China Tiananmen critic stuck in Taiwan transit lounge granted asylum in Canada

A Chinese dissident who was stuck inside a Taiwanese airport transit area after he refused to fly on to China says he has arrived in Canada after being granted asylum.

Chen Siming arrived in Taipei on 22 September, after travelling through Thailand and Laos. When he landed at Taipei’s international airport he refused to reboard, requesting assistance to resettle in a third country.

Chinese dissident who held Tiananmen Square vigils flees to Taiwan

A Chinese dissident known for regularly commemorating the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square has fled to Taiwan where he pleaded for help in seeking asylum in the US or Canada.

In a video posted online on Friday, Chen Siming said he was in the transit area at Taoyuan international airport to escape Chinese political persecution.

Tiananmen Square: China minister defends 1989 crackdown

China has defended the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in a rare public acknowledgement of events.

Defence Minister Wei Fenghe told a regional forum that stopping the "turbulence" was the "correct" policy.

In spring 1989, students and workers occupied Beijing's Tiananmen Square in a massive pro-democracy protest. Many were killed in a brutal clampdown by the communist authorities.

Tiananmen Square protests: crackdown intensifies as 30th anniversary nears

Chinese authorities have detained dozens of people as part of a ramped-up annual crackdown ahead of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Tuesday will mark 30 years since the bloody event, which saw Chinese authorities brutally shut down long running student protests, killing thousands of people in and around the central square in Beijing.

Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), a US-based organisation for domestic and international activists, said the Beijing government’s “pre-emptive strikes” against anyone who might try to mark the anniversary had started in early May.

Amid China's Broiling Growth, a Quiet Tiananmen Square

BEIJING -- In the 25 years since tanks rumbled across Tiananmen Square and brutally put paid to mass expressions of discontent here, the Chinese capital has been transformed. With a tip of the hat to Milan Kundera, one might think of Beijing these days as the city of spending and forgetting.

"Beijing differs vastly from what it was in 1989," reports The Wall Street Journal. "Where bicycles once dominated the city, luxury cars now clog its roadways. Well-heeled residents dress in international designer brands and the city has become a major destination for global commerce despite a slowing Chinese economy."

Tiananmen Square; 22 years

I have nothing special to add about the events in China 22 years ago, except simply to observe that they happened. It is worth continuing to note this anniversary in the rest of the world, since the authorities have all but effaced its memory within China. (Photo from May 1989; source here, via Kathleen McLaughlin.)

In my experience in talking with college students in China, it's not a question of having to be "careful" when referring to the events in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, or using code like "May 35th." Even if you refer specifically to that time and place, most young Chinese that I've met have no idea what you are talking about. This is just an arbitrary date to them -- not one with resonance, like September 11, 2001, or November 22, 1963.

As Robert Sullivan has pointed out, the main Chinese news organs have room today to talk about the ongoing drought, and the epidemic of cheating on college-entrance exams, and the international good-will tour of Xi Jinping, the next-president anointee. But not for wallowing in an awkward part of the country's past. (English version of People's Daily front page today.)

Let's look on the bright side. Conceivably "June 4" will become a noted date in China once more, as the day when a Chinese player won a Grand Slam tennis championship for the very first time. Nothing against the plucky Francesca Schiavone, but Li Na of China -- who as I write is a few hours away from meeting Schiavone in the French Open women's finals -- is of course a talented athlete but also an immensely charming personality. For later discussion: how typical the unguarded, unpretentious sense of humor she displays (watch this interview starting at time 1:00) is of many people we met in China. Who deserve full recognition and remembrance of the ups and downs their country has been through.

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Source: The Atlantic