U.S. urges China to come clean on Tiananmen anniversary

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U.S. urges China to come clean on Tiananmen anniversary

 

A paramilitary policeman keeps watch underneath the portrait of former Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, China June 4, 2018. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

 

BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States urges China to make a full public account of those killed, detained or who went missing during a crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said.

 

The Chinese government sent tanks to quell the June 4, 1989 protests, and has never released a death toll. Estimates from human rights groups and witnesses range from several hundred to several thousand.

 

The Tiananmen crackdown is a taboo subject in China and 29 years later it remains a point of contention between China and many Western countries.

 

In a statement on Sunday the recently appointed Pompeo said he remembered "the tragic loss of innocent lives".

 

"As Liu Xiaobo wrote in his 2010 Nobel Peace Prize speech, delivered in absentia, 'the ghosts of June 4th have not yet been laid to rest'," Pompeo said referring to the Chinese dissident who died last year while still in custody.

 

"We join others in the international community in urging the Chinese government to make a full public accounting of those killed, detained or missing," Pompeo added.

 

China's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment and there was no mention of the day in state media.

However, Hu Xijin, editor of widely-read Chinese newspaper the Global Times wrote on Twitter that the 1989 demonstrators would never achieve their aims.

 

"What wasn't achieved through a movement that year will be even more impossible to be realised by holding whiny commemorations today."

 

Tens of thousands of people are expected to gather later in the day in Hong Kong to mark the anniversary, the only place in China where such large-scale public commemorations happen.

 

On Tiananmen Square, security was tight as is usual for the anniversary, with no signs of any protests or other memorial events.

 

Foreigners' passports were checked by Chinese police at a checkpoint nearly a kilometre from the square. A Reuters reporter was turned away and told that unapproved "interview activities" were forbidden in the square on Monday.

 

In their annual open letter, the Tiananmen Mothers, who represent the families of those who died, said the government was guilty of serious disrespect by ignoring their requests for redress.

 

"Such a powerful proletarian dictatorship apparatus is afraid of us: the old, the sick, and the weakest and most vulnerable of our society," they wrote in a letter addressed to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

 

In Taiwan, the democratic and self-ruled island China claims as its own, former president Ma Ying-jeou said in a statement it was important to face up to history to help heal the families' wounds.

 

"Only by doing this can the Chinese communists be seen by the world as a real great power," wrote Ma, under whose administration ties with China dramatically improved.

 

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Christian Shepherd; Editing by Michael Perry; Additional reporting by Jess Macy Yu in TAIPEI; Editing by Ryan Woo)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-06-04

[Damrongsak]

I was about to go to China on a business trip when that happened...

[car720]

Well, I now have no doubt in my mind that Trump is trying to pick a fight with China.

Is it true that the US economy dies without war?

Why doesn't Pompeo ask Merkel just which of Hitler's relatives are still alive?

If anyone has any doubt that there is a hidden agenda then this should make it clear.

[wombat]

Jfc.....1989...

Get over  it.

[Cereal]

There were 5 Chinese young ladies in my university cohort back in 2008. 

 

I saw them in the library one day when I was getting books for a paper I was going to write on Tiananmen Square. They told me the whole thing was a lie to discredit China. The pictures were all photo shopped. 

 

I later taught university in China and very delicately asked some Chinese professors about it and they had never heard of the incident.

[Morch]

7 hours ago, car720 said:

Well, I now have no doubt in my mind that Trump is trying to pick a fight with China.

Is it true that the US economy dies without war?

Why doesn't Pompeo ask Merkel just which of Hitler's relatives are still alive?

If anyone has any doubt that there is a hidden agenda then this should make it clear.

 

While this is obviously confrontational, and quite possibly a "hidden agenda" involved, doubt it's about going to war. Posters going on about imminent war, though - that's something else. Such imaginary wars start (well...almost, at least) a few times a day, on a slow day.

 

As for Germany, an obvious difference would be Germany openly acknowledging its past. 

[lannarebirth]

12 minutes ago, Morch said:

 

While this is obviously confrontational, and quite possibly a "hidden agenda" involved, doubt it's about going to war. Posters going on about imminent war, though - that's something else. Such imaginary wars start (well...almost, at least) a few times a day, on a slow day.

 

As for Germany, an obvious difference would be Germany openly acknowledging its past. 

 

Another obvious difference is that Germany has banned such parties from ever coming to power again. China's government remains the same.