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MundoAsia, ,

I was giving a talk about Tiananmen Square’s legacy at an Australian university about two years ago when a young Chinese student put up her hand during the question-and-answer session. “Why do we have to look back to this time in history?” she asked. “Why do you think it will be helpful to current and nowadays China, especially our young generation? Do you think it could be harmful to what the Chinese government calls the harmonious society?”

She wasn’t challenging the facts of what had happened on June 4, 1989. She was questioning the value of the knowledge itself. In the years since I wrote about Beijing’s success in erasing the killings of 1989 from collective memory, I’ve often heard Chinese students defending the government’s behavior as necessary.…  Seguir leyendo »

Protesters on an armored vehicle just outside of Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 4, 1989. Credit Jeff Widener/Associated Press

MundoAsia, ,

I learned that I was China’s most wanted criminal while having my hair cut aboard a crowded, decrepit steamboat on the Yangtze River. The P.A. system suddenly blared that the Beijing Public Security Bureau had ordered the arrest of 21 students who were charged with instigating “counterrevolutionary riots” in Tiananmen Square. My name topped the list.

It was June of 1989, nine days after government troops and armored personnel carriers rolled into central Beijing and brutally crushed the seven-week-long student-led pro-democracy demonstrations.

The announcement on the boat rattled me. As one of the chief organizers of the protests, I was running away from the authorities in the capital.…  Seguir leyendo »