History Matters: Tiananmen Square

Tomorrow - June 4 - Hong Kong will host its annual vigil at Victoria Park to remember those who were murdered by the Chinese government in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square 21 years ago. It's the only place within China that holds such an event. Since the massacre took place in 1989, the government is still fighting the battle. But rather than use tanks and bullets, it's using the Internet and corrupted laws.


Yesterday, a sculptor was refused entrance to Hong Kong and then deported back to his current home in the U.S. Chen Weiming's crime was to create a replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue that stood in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Last weekend there was a demonstration on public property outside a shopping mall in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay to commemorate Tiananmen and the statue was confiscated by the police. This was, according to the Hong Kong Bar Association, an abuse of their authority and undermined the rule of law.

This is how history perverts the present in China. In a desperate attempt to bury a past injustice, Beijing ties itself into more knots than a contortionist at the circus. While these abuses are common occurrences in mainland China, Hong Kong is supposed to be immune under our "one country, two systems" constitutional arrangement. But no matter what Beijing does, it'll never be able to hide the truth of the horrific events that occurred in 1989.