Police swamp Tiananmen Square - Beijing denounces US ‘interference’/Beijing steps up efforts to crush dissent

Police swamp Tiananmen Square - Beijing denounces US ‘interference’
By Kathrin Hille and Jamil Anderlini in Beijing
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: June 4 2009 09:46 | Last updated: June 4 2009 09:46
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d316b736-50d9-11de-8922-00144feabdc0.html


Chinese security forces took full control of Tiananmen Square on Thursday, the 20th anniversary of the government’s brutal crackdown on the student democracy movement, monitoring every individual approaching it, randomly stopping foreigners for identification and harassing reporters and those who spoke to them.

This came as the Chinese government reacted angrily to US calls for a public accounting of the 1989 massacre.

Qin Gang, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, called written comments from Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, “gross interference” and “crude meddling” in China’s internal affairs.

“The statement from the US ignores the facts and makes groundless accusations against the Chinese government,” Mr Qin told a regular press briefing. “We express our strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition. We urge the US to forsake its prejudices, correct its erroneous ways and avoid obstructing and damaging Sino-US relations.”

An estimated 70 per cent of the people in the square on Thursday were armed police, so-called “city management” officials, soldiers and plain clothes security personnel.

The men carrying colourful umbrellas in the square were from the security forces, and not the usual tourist groups.

FT reporters were stopped and warned against reporting in the square immediately after they got out of their car in a nearby street.

Chinese citizens who reporters tried to speak to were immediately stopped by the police, including a woman who was with a foreigner being interviewed by the FT.

A foreign student seen talking to FT reporters was pushed towards one of the exits by officials.

Ryan Burningham, a 22-year-old US student spending the summer in Beijing, had come to the square unaware of the day’s significance. “I knew about it, but I didn’t think about it. I was three years old at that time,” he said when reminded of the 1989 massacre.

As he was talking to FT reporters, about a dozen of the men with umbrellas started closing in on the group and one man, wearing a red T-Shirt, started to provoke the reporters, pushing them, swearing at them and using his umbrella to attack them – bullying tactics widespread in China but rarely applied in the centre of the capital or in front of foreigners.

One plain clothes provocateur shouted: “You are not in your country, this is China ... I look down on you, I despise you!”

Uniformed police officers stood by, grinning. “There is nothing I can do,” said one when appealed to for help.

Several small-scale demonstrations took place in Beijing on Thursday morning.

Witnesses said four young men took off their shirts in front of the Taiwan Hotel in the city centre to reveal white clothing and unfurled white banners, following online appeals to mark the day by wearing white, the traditional Chinese colour of mourning. The men were immediately surrounded by hotel security, and detained by police who arrived minutes later.

A foreign businessman staying at the Peninsula Hotel just down the same street said he heard megaphone announcements and sounds “like at a rally” in the early morning, but it turned quiet after a few minutes and he could only see the police when he looked out of the window.

Wuer Kaixi, one of the leaders of the 1989 protest, expressed confidence that young people in China today would eventually push the country towards democratisation.

“China has more economic freedom today than it had 20 years ago, and it is busy enjoying this freedom,” he said in a phone interview from a detention cell in Macao, awaiting repatriation to Taiwan after he was refused entry on Wednesday.

He had planned to go to the Beijing liaison office in Macao and demand to be extradited to the mainland after 20 years in exile. Mr Wuer said on Thursday he would seek to return to his home country through more radical ways, such as smuggling himself in.

He rejected the observation that Chinese youths were more apolitical than the 1989 generation. “Today’s Chinese don’t talk about democracy, but they pursue it,” he said. “The Chinese have gained some wealth, and they are now seeking more equal and fair environment, a more efficient government to guarantee their wealth.”

He said that despite the absence of a broad democracy movement, many people’s attempts to gain freedom of speech through the internet were “like thousands of small tongues.”










Beijing steps up efforts to crush dissent
By Kathrin Hille in Beijing and Tom Mitchell and Justine Lau in Hong Kong
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: June 3 2009 16:23 | Last updated: June 3 2009 16:23
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/96c78f34-504e-11de-9530-00144feabdc0.html


China has intensified efforts to quell any expressions of dissent around Thurday’s 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, tightening security and expanding an aggressive censorship campaign .

The square was on Wednesday closed to the public and entry blocked by armed police at underpasses.

CNN was added to the long list of overseas information providers blocked by censors, joining the BBC, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune and even Twitter.

Furthermore, prominent dissidents including Bao Tong have been escorted out of Beijing. Mr Bao was an aide to Zhao Ziyang, the late premier purged in the pro-democracy student protests of 1989, and is one of the most prominent Tiananmen-era dissidents still living in China. His government-sponsored tour included a visit to his home town in Zhejiang province, near Shanghai.

“The Chinese government never forgot what happened [at Tiananmen],” said Bao Pu, Mr Bao’s son and editor of Zhao’s recently published memoir, Prisoner of the State. “That memory haunts them . . . Otherwise they wouldn’t guard an empty square for 20 years.”

Even district governments are arranging forced retreats for minor figures. Xi Guozhen, a 54-year-old Shanghai woman embroiled in a local property dispute, could not be contacted on Wednesday. A friend of Ms Xi’s told the Financial Times that the Xuhui district government in Shanghai had taken her on a visit to a neighbouring province.

Ms Xi travelled to Hong Kong, where freedom of speech and association are still respected, to protest outside the Chinese central government’s representative “liaison office” in December. She had intended to return there this month, but the local government cancelled her Hong Kong travel permit.

The Hong Kong government, meanwhile, has refused entry to at least three people who wished to join in memorial events.

On Tuesday night Xiang Xiaoji, a student leader in 1989, was refused entry to the territory without explanation. However, other prominent figures from the student movement, including Tong Yi and Xiong Yan, were allowed into Hong Kong to attend an academic conference on Tiananmen. Mr Xiong is now a US army chaplain based in Alabama.

Wu’er Kaixi, No 2 on the Chinese government’s Tiananmen “most wanted” list, tried to reach China via Macao on Wednesday but was returned, Taiwan authorities said. He had sought extradition to China.

“This action [to request extradition] is in no way whatsoever an acknowledgement of guilt,” Mr Wu’er said in a statement, adding that he had not seen his parents in 20 years. “China refuses to engage in a dialogue and I am hopeful that a trial at least would be a resumption of dialogue of a sort.”

Memorial activities in Hong Kong will come to a head on Thursday night at an annual candlelight vigil. Many due to take part are too young to remember Tiananmen but are now fighting to ensure it is not forgotten.

“Young people in Hong Kong should express their views,” said Lee Chun-feng, the 24-year-old curator of a Tiananmen-inspired art exhibition. “There may be a distance between us and June 4, but don’t assume we don’t know anything.”

“Hong Kong youth know very little about June 4 because we are not taught about it in school,” added Ada Lee, 23, an aspiring journalist.

Netizens use strength in numbers against censors
Today is May 35 – at least it is for Chinese bloggers who want to discuss Tiananmen.

The date, which internet users came up with this week, is arrived at by extending the month of May by the first four days of June – and so far it has slipped by the censors.

Beijing, facing today’s 20th anniversary of its bloody crackdown on the student democracy movement, has mobilised an army of censors to clear the web of potentially subversive content, down to any reference to the date.

Another numerical ruse is “eight squared” – 64 – which mirrors the fourth of the sixth, June 4.

But netizens’ imagination does not stop at numbers. Users of Douban, a chat forum, issued an appeal this week for everyone to wear white, the traditional colour of mourning in China.

Xia Yeliang, an economist at Peking University, changed the background colour of his blog to black, the western colour of mourning also recognised in China.

Sohu, the portal hosting his blog, reacted by turning off the feature that allows bloggers to reset the background. From Tuesday, anyone trying to switch colour received a message saying the feature had been disabled for “technical reasons” and would be repaired within three days, by Friday – when the anniversary will be over.