On June 4, 1989, a student-led demonstration demanding democracy, basic freedoms, and grater government transparency held at Tiananmen Square was forcibly ended. The People’s Liberation Army, armed with tanks and AK-47s stormed in and indiscriminately unleashed deadly force to suppress what the Communist party called a “counter-revolutionary riot.”  

The incident is a taboo subject in China and any mention of it is banned from books and the Internet. In anticipation of its 25th anniversary, the Chinese government has reportedly taken “extra precautions” to prevent any public commemoration of this tragedy, i.e. interrogating and imprisoning scholars and others that partook in the movement. 

For those in the West, and especially Chinese emigrants, the June Fourth Massacre is easily reduced to a blemish in Chinese history, recalled only by the iconic image of a lone (still unidentified) man standing before a line of tanks. Most historians remember it as the last pro-democracy movement within China to gain real momentum, but survivors live with constant reminders in the form of missing limbs, daily fear of government retribution, and police barging into their homes to whisk them away for weeks at a time, every year near this date.

Every hardship endured by these individuals and their families serves as an incentive to forget. The generations after them have only been handed a historical record tainted by shadowy allusions and inconsistencies. Those of us who enjoy a guarantee of basic rights and democratic rule, therefore, must undertake the responsibility of ensuring that the significance of June 4, 1989 is never forgotten. 

Reach Executive Producer Ashley Yang here. Follow her here.