THE TANK MAN OF TIANANMEN SQUARE (A STORY OF DEFIANCE AND SACRIFICE)
THE TANK MAN OF TIANANMEN SQUARE
(A STORY OF DEFIANCE AND SCARIFICE)
AGAINST EXCESSIVE
FORCES OF OPPRESSION DEFIANCE AND SACRIFICE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
The Tiananmen ("Gate of Heavenly Peace"), a gate
in the wall of the Imperial City, was built in 1417 during the Ming dynasty. In
the 17th century, fighting between Li Zicheng's rebel forces and the forces of
the Manchu-led Qing dynasty caused heavy damage to, or even destroyed, the
gate. Tiananmen Square was designed and built in 1651 and was enlarged fourfold
in the 1950.
Tiananmen Square is a city square in the city center of
Beijing, China, named after the eponymous Tiananmen ("Gate of Heavenly
Peace") located to its north, which separates it from the Forbidden City.
The square contains the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the
People, the National Museum of China, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong.
The size of Tiananmen Square is 765 x 282 meters (215,730 m2
or 53.31 acres). It has great cultural significance as it was the site of
several important events in Chinese history.
It has been over 34 years since hundreds if not thousands of
unarmed peaceful pro-democracy protesters were killed in Beijing and the arrest
of tens of thousands of demonstrators in cities across China.
The protesters, based in Tiananmen Square in central
Beijing, were peacefully calling for political and economic reform. In
response, the Chinese authorities responded with overwhelming force to repress
the demonstrations.
Military units were brought in and unarmed protesters and
onlookers were killed en masse. The Chinese government has never acknowledged
the true events surrounding the Tiananmen massacre. It remains a contentious
topic in China, with authorities banning all mention of the protest even today.
The Chinese authorities want everyone to forget that they killed hundreds, if not thousands, of unarmed peaceful pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Many refuse to forget Tiananmen Square. Human rights lawyer
and activist Chow Hang-tung, who is wrongly imprisoned in Hong Kong, is one of
them.
For many years, the human rights lawyer and activist Chow
Hang-tung has helped to organise a peaceful annual remembrance of the Tiananmen
Square crackdown. In 2021, after she posted on social media to encourage people
to light candles at home, Chow Hang-tung was unjustly imprisoned in Hong Kong.
The most famous photo of Tiananmen Square is known as
"Tank Man". The Tiananmen protests were immortalised in Western media
on 5 June 1989 through the image of a lone man in a white shirt carrying
shopping bags, facing an imposing column of military tanks sent by the
government to disperse protesters. The man is known simply as Tank Man: his
identity has never been confirmed.
Tank Man would not let the military vehicles pass. He
succeeded. Eventually, he was pulled out of the way of danger by onlookers. But
the image of unarmed man versus tank quickly came to symbolise the struggle of
the Tiananmen protesters - peaceful protest met with military might.
'It demonstrates one man's extraordinary courage, standing
up in front of a row of tanks, being prepared to sacrifice his own life for the
sake of social justice'
From April 1989 people from across China gathered in
Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to mourn the death of the liberal Communist Party
leader Hu Yaobang and share their frustrations about the slow pace of promised
reform.
The gathering turned into peaceful protests which spread
across the provinces of China as demonstrators, mainly students, began to call
for an end to official corruption and for political and economic reform.
On 13 May, hundreds of student protesters in Tiananmen
Square went on hunger strike in order to push for talks with Communist Party
leaders. It is estimated that one million people joined the protests in Beijing
to express their support for the students on hunger strike and to demand
reform.
Party leaders visited the student protests on 19 May. The
protesters ended their hunger strike that evening. However, the next day
martial law was declared in Beijing to ‘firmly stop the unrest’.
In the weeks that followed the declaration of martial law,
hundreds of thousands of people once again protested on the streets of Beijing,
with similar demonstrations taking place in cities across China.
Overnight on 3 to 4 June, the government sent tens of
thousands of armed troops and hundreds of armoured military vehicles into the
city centre to enforce martial law and forcibly clear the streets of
demonstrators. The government wanted to 'restore order' in the capital.
As they approached the demonstrations, troops opened fire on
crowds of protesters and onlookers. They gave no warning before they started
shooting.
'The first casualty in the square was rushed away - a girl
with her face smashed and bloody, carried spread-eagled towards the trees.
Another followed - a youth with a bloody mess around his chest.'
As the troops kept firing into the crowds, some of those
running away were shot in the back. Others were crushed to death by military
vehicles. No one knows the death toll from Tiananmen that night.
'We took the wounded on stretchers and went down Tiananmen
Square. As we went down the side of the Square, we saw soldiers with large
plastic bags. They were putting people in the bags. I could not tell how many
people...
'There were also peole surrounded by soldiers, being kicked
by them. I could hear shouts and the odd gunshot. I thought there were around
200 young people. In early July, I heard from Public Security sources that they had all been executed on 9
June in a rural district near Beijing. They included students and residents of
Beijing.'
Immediately after the military crackdown, the Chinese
authorities began to hunt down those involved in the demonstrations. Thousands
of people were detained, tortured, imprisoned or executed after unfair trials
charged with ‘counter-revolutionary’ crimes.
The Chinese authorities have never disclosed the total
number of people detained, tried or executed throughout China since the June
1989 crackdown.
In the climate of terror which followed the crackdown, the
relatives of those killed were not only unable to seek justice for their loss;
they were even unable to mourn openly the dead, who were officially described
as ‘rioters’.
Tiananmen and the 1989 crackdown remains an official taboo
topic in China. There is no official death toll. Attempts to discuss,
commemorate and demand justice for what happened have been forcefully curbed,
with no public discussion allowed. Since 1989 many people have been imprisoned
for commemorating events or questioning the official line. Human rights lawyer
and activist Chow Hang-tung arrested in Hong Kong is one of them.
Only recently a court in Changshu in eastern China found Gu
Yimin guilty of inciting state subversion after he tried to post images of the
post-Tiananmen crackdown online and applied to stage a protest on the 24th
anniversary.
The image of the Tankman of Tiananmen remains a symbol of
defiance in the face of oppression.
While the identity of the Tankman is unknown, his heroic action
is unforgettable in history.
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