Protesting China, 18 years on
Updated on 04 June 2007
Lindsey Hilsum writes on the state of China's domestic protests 18 years on from the killings of Tiananmen Square.
Journalists tend to feel that history started when they arrived. Of course we know intellectually that's not true, but there's something about experiencing events first hand which no reading of books or archived articles can replace.
Reporters who covered the massacre in Tiananmen Square 18 years ago have an entirely different feeling about China from newcomers like me, who only arrived last year.
They witnessed the students being mown down, the man who stood in front of the tank, and the weeks of excited optimism which preceded the killings, when young people believed they could change the system.
The Chinese government - which still doesn't admit there was a massacre - says that since 1989 Chinese people have benefited from accelerated economic growth, and that's what matters.
They have a point - most Chinese are better off than they were in 1989, and for a majority of people in any country, feeding your family and having faith that your children will have a better life than yours is the priority.
But my friends who were here in 1989 can't forget that this is the same government. Not the same people at the top, but the same monolithic political system which brooks no opposition. People have more freedom of speech now - courtesy of the internet - but it's still very limited, and anyone who might organise to challenge the status quo is quickly suppressed.
Internet links
Zeng Jinyan's blog (chinese):
Read the blog
Lindsey Hilsum: China's price for protest
Watch the report
In the week leading up to the 18th Anniversary of the massacre, I spent some time with Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan, the heirs to Tiananmen, dissidents fighting to open more space to discuss issues like AIDS, forced abortions and arbitrary behaviour by the police.
Last year, Hu Jia was "disappeared" for 41 days. Zeng Jinyan, who had married him just one week earlier, wrote a blog to publicise his case. When he was released from custody (she described him as having been kidnapped) he was put under house arrest, so she carried on with her blog.
She was 22. Her blog became world famous and a few weeks ago she was named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.
When I met her a couple of days ago, she was wearing a brown and white summer dress and sandals. She is tiny, and as yet you can't tell that she is pregnant. Her and Hu's first child is expected in November. We talked in the back of a vehicle, driving through Beijing, a grey Mazda following us at all times.
She said she knows all the different police cars which tail her - this was a regular. I met Hu in their flat, where he's confined - three plain clothes police tried to stop us entering but gave up when we barged past.
Zeng Jinyan and Hu Jia have made a film of their lives - the constant police surveillance, the tedium of house arrest, Hu watching the seasons change from his apartment window. Their compound is called, with delicious irony, Freedom City. They had hope to show the film in Europe but have been banned from leaving China, suspected of "harming state security."
China is not as repressive as it was in 1989. But history isn't over, and those of us who weren't here during the Tiananmen massacres still have plenty to report beyond the ra-ra around the forthcoming Olympics and relentless figures of economic growth.
