For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emailsSign up to our free breaking news emails<\/p>\n
Fangsuo Zhou, now in his 50s, remembers all too well that dispiriting spring day in 1989 when tanks rolled into Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Communist troops swarmed in to end a pro-democracy protest. University students and others were beaten and bloodied. Hundreds and possibly thousands died.<\/p>\n
For years, Zhou, who left China after the crackdown and now lives in New Jersey, has been collecting what he calls \u201cevidence\u201d of China’s brutality.<\/p>\n
Those items \u2014 blooded towels, blood-soaked banners that had been turned into tourniquets, newspaper clippings, letters and a tent used by student protesters during their seven-week demonstration \u2014 are now the centerpiece of the \u201cJune 4 Memorial Exhibit,\u201d housed on the fourth floor of a New York City office building.<\/p>\n
It carries on the mission of a similar exhibit in Hong Kong shuttered by the communist government two years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the most important legacy for China,\u201d Zhou said during a preview of the collection, which opens to the public Friday.<\/p>\n
He cannot forget, he said, nor should the uprising ever be forgotten \u2014 even as the Chinese government has sought to erase reminders of what happened at Tiananmen Square. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are keeping the unchangeable evidence for what the CCP has done,\u201d he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.<\/p>\n
Since the uprising, monuments, memorials and statues were erected so Tiananmen would be rememebered, particularly in Hong Kong, once a British outpost but now again under control by the Chinese government.<\/p>\n
But in recent years, China\u2019s Communist Party has become more aggressive in squelching dissent and in its attempt to erase any reminders of days when tens of thousands of students challenged its power at Tiananmen.<\/p>\n
Hong Kong authorities removed statues and monuments dedicated to the protests, including a sculpture called the \u201cPillar of Shame, depicting bodies piled atop one other as a reminder of those killed during the final days of the uprising.<\/p>\n
\u201dThey want to make everybody forget that they are regime built on violence and lies,” said Dan Wang, another student organizer, who along with Zhou, was among those the government blamed for the weekslong protest.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have obligation and responsibility to establish this memorial exhibition,” he said, “to uphold the truth of history and to counter the CCP is attempt to erase historical memory.\u201d<\/p>\n
Exhibit organizers decided to house the collection of memorabilia in midtown Manhattan \u2014 not in Chinatown \u2014 to make the history more accessible to the broader population.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Hong Kong officials jailed three organizers of a now-defunct pro-democracy group that had organized vigils each June commemorating the 1989 unrest. They were convicted of failing to comply with requests by national security police to provide certain information.<\/p>\n
The vigils drew tens of thousands of participants. But the yearly observances stopped after 2019 \u2014 the 30th anniversary of the student uprising in Beijing \u2014 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the government has not allowed the event to resume.<\/p>\n
Over seven weeks in 1989, pro-democracy students converged at Beijing\u2019s Tiananmen Square to protest corruption and push for a fairer and more open society \u2014 a demand that would have meant the Community Party would have to voluntarily give up its authority over education, employment, family planning and many other aspects of life.<\/p>\n
While it was the most serious upheaval in China since the Cultural Revolution, the student-led movement failed to succeed and was eventually crushed when the People\u2019s Liberation Army rolled in with tanks and armed troops who forcibly removed the protestors. It remains unclear how many died.<\/p>\n
Under British control, Hong Kong residents had freedoms unknown to their counterparts in communist China. After the United Kingdom relinquished its rule over Hong Kong, Beijing allowed many of those freedoms to continue. But over the years, it has shown less patience with dissent, launching crackdowns that have led to the arrests of dissidents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emailsSign up to our free breaking news emails Fangsuo Zhou, now in his 50s, remembers all too well that dispiriting spring day in 1989 when tanks rolled into Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Communist troops swarmed in to end […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n