From left: Peter French, Louisa Lim, James Miles and Xiaolu Guo at the Frontline Club.

Although they took place 25 years ago, the horrific events that occurred in Tiananmen Square still remain a contentious subject in China and a point of obsession around the world. On Tuesday 29 July, a panel of experts at the Frontline Club revisited one of China’s most contested historical events, and considered questions of legacy, impact and amnesia.

The discussion was chaired Peter French, an analyst and commentator on Asia. He was joined by: Louisa Lim, a journalist and author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited; former BBC journalist and the outgoing Beijing bureau chief of The Economist, James Miles; and Xiaolu Guo, a Chinese novelist and filmmaker.

Lim, told the audience that despite the 25 years that have since passed, there was still an overwhelming feeling of paranoia, more so on this anniversary than at any other point.

“It’s such a politically sensitive topic – what [Tiananmen] meant inside China, and to the people who stayed behind,” said Lim, who admitted she was so paranoid when writing the book, she never spoke about it on the phone, in emails or in the office.

“I was nervous because this year was an extraordinary year in China – the crackdown in the run-up to the anniversary was more intense than usual. . . . Maybe I was in China too long and had internalised the censorship!”

Miles, who was in the square on 4 May 1989, described the atmosphere on the day:

“It was an extraordinary and electrifying moment. China was on the brink of some major shift in politics.

“The very obvious sweep of history since 1989, is that one thing came to a halt that month – the discussion of political reform, and that hasn’t resumed. As Lim brilliantly describes in her book, it is something little known among the new generation of Chinese and little thought about by many people, but it remains something that gnaws at the heart of the establishment,” he added.

An audience member asked the panel why, with millions of Chinese coming over to western countries to study, for work and for holidays, those people aren’t calling for policy reform. “Have they drunk the kool-aid of economic development?”

Lim suggested that after Tiananmen in 1991 there was a big increase in patriotic eduction in schools: “Some students when they come overseas and hear different versions of their history, they find it hard to believe. Some still believe it is a western conspiracy theory.”

Guo, who was 16 at the time, and whose brother took part in the protests, added:

“Since 1949, China has been internationally isolated and prosecuted by the international community. The government and old generation communist party members have a reactionary attitude against the west.

“The young people’s indifference to politics is actually quite smart, because they know that under the current political system you may as well go with the material dream – that way you may sustain your quality of life.”

French asked the panellists if there was anything in the theory that it is a media conspiracy to report China in a certain way.

“There was that experience in Lharsa, Tibet, when the members of the press corps experienced a backlash from the public inspired by a sense that foreign journalists had deliberately distorted that story,” said Miles.

“It was a sign that there was a change in public mood in China – the upsurge in patriotic pride in the build up to the Olympics, and perpetuated since then by the financial global crisis. The sense of China on the rise.

“This fed into a greater sense of China’s power and prowess globally, and on the other hand, internally a sense of fragility, which was made clear in their response to the [Tiananmen] anniversary. There was a lack of trust in the public. That nationalism hasn’t turned into greater internal confidence. But it does change the way the public see us.”

Catch up with the event here:

In the early hours of 4 June 1989, soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army opened fire on a pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square, killing untold hundreds of people. Twenty five years on, the event has been commemorated around the world, but how does China remembers this defining moment in the country’s history?

We will be joined by a panel including the award-winning journalist Louisa Lim, whose book The People’s Republic of Amnesia charts how events unfolded that night, revealing previously unknown details.

Whilst looking back, we will also trace the effect the crackdown had on society then and the impact it continues to have today. We will explore how the events of twenty five years ago have shaped national identity in China.

Chaired by Paul French, an author and a widely published analyst and commentator on Asia, Asian politics and current affairs. He is author of North Korea: State of Paranoia and the international bestseller Midnight in Peking.

The panel:

Louisa Lim as an award-winning journalist who has reported from China for a decade, most recently for National Public Radio. Previously she was the BBC’s Beijing correspondent. She is author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited.

James Miles is the outgoing Beijing bureau chief of The Economist, a position he took up in 2001. He will begin a new appointment in August as The Economist‘s China Editor, based in London. He is the author of The Legacy of Tiananmen: China in Disarray.

Xiaolu Guo is a Chinese novelist and filmmaker. She studied film at the Beijing Film Academy and published six books in China before she moved to London in 2002. She is author of Village of Stone, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth and most recently I Am China.

Photograph: nui7711 / Shutterstock.com

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/dissent-in-china

On 28 October in China’s iconic and politically sensitive Tiananmen Square, a car crashed through crowds and exploded, killing two tourists and three suspects. Just over a week later, on 6 November, one person died and eight were injured following a series of small blasts outside a Communist Party office in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province.

Whether these attacks where carried out by organised groups – such as the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement – or individuals, they show a chink in the armour of the ruling Communist Party, despite soaring expenditure on domestic security over the past decade.

In a year that marks the 25th anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square, we will be joined by a panel of experts to explore the significance of these two fatal incidents, looking at the levels of dissent in China and how it is being suppressed. We will also be asking who are those behind these attacks and what are their motivations.

Chaired by Rob Gifford, China editor of The Economist. He first went to China in 1987 as a language student, before working for the BBC and then spending seven years in Beijing and Shanghai as a correspondent for NPR.  He is the author of China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power.

The panel:

Isabel Hilton is a journalist, broadcaster and writer. She is the founder and editor of chinadialogue and has authored and co-authored several books and holds honorary doctorates from Bradford and Stirling Universities. She was appointed OBE in 2010 for her contribution to raising environmental awareness in China.

Thomas König is China & Asia Programme Coordinator at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). He works on the increasing ECFR’s profile in this area, expanding the programme’s activities and contributes to ECFR’s China & Asia research. He played an integral part in the publication of ECFRs flagship report China 3.0, a unique essay collection that sheds light on the intellectual spectrum in Chinese contemporary society.

Yuwen Wu joined the BBC World Service in 1995 and has worked in the Chinese Service, English news and African Service. She was the news and current affairs editor for the Chinese Service from 2004 to 2012 and covered many major Chinese and international events. Since 2012, she has worked as the planning editor of the BBC East Asia Hub and appears regularly on BBC World TV and radio programmes as a China analyst.

Jonathan Fenby has written seven books on China, most recently Tiger Head, Snake Tails: China Today which was chosen as a book of the year by the Financial Times, The Independent and Bloomberg Business Week. He is a former editor of The Observer, Reuters World Service and the South China Morning Post, which he edited from 1995-9 through the handover of Hong Kong to China. He is currently China director of the international research service Trusted Sources.

Photograph: nui7711 / Shutterstock.com

You won’t be finding any of the above mentioned in the latest Harper Collins travel guide to the beautiful and smogstuffed city of Beijing,

One might find it a little surprising that HarperCollins is to publish a guide entitled Travel Around China to coincide with 2008’s Beijing Olympics that will make no mention of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The 1989 protest that culminated in tanks firing on demonstrators killing hundreds is a taboo subject in China. Internet searches that would throw up results relating to the episode are censored. Newspapers do not mention it. link