CHINA: Both the authorities and dissidents have cause to recall a time 15 years ago today when tanks crushed dissent, writes Clifford Coonan in Beijing
Tiananmen Square is quiet these days, the sheer scale of the huge public space seeming to drown out the noise and chatter of the thousands of visitors thronging its broad concrete concourse.
But 15 years ago today it was a different place. On June 4th, 1989, Chinese troops killed hundreds, possibly thousands, when they attacked protesters who had gathered for weeks on Tiananmen Square to demand a more open political system and an end to corruption.
"When I walk past the square nowadays, a shadow falls over my heart. The blood of many kind people was shed here and I feel a freezing sadness at the bottom of my heart. I can't see any hope for the future. I only feel heavy sorrow," said Gao Zhisheng, an activist lawyer.
Activists, dissidents and relatives of those who died in the crackdown want the government to assess properly the events of that fateful day and overturn its ruling that the 1989 protests were a counter-revolutionary riot.
"We want history to re-evaluate what happened on June 4th, 1989, but at the moment that is unrealistic. I think the day will come sooner or later. This is something no one can prevent from happening," said Mr Gao.
In the run-up to the anniversary, Chinese political activists say they have been detained at home in an apparent government effort to head off public memorials.
Efforts to block dissent highlight Beijing's continued sensitivity to the pro-democracy movement.
Chinese police have forced dissidents out of Beijing in the run-up to the anniversary and some of China's most prominent activists say police have been posted outside their homes around the clock, their phones tapped and access to the Internet restricted.
Outspoken proponents of reform, such as Jiang Yanyong, the military doctor who exposed China's SARS cover-up last year, and his wife have disappeared on the eve of the anniversary, their daughter said.
Any news reports about the massacre on the CNN news channel are blocked by censors and replaced instead by a black screen - even though CNN is only allowed to broadcast its programmes into top hotels and select residential compounds.
Ye Guozhu was living in one of the old Beijing neighbourhoods known as hutong, in the part of the city called Yongdingmen, when the crackdown happened.
"On the night of June 3rd, many of my neighbours went out on the street to block the military vehicles. I shouted at them: Go home! But no one listened to me," said Mr Ye, an activist who speaks out for people who have lost their homes to make way for the 2008 Olympics.
"We heard gunshots in the street. I saw my neighbours catch a young soldier, no more than 18, and beat him. I tried to stop them, saying 'Don't beat him, he is just a boy!
"Some others blocked an ambulance and pushed it over, it fell on a soldier and killed the guy. I saw it with my own eyes. My neighbour Qi Zhiyong was shot and lost his leg and another friend of mine, Pang Meiqing, was shot in the back and paralysed. Both of them are under police supervision now," he said.
"When I walk on the square these days it feels like a slaughterhouse. It's very sad."
The government defends the crackdown as a key to China's economic success.
The protests were "political turmoil no matter what you call it," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said this week. The crackdown played "a very good role in stabilising the situation, which enabled China to develop its economy and make contributions to the peace and development of the world," said Mr Liu.
Hou Wenzhou, who describes herself as one of the very few human rights activists working in China, was in Sichuan University, in Chengdu, during the pro-democracy protests, a student leader in the demonstrations there.
"I witnessed the whole process there. No tanks were sent but no one has investigated how many people died.
"I was one of 10 students detained within the university for two months after the event," said Ms Hou.
"China definitely has changed because of what happened, in positive and negative ways. On the negative side, people are no longer idealistic, people are cynical about politics and about active participation in political life," said Ms Hou.
"On the positive side, I think people are more realistic in their approach to social change.
"People have more awareness of their rights as consumers, as citizens, as villagers or farmers," she said.
"Many in the younger generation do not know what happened on that day. If the government had dealt with with the issue in a rational and peaceful way, there wouldn't be so much cynicism," she said.
"Societal and economic change has pushed forward political change. There is more pursuit of political change at grassroots level," says Ms Hou.
Chinese and foreign academics issued an open letter last week asking for an investigation and for those responsible to "openly ask for forgiveness of the people". Thousands of people took to the streets of Hong Kong in the biggest turnout for the annual pre-June 4th march since the handover in 1997.
Analysts reckon that rehabilitation of the 1989 protests was unforeseeable in the near future because it would be politically sensitive and risky.
Since 1989, the government has carried out a number of the reforms demanded by the protesters, such as getting rid of rules dictating where Chinese could live or work and even whom they could marry.
The burgeoning economy has given millions of Chinese a say in their own destinies and the government is trying to crack down on the corruption which has blighted the country and which it once denied existed.
President Hu Jintao has called for more "socialist democracy" but power in China belongs exclusively to the Communist Party and independent political activity is still forbidden. Nearly all of China's active dissidents have been exiled or imprisoned.
"Living in exile, we have to keep our faith that there will be democracy some day," Wu'er Kaixi, who became famous as a hunger-striker wearing pyjamas during the protests and now is a political commentator in Taiwan, was quoted as saying.