“How I found out what happened in Tiananmen”: Silence reigns in China 35 years after the massacre

Wang Wei remembers that he couldn’t look away from the TV screen on June 4, 1989, when he was five years old. “I didn’t understand anything, but it’s one of those memories that never goes away,” recalls this Spaniard of Chinese origin who prefers not to give his real name. “I was very surprised, because it was the first time I had seen so many Asians on the news. My parents [chinos emigrantes] They were very attentive, although I am not sure that they understood what the journalists were saying,” he points out. “I have never talked to my family about what happened in Tiananmen,” Wang confesses, as his words merge with the loud music that plays in a bar in Beijing, where he has lived for more than a decade.

This Tuesday marks 35 years since the bloodiest episode in recent Chinese history, the massacre around Tiananmen Square with which the army put an end to six weeks of demonstrations demanding reforms, measures against corruption, freedom of press and, ultimately, democracy. The images of tanks and soldiers opening fire on the town on the night of June 3 to 4, 1989, went around the world thanks to the fact that dozens of special envoys were in Beijing to cover the visit of the then Soviet leader Mikhail in those days. Gorbachev. More than three decades later, the number of victims is still unknown—estimates range from hundreds to several thousand—and the Communist Party has never admitted responsibility. Quite the opposite: the only explanation is the most absolute silence.

Tiananmen is the biggest taboo within China and one that few dare to talk about. Those who do, like those interviewed for this report, ask that their anonymity be respected and pseudonyms be used. The Government has managed, through a very harsh campaign of arrests and repression that extended during the years after the massacre, to completely cover up his memory, with the aim of eventually causing it to fall into oblivion. Many young people have only a vague idea of ​​the incident and some are completely unaware of it.

Li Hua was four years old during the spring of 1989, when hundreds of thousands of students and workers in several cities were demanding greater political opening. The reminiscences are very blurry for this Pekingese. However, she claims to remember some days when “the elders spoke very softly.” “My grandfather took care of me, and he didn’t take me to daycare or to play in the street,” she recalls. “In my family that topic has never been discussed. I found out when I was in high school, from other classmates. “So, I started spinning,” she murmurs as she walks down a busy street in the capital. “We Chinese know what happened, but we dare not say it,” she emphasizes.

“It frustrates me to have the almost absolute certainty that the Government will manage to completely eliminate it from the collective ideology,” she says, shocked. Li resides in Europe and is back in China for vacation. In her opinion, her native country “only goes backwards” on issues related to freedom. “And things will get worse,” she dares to predict. “I think young people don’t understand the real background [de Tiananmén]. And he worries me that they don’t care. Many believe that they are conspiracies, because they are being educated from childhood with very nationalist values,” she criticizes.

Going against the wave of democratization that occurred in most of the communist bloc after the fall of the Iron Curtain, also in 1989, China reinforced internal security after Tiananmen, with the intention of uprooting any hint of mass mobilization against government.

But, at the same time that he imposed a policy of punishment, he opted for economic liberalization that increased wealth and promoted modernization. Through that carrot and stick strategy, the Party has managed to legitimize its permanence in power and tries to convince the bases that it did the right thing. The Chinese economy, which in 1989 ranked eleventh in the world, is now the second largest on the planet. China is also a technological and military titan, and a key player in the complex global geopolitical chessboard, capable of rivaling the United States.

It has achieved all this while applying one of the strictest censorship regimes in the world and, as human rights organizations denounce, it reduces the freedoms of its population through criminal sanctions, harassment, intimidation and the use of technology and surveillance.

Sun Ning is the same age as Li Hua (39 years old), but was born in Dongbei, the northeastern region that corresponds to historical Manchuria. He was not aware of what happened in Tiananmen until his university years, when he visited a friend in the south who was studying Fine Arts. “Art students were much more broad-minded than those in other majors and had access to information that I didn’t have,” explains Sun. “We were in his dorm room, there were about six or seven of us,” he details. “One of them showed us a video with images of the army entering Tiananmen. We remain silent, like when you know that you are doing something that your parents have forbidden you, but we don’t comment on it. As a teenager, something had come to me, but always wrapped in secrecy,” Sun explains.

“I don’t want you to think I’m cold. It is unimaginable that a Government would order the killing of its people, but this one did it. Once you cross that red line, you know he’s capable of anything. That’s why we have no choice but to keep a low profile,” she adds, while the sizzling embers in a Beijing barbecue restaurant devour her speech.

Sun and Li are categorical in their positions, and hope that “one day, they will be held accountable.” But the younger interviewees who agreed to speak with EL PAÍS are more skeptical. “They are just rumors,” Liu Hao, 26, begins by saying. “I don’t think anyone except those who were there really knows what happened,” he continues. Although he admits that his father told him about it when he was little—his father was 17 when the riots started—and that “all Chinese who have Western friends and a VPN know that something happened,” he doubts the versions that are published. in foreign media or in “posts from Instagram.”

For his part, Yang Tao, 23, says that it was after learning about Tiananmen (in high school, from a classmate) that he realized that “there are many censored topics on the Chinese network.” “The content [políticos] “They are increasingly limited,” he says, “which is why people my age and teenagers are very influenced by the official message.” He considers that his generation is “critical when it needs to be,” and gives examples of “anti-covid measures” or “the lack of job opportunities.” But he adds: “We don’t get involved in politics.”

Beijing’s influence already reaches beyond the mainland. Hong Kong, which for three decades had served as a safe place to peacefully commemorate the anniversary of Tiananmen, has since 2020 vetoed the celebration of its traditional vigil in memory of the victims. China imposed the draconian National Security Law on the semi-autonomous territory in 2020 with the intention of deactivating dissent and, last March, in a sign of loyalty, the Hong Kong Government enacted its own. On May 28 and 29, Hong Kong police arrested seven people under these regulations for alleged “seditious messages” related to an “upcoming sensitive date,” according to activist groups.

Human Rights Watch has noted on the eve of the anniversary that several people “who are trying to honor the memory of the victims” are “imprisoned or under surveillance.” Among them, Xu Guang stands out, one of the leaders of the 1989 protests, sentenced in April to four years in prison after demanding in 2022 that the Government recognize the massacre. According to various reports, Xu was tortured, shackled and mistreated during his detention. For her part, the Mothers of Tiananmen have reported that Zhan Xianling, one of the founders of this group that fights against official oblivion, has security guards at the doors of her house. In a similar situation are Pu Zhiqiang, who represented the Tiananmen students, and Ji Feng, one of the leaders of the 1989 protests in Guizhou.

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