“I want to see Tiananmen vindicated,” says Hong Kong

Record number of people turned up tonight at the 8.00pm Candlelight Vigil at Hong Kong’s Victoria Park to mark the 20^th anniversary of the June 4 massacre.  A New York Times report cites several participants who have expressed different reasons for attending the vigil:

Yvonne Chow, a middle-aged social worker, said that she had come to the vigil every year for two decades and was heartened to see the turnout on Thursday night.

“I am very happy that people have not forgotten the massacre in Tiananmen on June 4,” she said. “I am very sad because it destroyed our hopes for democracy.”

Brian Cha, a 35-year-old interior designer, said that while the twentieth anniversary was an important one, he also came because he was angered by recent comments by Donald Tsang, Hong Kong’s chief executive, who suggested that critics of the crackdown should also take into account China’s many successes since 1989.

Carrie Ho, a 35-year-old marketer, said that she came to the annual vigil for only the second time partly because of the Hong Kong government’s decision to bar some activists from entering the territory in recent weeks. The government’s action undermined freedom in the territory, she said.

This breath-taking photograph of the Candlelight Vigil is taken by Bobby Yip of Reuters.

毋忘六四

No, there is nothing wrong with your monitor.  I have switched the background colour scheme of this blog from light blue to black as a sign of respect for those who died during the Massacre on 4 June 1989.  Lest we forget.

Where is the Tank Man?

Chinese leaders at Zhongnanhai all know the answer.  But they are not going to tell you.  When it comes to the Tiananmen Massacre and the fate of the Tank Man, they have all taken an oath of silence.

Jiang Zemin is the only Chinese official who has ever answered questions on this topic.  Jiang broke his silence during a 1990 interview with Barbara Walters from the American Broadcasting Company for ABC News.  The following is a transcript of the part about the Tank Man:

WALTERS: What happened to the young man?

JIANG: I think this young man maybe not killed by the tank.

WALTERS: No, but did you arrest him? We heard he was arrested and executed.

JIANG: [through interpreter] Well, I can’t confirm whether this young man you mentioned was arrested or not.

WALTERS: You do not know what happened to him?

JIANG: But I think never never killed.

WALTERS: You think he was never killed.

JIANG: I think never killed.

WALTERS: Never killed.

In the same interview, Jiang also commented on the number of students killed at Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989.  He refuted outside accusation of massacre as mere ’stuff and nonsense’ and ‘much ado about nothing’.  He was adamant that no one would be able to find a single case of anyone killed at Tiananmen Square on that evening.  He was absolutely right.  Twenty years from now, there are more and more so-called “eye witnesses”, both Chinese and westerners, who have come forward to claim that they saw no one being killed at Tiananmen Square.  Some of them, however, admitted that killing had taken place throughout the night on the streets surrounding the Square.  Most killed were not students.  They were workers and common citizens (or laobaixing).

Does it really matter where the massacre had taken place?  The bottom line is: many innocent people were slaughtered.  Their death was seen as collateral damages – a small price to pay for greater prosperity to come.  How sad!  What hope do we have to be able to find the Tank Man?

Is Du Daozheng Acting under Duress?

One of my old blog posts about the history journal Yanhuang Chunqiu has attracted unusually high traffic in the last couple of days.  This prompted me to conduct a search to find out what had happened.

A rumour about the shutting down of the Journal’s website came to my attention since early this week.  I first came across this news from the Radio Free Asia Mandarin Service.  Two days later, Jane Macartney of Timesonline also published a report about the ban.  This really puzzles me because, from where I am, I have no problem accessing the website.  I also checked with a few friends of mine who are working in China.  They confirmed that the website had been shut down for around 48 hours during the weekend.  However, for reasons unknown, the blockage was lifted on Monday.

But traffic for my Yanhuang Chunqiu blog post keeps surging.  And my search continues.

Finally, a shocking piece of news came to the surface this morning.  The Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao reveals that Du Daozheng, the former chief editor of Yanhuang Chunqiu, has withdrawn his support for the book Prisoner of the State, the English edition of Premier Zhao Ziyang’s secret journal.  The following is a partial translation of the Ming Pao report:

The CCP veteran Du Daozheng, who assisted Zhao Ziyang to record his memoir onto audio tapes, will publish a statement at the forthcoming June issue of Ming Pao Monthly Magazine to denounce the English version of Zhao’s memoir Prisoner of the State.  Du maintains that both the title and the preface of the book lack objectivity and have misrepresented Zhao’s original intention.  Du also points out that the comrades who were entrusted with the task of concealing the audio tapes have never handed over the tapes to people outside of the Zhao family.  He voices his strong objection to the publication of Zhao’s memoir at this point in time and claims that his view is “firmly shared” by the Zhao family.  The translator of Zhao’s memoir is Bao Pu, the son of Zhao Ziyang’s former secretary Bao Tong.  Bao Pu is also the owner of the New Century Publishing House, and the publisher of Gaige Licheng (or The Course of Reform) – the Chinese edition of the memoir.  The book will be available for sale in bookstores this Friday.  Ming Pao made a telephone call to Bao Pu last night to verify the report.  Bao Pu hung up on our reporter as soon as Du Daozheng’s name was mentioned.

Yanhuang Chunqiu Editorial Board Facing Restructuring

An article published in the latest edition of Yanhuang Chunqiu 炎黄春秋 is said to have infuriated a former CCP leader, prompting speculation that the esteemed academic journal will be the next victim of China’s notorious censorship regime.  According to Yazhou Zhoukan 亚洲周刊 (used to be the Chinese edition of Asiaweek and  is now a Hong Kong based pro-China magazine), Beijing will impose a restructuring order on the Journal’s editorial board, in an attempt to neutralize the influence of a group of discontented Party veterans.

The article in question is a cover story about Zhao Ziyang 赵紫阳.  This is the first positive account of Zhao to appear in any PRC publications since he was removed from leadership in 1989.  The article was penned by Sun Zhen 孙振, the retired chief of Xinhua’s Sichuan branch.  Sun served under Zhao during the Cultural Revolution.  The article, which reaffirmed the popularity of Zhao among Sichuan peasants, was seen as a direct challenge to the official verdict of Zhao and of his mistakes in handling the Tiananmen Square incident.