China on Sunday defended the bloody Tiananmen crackdown on student protesters in a rare public acknowledgement of the event, days before its 30th anniversary, saying it was the “correct” policy.
After seven weeks of protests by students and workers, soldiers and tanks chased and killed demonstrators and onlookers in the streets leading to Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.
Hundreds, or possibly more than 1,000, were killed, although the precise number of deaths remains unknown.
“That incident was a political turbulence and the central government took measures to stop the turbulence which is a correct policy,” Chinese Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe told a regional security forum in Singapore.
Gen. Wei asked why people still say that China “did not handle the incident properly”. “The 30 years have proven that China has undergone major changes,” he said, adding that because of the government’s action at that time “China has enjoyed stability and development”.
Inside China, an army of online censors have scrubbed clean social media, removing articles, memes, hashtags or photos alluding to the Tiananmen crackdown.
Discussions of the 1989 pro-democracy protests and their brutal suppression are strictly taboo, and authorities have rounded up or warned activists, lawyers and journalists ahead of the anniversary each year.
Warning to U.S.
In a wide-ranging speech that came a day after acting U.S. Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan addressed the same forum, Gen. Wei vowed that China will not be bullied by the United States, issuing a combative defence of its policies on Taiwan, the South China Sea and the restive region of Xinjiang.
China will not renounce the use of force in the reunification of self-ruled Taiwan, he said, calling it “very dangerous” to underestimate Beijing’s will. “We will strive for the process of peaceful reunification with utmost sincerity and greatest efforts but we make no promise to renounce the use of force,” he said.
