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June 4 marks the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. While Hong Kong has remembered the event in multitudinous candlelight vigils ever since, the Chinese Communist Party has quashed these commemorations.
In short, the CCP is wiping the memory of those who died for freedom in 1989 from the consciousness of Hong Kongers.
Police have been investigating small shops which displayed items that commemorate the massacre. They also hunted for possible mourners in the Causeway Bay district, where vigils would be held.
And now, in Victoria Park, where thousands had gathered for decades in massive candlelight vigils, a pro-Beijing trade show stands. It celebrates the 1997 return of Hong Kong to the mainland, even though the actual anniversary isn’t until next month.
Zhou Fengsuo, who was a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and is now executive director of Human Rights in China, declared Hong Kong to be under the same “despotic rule” as the mainland:
Back in 1989, we did not realize the mission of a democratic China. Afterward, Hong Kong protests faced the same suppression, the same vilification and erasure of memories.
So in its effort to squash any dissent, the police have arrested or detained eight residents for “disorder in public spaces” and “breaching public peace.” One of them was performance artist Sanmu Chan, who yelled as police dragged him away, “Hong Kongers, don’t be afraid! Don’t forget June 4!” Two others included a man and woman who were wearing white clothing and carrying white chrysanthemums, symbols of mourning.
Even an elderly woman, Alexandra Wong, an activist known as “Grandma Wong,” was taken away. The 67-year-old was carrying flowers.
Meanwhile, Communist China has been scrubbing its internet for Tiananmen Square references.
Clearly China wants Hong Kongers and their countrymen to forget what happened in 1989.
His was the iconic image of protest in Tiananmen Square: the man who dared to face off Chinese tanks during the 1989 protests.
No one knows who he is — or, perhaps, was. Maybe he slipped away in anonymity. Or maybe he was arrested by CCP authorities, only to perish in prison or by execution. Tank Man is as much enigma as he is icon.
But Jianli Yang, a survivor of the Tiananmen Square massacre and former political prisoner, understands the meaning of Tank Man:
The CCP’s fear of the image of Tank Man speaks volumes about what he represents. He stands as a symbol of the unwavering human spirit, an individual’s courageous defiance against overwhelming odds in the face of daunting state violence.
Yang tells of others who embody the spirit of Tank Man. Like “Bridge Man,” another unknown Chinese man who hung banners and burned tires on a bridge in defiance of Xi Jinping. Or protesters who sparked demonstrations across China that began in opposition to Covid regulations, but who now demand freedom and democracy. Some protests have even spread to Qinghua University, Xi’s alma mater.
As one Qinghua student said:
If we don’t speak up due to the fear of the dark regime. I think our people will be disappointed. As a Qinghua student, I’d regret this for the rest of my life.
Let’s also remember Joshua Wong, the famous young Hong Kong dissident, who has been in a Chinese prison for the past two years, and has now received another three-month sentence. However, he may also face up to life in prison. Joshua Wong also embodies the spirit of Tank Man.
Residents of Hong Kong are experiencing life under the iron hand of Communism after thriving under British rule. Yet many in America don’t seem to recognize the catastrophes that it has levied on the world.
For example, a museum called the “Victims of Communism Museum” stands in Washington, DC. It’s been open for almost a year, but mainstream media has largely ignored it. The Washington Post did remark on its opening; however, the WaPo added that “this philosophy that killed tens of millions also inspired generations of activists.” Like that’s a good thing.
Then again, political elites seem to have their Communist sympathizers. Take, for example, the New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty, who in 1932 received a Pulitzer Prize after he covered up Stalin’s manmade famine in Ukraine. Or FDR’s Vice President Henry Wallace, who was a sap for Stalin’s propaganda machine.
And now we have former president Donald Trump, who recently congratulated North Korean President Kim Jong Un for his admission to the World Health Oranization’s executive board. Kim Jong Un — who is as evil as Xi Jinping.
Yes, Xi, whom last month Trump also told Tucker Carlson was “brilliant:”
President Xi is a brilliant man. If you went all over Hollywood to look for somebody to play the role of President Xi, you couldn’t find it. There’s nobody like that. The look, the brain, the whole thing.
Yet Donald Trump is the Republican front runner for his party’s presidential nomination. Go figure.
So why is the West so inclined to overlook Communism?
Richard M. Reinsch II and Paul Zepeda, both at the Heritage Foundation, wrote:
The communist East had violently abolished the limits and duties of man. The liberal West had discarded them voluntarily.
Modern man, impious, statist, and commercial, is left with only earthly ends. This false anthropology of the godlike man has become firmly entrenched in both communist and liberal nations. The former believes that man as the state can achieve all aims; the latter, that man as individual can do the same.
Jiangli Yang asks us to call upon our inner Tank Man:
I believe there is a Tank Man in each human being. Understanding that, perhaps we might find it easier to aspire to what is best in us; to look to our own reserves of courage and compassion.
The dissidents of Hong Kong embody the spirit of Tank Man, 34 years after the Tiananmen Square massacre. Those of us in the West should remember him, the dissidents in Hong Kong, and what Communism has wrought over the globe.
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Featured image: Tiananmen vigil in Hong Kong, 2015. VeryBusyPeople/flickr/cropped/CC BY-SA 2.0.
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