On June 4, 2021, instead of storming the streets like they’ve grown accustomed to, thousands of Taiwanese turned to social media and video streaming platforms to commemorate the 32nd anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre for the first time.
The country has been struggling to contain an impending wave of COVID-19 infections and authorities have enforced stricter public safety measures. People have been discouraged from congregating, including any sort of memorials or vigils people may have had scheduled.
Without much of a choice, several non-governmental organizations had to migrate their plans online. The event, entitled “Human Rights Illuminate Democracy. Together We Resist Totalitarianism,” had earned over 4,000 clicks by the end of the day.
With speeches from Wu Renhua and Wuer Kaixi, both of whom had been there at the Tiananmen Square in 1989, the online memorial was held not only to commemorate the June 4 bloodshed, but also to call for unity among regional democratic forces in holding the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) accountable for the massacre.
The mere existence of this event, however, was under threat. Obstruction could have come from online platforms and technology companies. In 2020, video teleconferencing platform Zoom admitted to shutting down activist accounts at the behest of the Chinese government.
But more fundamentally, a drift in identity has posed existential threats to the June 4 memorials. Increasingly, younger generations in Hong Kong and Taiwan have been losing their sense of solidarity with China; and in the face of escalating crackdowns by the Chinese government, they have more urgent challenges to surpass.
Over time, commemorating the Tiananmen Massacre has become less about honoring the sacrifice of their brothers and sisters in China; indeed, such a sense of fraternity has grown faint, at best. Instead, the memorials have taken on a much more emblematic meaning, a symbol of resistance against authoritarian designs.
On the eve of the bloody massacre on Tiananmen Square, the Taiwanese people congregated in front of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall as a sign of solidarity with their brothers and sisters who were clamoring for democratic reforms across the Taiwan Strait.
The Blood vein connection
Thirty-two years ago, on the midnight of June 3, 1989, as the pro-democracy movement reached its crest in the Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, supporters from across the Taiwan Strait made sure to convey their solidarity.
At the time, the tiny island had been free of martial law for only two years, after it had been overturned in 1987. Though Taiwan had successfully broken free of military rule, the vestigial authoritarian power of the pro-China Kuomintang (KMT) party remained strong and the human rights situation in the country was still grim.
But the promise of democracy inspires hope in its people and gives them energy, electrifying them into action. So, the night before the catastrophe, more than 30,000 students and citizens from all over Taiwan gathered in an assembly, dubbed the “Blood Connection, Cross-Strait duet singing, ” which was held on the square of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. “The Descendants of the Dragon,” a popular Chinese nationalism anthem, rang out from the square.
In the months leading up to the June 4 massacre, China was rocked by a series of pro-democracy movements, led by workers and students, demanding political reforms. Seeing this as a direct threat to its power, the government sent tanks and guns to meet the peaceful protesters — and blood flowed over the streets.
Back in Taiwan, the violent crackdown inspired the creation of The Blood Vein Connection Organization for Mainland Democratic Movement – more readily known as the Blood Vein Connection. Most of the members of this movement deeply identified as Chinese, and strongly believed in “building a democratic China as Chinese.”
In March 1990, a year after the bloody clearance on Tiananmen Square, a huge statue of the Taiwanese native wild lily was erected in Taipei, in commemoration of the Wild Lily student movement, which fought for the ability of Taiwan to elect its own president.
The Lily bloomed in 1990 and flourished to become the largest democracy movement in Taiwan after martial law was lifted – and the statue was built to immortalize this phenomenon. It served as a reminder that the people of Taiwan would fight for their freedoms, and it marked the start of the country’s accelerated transition away from authoritarianism.
Over the years, as Taiwan ran toward democracy, its society changed alongside its governance: prevailing ideologies were outgrown and replaced, and a new, distinct identity emerged. The reason and legitimacy for commemorating the Tiananmen Square incident in Taiwan have stoked debate.
People increasingly started identifying as Taiwanese – and less as Chinese. According to the latest results of the 1992–2020 National identity poll, published in 2020 by the Election Study Center at the National Chengchi University, only 2.6 percent of respondents still identify as Chinese. Among young people aged 18–29, around 90 percent identified as Taiwanese.
The Blood Vein Connection, once a dense stream of solidarity across the Taiwan strait, grew thin.
Over the years, the people of Taiwan, especially the youth, have identified less and less as Chinese, according to data from the Election Study Center at the National Chengchi University. This drift in identity has had important repercussions for the meaning attached to the Tiananmen Massacre memorials. Graph from the NCCU website.
A matter of identity
In 2009, Dang Wang, a student leader during the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement, moved to Taiwan, where he landed jobs educating young attendees at the Chengchi, Tsinghua, and Chengkung Universities. During his time there, he started the China Salon, a book club-cum-forum focusing on human rights.
Wang would lead his students – who were either Taiwan locals or from Hong Kong, Macau, and China– to discuss import issues and raise questions such as “Why hasn’t China’s middle class become the promoters of democracy?”
At the time, the government, led by Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT, heavily promoted Taiwan’s reconciliation and reconnection with China. Under his leadership, cross-Strait negotiations restarted in 2008, leading to a flurry of agreements between the two countries. In 2010, the Agreement on Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Atlas reached its peak. All of these fomented an environment of unease among the Taiwanese, who grew increasingly anxious about being unified silently.
In turn, these political developments have put China at the forefront of the public’s consciousness, and by the 2011 anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre, interest in China among Taiwan’s students was at an all-time high. To enhance the public’s awareness of and support for democratization in China, a group of students established the “Working Group of Taiwan Students for the Promotion of the Democratization of China” (台灣學生促進中國民主化工作會).
The Working Group was diverse, counting locals among its ranks, along with students from all over the Chinese-speaking world. It accepted, too, a diversity of thought. Pro-KMT members, for instance, favored unification with China, while pro-independence members disagreed.
Divergence in opinion often led to disagreements among members, often about how the memorials should take place. Some were adamant about keeping celebrations solemn, to let their grief and indignation shine through. Others wanted events to be more dynamic so that they may attract greater attention.
But the more critical rifts came about during conversations on identity. Pro-KMT members would use terms such “we the Chinese” or “Sages and martyrs of the Cross-straits.” They believed that the Taiwanese were Chinese, and that they had a blood-bound duty to commemorate June 4.
This didn’t sit well with the pro-independence proponents, who asserted their own, distinct national identity. They questioned the very need for Taiwan to even celebrate the event in the first place. Many of them asked: “Why should the Taiwanese care about China’s human rights and June Fourth?”
In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic struck and the National Security Law too effect in Hong Kong, the city streets bore witness to thousands of people coming out in droves to commemorate the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. This year, citing coronavirus restrictions, the Chinese Communist Party has clamped down hard on these memorials.
Shared values
Recently, as the political situation deteriorates in Hong Kong, and as the CCP asserts its sovereignty over the Taiwan, this question has gained more significance.
Among young Taiwanese, especially, there is a deep and fierce hatred against the Chinese government, which has extended to the Chinese society. As a result, they have grown indifferent towards issues in China that have nothing to do with them. They are now more inclined to empathize with the people of Hong Kong, East Turkistan, and Tibet, while hardly paying attention to the oppressed Chinese people within China.
In Hong Kong, the umbrella movement of 2014 has yielded similar results. The bud of the Hong Kong identity has developed more quickly than ever before. Just as the Taiwanese did a decade prior, nativism sprang to life in Hong Kong, and a strong national identity took hold.
All over the Chinese-speaking world, this shift in attitude and identity has posed a direct challenge to the existing tradition of commemorating the 1989 Massacre. No longer does it make automatic sense to honor the sacrifice of the pro-democracy protesters on Tiananmen Square; blood ties stopped being a reason everyone readily accepted.
Instead, the Tiananmen memorials have been distilled completely into its most essential meaning. June 4 is no longer just a historical event; rather, it stands as an example of why it’s important to fight for human rights amid the authoritarian challenges posed by China.
This has remained constant through the years despite all the in-fighting and existential questions about identity and meaning. The June 4 commemorations have always stood for human rights and democracy while holding the CCP accountable for its atrocities.
Asia has seen a worrying resurgence of authoritarian power and shrinking democratic spaces. Hong Kong and Taiwan have fiercely resisted the Chinese government; in 2020, the Thai student movement rose against the military junta; and in Myanmar, the military coup has forced the Burmese to fight for their democracy.
The shared values of democracy and human rights among the youth of this generation, together with the free flow of information through the Internet, have encouraged activists in the region to recognize each other and move as one against authoritarian rule. In Taiwan, this has manifested in a dynamic civil society that has bravely opposed the Chinese government.
The 1989 Tiananmen Massacre is a watershed moment in Chinese history. As it was on the cusp of democratic transition and political reform, the CCP instead chose the path of totalitarianism.
The Party paid for this choice with the blood of thousands of protesters; to honor their lives and their sacrifice is to challenge the legitimacy of the Party and of its power – and to keep the fight for democracy aflame for years to come. ●
Liang Huang is a human rights activist based in Taiwan who has dedicated years of her life to support civil society activists in the region.
