Exclusive | The high price of denial: the cost to China of sweeping the Tiananmen crackdown under the carpet
- Three decades have passed since the Tiananmen Square crackdown when troops fired on student-led pro-democracy protesters. The shots were heard around the country and reverberate today despite persistent official censorship of the event
- For those 30 years the Communist Party has refused to revisit June 4, doubling down against calls to check its power
In the second instalment in a six-part series, Josephine Ma and Guo Rui look at how the party’s long-term authoritarian survival strategy raises big risks of its own.
When You Weijie’s husband was killed in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, the only official acknowledgement she received was a small cash payment from her work unit.
You’s husband, 42-year-old patent office worker Yang Minghu, was caught in gunfire on a Beijing street as the military advanced to the square to enforce martial law.
Yang was sympathetic to the pro-democracy protesters and left his home early on June 4 to check on their safety.
He was struck by a bullet as troops fired into a crowd, becoming one of the hundreds, perhaps more than 1,000, who died as troops quashed protests that the national leadership saw as a threat to Communist Party rule.
The 800 yuan from You’s work unit was supposed to compensate her for the loss of her spouse’s life; but she returned it. “I couldn’t use the money. I felt that this is a person’s life, this is the price of a human’s life,” she said.
