High security a reminder on 30th anniversary of Tiananmen

FILE: Live in May 1988. Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China. On the wall: Long live the People’s Republic of China, Long live the unity of the people of the world”. (Photo By Derzsi Elekes Andor – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0)

BEIJING — China stepped up security Tuesday around Tiananmen Square in central Beijing, as its embassy in Washington criticized a senior U.S. official for a statement on its bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests at the square 30 years ago.

Extra checkpoints and street closures greeted tourists who showed up before 5 a.m. to watch the daily flag-raising ceremony at the square. An honour guard marched across a barricaded road and raised the Chinese flag as the national anthem played.

The tight security served as a reminder of the government’s attempts to quash any memories of the crackdown on the night of June 3-4, 1989, that is believed to have killed hundreds and possibly thousands of people.

For many Chinese, the 30th anniversary of the crackdown will pass like any other day.

Any commemoration of the event is not allowed in mainland China, and the government has blocked access to information about it on the internet.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement Monday saluting what he called the “heroes of the Chinese people who bravely stood up thirty years ago … to demand their rights.”

He urged China to make a full, public accounting of those killed, and said that U.S. hopes have been dashed that China would become a more open and tolerant society.

A post on the website of the Chinese Embassy in Washington said that Pompeo’s statement “grossly intervenes in China’s internal affairs … and smears its domestic and foreign policies.”

It added that the Chinese government and people reached a verdict long ago on what it called “the political incident of the late 1980s,” and that China’s rapid economic development and progress in democracy and the rule of law show it is following the right path.

Analysts say the crackdown set the ruling Communist Party on a path of repression and control that continues to this day.

“They’re now engaging in a tremendous amount of repression because they embarked on a strategy of not dialoguing with the people,” said Andrew Nathan, a Columbia University professor of Chinese politics.

“The party knows best, the party decides, and the people have no voice,” he said.

“So that requires more and more intense repression of all of the forces in society that want to be heard.”

Thousands are expected to turn out Tuesday night for a candlelight vigil in Hong Kong, which has greater freedoms under an agreement reached before the return of the former British colony to China in 1997.

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Associated Press journalist Yong Jun Chang contributed to this story from Seoul, South Korea.