Since 1990, Hong Kong became the mecca of June 4th vigil of the world. Every year on the night of June 4th, hundreds of thousands of people would show up in the Victoria Park to mark the anniversary. That is, until 2020, when the government used COVID as the excuse to ban it.
But in 2020, people still showed up. In 2021, it was no longer possible, as the organizers were either already behind the bars or arrested on June 4th morning. As usual, you can read more details on the events in the Wikipedia page, for 2020 and for 2021. You can also see photos of the vigil of the past 30 years on the Guardian website.
There was also a lesser known June 4th museum. It was permanently closed in July 2021.
In addition to the annual memorial, Hong Kong was also home to one of the sculptures called Pillar of Shame. It was hosted in the campus of Hong Kong University, until December 23rd last year. (Photo By Minghong - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0)
On Dec 22nd, to the dismay of journalists and pro-democracy people in Hong Kong, the statue was removed in secrecy.
June 4th is a short name for the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. It was a student-led peaceful movement that wanted to have a dialogue with the top leaders of CCP to reform the Chinese political system. It started on April 15th and quickly spread all over the country. On June 4th by a brutal and violent suppression, mostly in Beijing and on Tiananmen Square in particular, ended the movement. .
After the military crackdown, most of the student leaders were arrested. In the 1990s, most of them were exiled in the USA as part of human rights diplomacy. The most famous is Wang Dan, who is active on Twitter. He was number 1 on the most wanted list in 1989 and was jailed on and off until 1998.
Last year, well a month ago, reacting to the report on the removal of the Pillar of Shame, Wang started talking about a museum on Twitter. This year on Jan 4th, Wang officially announced the plan to open a memorial of June 4th in New York. According to the his tweet, they have received \(66,069 since they started fund raising on the 10th. Wang said that _one friend alone donated \)50,000_.
If you remember, in our newsletter 22, we introduced Human Rights lawyer Teng Biao. He mentioned that “many Chinese dissidents and intellectuals were supporting Trump”. Today, on Twitter, he also commented on their view of the Jan 6th Capitol attack.
He said:
The Jan 6th riots are no different from the Tiananmen massacre! This is the opinion of Cheng Kai, a Chinese pro-democracy activist and journalist for the Radio France International, a statement shared by many Chinese pro-democracy Trump fans.
Screenshot from Cheng Kai's article "The Confusion of January 6th"
(rough translation of the screenshot) In September 2014, when the 'Occupy Central' movement took place in Hong Kong and students occupied the streets for more than two months, US public opinion overwhelmingly condemned the Hong Kong government's violent crackdown on the students. The US Congress, the White House and the State Department all strongly supported and condemned the violent crackdown by the Hong Kong government. Why did the same peaceful petition that entered Capitol become a riot and domestic terrorism in the United States? Isn't this the same as the peaceful petition by students in Tiananmen Square in 1989, which was characterised by the Chinese Communist Party as an "anti-revolutionary riot"? Is the Democratic government in the US following the example of the Chinese Communist dictatorship?
On the day of Jan 6th, a middle aged woman from San Diego, California entered the capitol. She had no violent action, but a plain clothed police shot her to death. The murderer got away with no investigation. How is this different from the Chinese army opening fire on the peaceful students and citizens on June 4th 1989? In both cases, the people in power are using the governmental forces to brutally suppress peaceful protesters. (Highlighted in blue by Teng Biao, and referring to the shooting of Ashli Babbitt)
Killing one person and killing 1,000 people are both killings, there is only difference in the number of killings, but not in the nature of the killings.
Although Cheng Kai works for RFI, this article was not published by RFI. It was published by a Chinese media. Today, this media’s YouTube channel was terminated for violating YouTube’s community rules.
Mr. Teng Biao’s accusation of the “Chinese pro-democracy Trump fans” is not baseless. For example, a well-known pastor named Fu Xiqiu/Bob Fu was on Capitol Hill on Jan 6th 2021. He posted photos of that day on his Twitter. Many Chinese people on Twitter were outraged that he actively participated in sabotaging US democracy.
This year, on Jan 6th, Mr. Fu tweeted the same message as Mr. Cheng Kai, claiming that calling them rioters is the same as CCP calling June 4th protesters “anti-revolutionary rioters”.
He also tweeted that some Chinese people dared to report him to the US government, calling them “rotten people” and “red guards”. Wang Dan retweeted it in defense of Mr. Fu, claiming those people were trying to undermine the American support for the overseas pro-democracy Chinese. “Because Americans have no idea about these pro-democracy people” Wang claimed.
And it is no secret that Wang himself supports Trump. On his YouTube channel, he is still (in Chinese) talking admiringly about Trump’s China policy.
Why these people matter?
Because they are not nobody. Mr. Fu has access to US congressmen and can strongly influence which political dissident get rescued from China. Mr. Wang Dan is not only, as we saw earlier, the person organising the new NY Memorial of June 4th: to many Chinese, just like the Tank Man to the West, Wang Dan is the most recognizable name for June 4th.
The fact that they can express so openly such lies means that their audience believe the lies too. Instead of damaging their reputation, the lies actually win them more supporters in the worldwide pro-democracy overseas Chinese communities.
Why are they thinking like that?
It’s hard to say. Maybe a simple “left are communist so Red States must be the solution” (joke)…
Mr. Fu lives and works in Texas and has close association with Republicans and support from the evangelical Church there.
Mr. Wang lived in America since 1998, and left for Taiwan during the Obama years. The moment Trump won the 2016 election, he rushed back. He speaks broken English: he is hardly ever invited to any US TV interviews to discuss China. He always reads and retweets Chinese news sources. So he is a bit isolated in the Chinese bubble, and his understanding of democracy is stuck in 1989.
Most Chinese in 1989 had no idea how democracy worked, like yours truly. My understanding of the world and politics was mostly shaped after I left China and I gained new knowledge through reading English books and news. To me, it seems Mr. Wang learned very differently, if he learned anything at all.
With the June 4th legacy fallen into the hands of people like Wang Dan, I feel quite disappointed.