The World Remembers While Tiananmen Square Is Forced to Forget

It has been 25 years since the Chinese government deployed 200,000 troops armed with assault rifles and tanks to inflict devastating violence on unarmed civilians trying to block the military's advance towards Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing, which student demonstrators had occupied for seven weeks. The resulting bloodshed lead to the deaths of thousands.

Remembrances were held in the city of Hong Kong, and global headlines marked the 25th anniversary of China’s brutal crackdown on the protesters. Yet there was no trace of remembrance at the site of the killings. Tourists posed for pictures below the iconic portrait of Mao Zedong, and children ran laughing through the square. The only sign of that day’s lingering effects were the swarms of police patrolling the square and the roads leading to it.

State-controlled Chinese news organizations largely ignored the anniversary, even as the foreign news media gave it global attention, according to the New York Times. The general silence of the anniversary in mainland China left Hong Kong as the only city on Chinese soil where such a public commemoration could take place.

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