Tiananmen Square was 20 years ago. TPM has a photo gallery, including yesterday’s Hong Kong vigil. Via Andrew Sullivan, a new picture at NYT of the Tank Man.
Kim Zetter at Wired about China’s censorship of the day:
Chinese authorities have instituted censoring measures to block access to several internet sites and services in anticipation of Thursday’s 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protest and massacre.
The censoring began at 5 p.m. local time on Tuesday as access to sites was blocked, though users could still reportedly reach some of them through proxies, VPNs and third-party desktop clients.
The blocked sites include Twitter, Flickr and Microsoft’s Hotmail, according to the Telegraph. FoxNews added The Huffington Post, Life Journal and the MSN Spaces blogging tool to the list. BBC viewers in China also saw their screens black out when the news service broadcast stories about the anniversary, and foreign news crews have been barred from filming in the square. Readers of the Financial Times and Economist magazine found stories about Tiananmen ripped from their pages. Authorities also plan to begin cracking down on unapproved internet cafes, according to reports from state media.
Gordon C. Chang at National Review:
What is the most important legacy of the tragedy that many this day mourn? It is, in my view, China’s modernity. The party, after Tiananmen, had no real choice but to permit the Chinese people to continue to remake their nation, and the most far-reaching change was the undoing of Mao Zedong’s extreme social engineering. Mao had consolidated the power of the Communist party by dividing up the Chinese people into small units and isolating each of those units from others. In the countryside, he created self-contained communes. In the city, he built state-owned enterprises. Separated from one another, the Chinese people had no real way to challenge Mao’s one-party state.
James A. Dorn at Cato, with a podcast.
At Huffington Post:
Today, two decades after the “life-and-death turning point” of Tiananmen, Chinese Communist rule has survived, but its leaders remain anxious about the possibility of another revolutionary challenge. To foreigners, China appears like an emerging superpower, strong economically and influential internationally; but its Communist leaders feel much weaker as they struggle to stay on top of a society roiled by thirty years of market reform and opening to the world.
Although never publicly articulating it, the Chinese Communist Party has devised a formula for survival based on the lessons they drew from the Tiananmen experience. First, prevent large-scale protests. Second, avoid public leadership splits. And third, keep the military loyal to the Party.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:
But what I saw in China last week is that despite continued repression, the spirit of Tiananmen continues to inspire people there and abroad. Throughout China, workers and farmers are fighting back. They might not know about June 4th, as the Chinese government continues to censor news on the news (Wired’s Threat Level blog compiled sites authorities have blocked which include Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail, and the Huffington Post, among others), but they have similar concerns.
Two of the issues which have been priorities of my service in Congress — promoting human rights and protecting the environment — are coming together in the discussion about China. Environmental damage adversely impacts the poorest people in the world and this is especially true in China. It is estimated that there are more than 100,000 protests each year in China and the number continues to increase.
My friend Han Dongfang, one of the heroes of Tiananmen, explained to me that the Chinese people aren’t fighting under a banner of democracy this time. They are defending their land from unlawful seizure. They are fighting corruption at the local levels. They are fighting against the poison that is being dumped into their air, land, rivers, and lakes. They do not have the proper channels to address their grievances. They are calling for a government that is accountable to the people. They are calling for openness and transparency. They are calling for justice. All of these things are what we mean when we talk about fighting for human rights.
And some Daily Kos diaries:
cal in Cali, with a Facebook group to join
More when I find it.
UPDATE: TNR Tv
Several posts from James Fallows, natch. Here, here and here.
Two other, related notes: As reported yesterday, CNN is still blacked out whenever words like “In China today….” or “Twenty years ago in Bei….” come across the airwaves. Whereas BBC TV is airing uncensored footage of tanks in the square twenty years ago and repeatedly using the phrase “Tiananmen massacre.” And just as I type, the admirable Quentin Somerville of the BBC is talking, live from Beijing, about the “ruthlessness at the heart of the Communist government.” (And just this second, in a Borges-worthy moment, Somerville said that international coverage was being blacked out across China — so I got to see him saying that I was not able to see him. Still, the general point is true.)
Second note: Hillary Clinton’s official “Message on the Twentieth Anniversary of Tiananmen Square,” here, was necessary, appropriate, properly phrased, and — even though it will have no effect inside China — exactly the right thing to have done. More on this theme shortly.
Back to practicalities: if you in Beijing and are near the square, be careful. Seriously.
Andreas Lorenz in Salon
UPDATE #2: Xiao Qiang at HuffPo
Dan Twining in Foreign Policy
UPDATE #3: Jonathan Tobin in Commentary
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June 5, 2009 at 7:14 pm
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