folks.