‘They were the hope of China’: Nearly 200,000 people mourn Tiananmen Square massacre

Almost 200,000 people paid an emotional tribute to the Tiananmen Square protests in Hong Kong on Tuesday, 30 years after the democracy movement was violently brought to an end on 4 June.

The vigil was attended by a record 180,000 Hongkongers and visitors of all ages, according to organisers, who held candles across Victoria Park in honour of the unknown number of protesters who were arrested, kille, or went missing following the 1989 crackdown.

Many attendees had families and children in tow, although others stood or sat alone listening to music and speeches or watching video montages of the protest movement and its victims.

The majority appeared to be old enough to remember 1989, either as children or young people.

Henry Leung tearfully recalled watching the protests on television as a 16 year-old student, inspiring him to participate in local protests in support of Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989 and afterwards.

“They [were] the hope of China,” he said, adding that he was deeply moved by the crackdown. “This [protest] is very special experience to me because of what happened in Beijing.”

Hong Kong and neighbouring Macau are the only places in Chinese territory where the protest movement can be publicly commemorated. The city is now home to a “4 June museum” and various memorials including a statue at the University of Hong Kong.

In China, information about Tiananmen Square is heavily censored, so many Hongkongers feel an obligation to commemorate the event on its behalf.

Raymond Poon brought this three children to the candlelight vigil, as he felt it was important for them to learn about the protest’s history.

“I think that this is an important event – this is something that they need to remember and this is something that they also need to learn,” he said.

“At their age, I don’t need to tell them too much, I don’t want to complicate the facts but just let them know that something happened at Tiananmen 30 years ago: the students were fighting for freedom and they were suppressed by the government at the time.”

Hong Kong played a small but critical role during the Tiananmen Square protests, as hundreds of activists escaped through the former British colony with the help of western intelligence agencies.

Students from Hong Kong also attended the protests in Beijing, while locally others organised a rally of 1.5 million people in support of the protesters in late May 1989.

While ultimately unsuccessful in bringing out democratic change in China, the legacy of Tiananmen Square has had an enormous impact on the future both China and Hong Kong, according to Steve Tsang, director of the Soas China Institute in London, as it determined how the government would tolerate dissent.

“Tiananmen Square 1989 was a historic event not only for people in China and Hong Kong – it is a globally important event. It is one of those things that could have potentially changed China and it didn’t,” he said.

“If anything it resulted in the Communist Party ruling out all the other options and focusing on consolidating the Leninist political system in place in China, which is where we are now. The direction of [change] in China has a direct significance in how Hong Kong’s development goes.”

Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 as an autonomous territory, is now grappling with rule by an increasingly involved Beijing. Many residents see its long arm in the disqualification of pro-democracy political candidates and the prosecution of leaders of its own 2014 Umbrella Movement democracy protests.

More recently, the city has become embroiled in debate about a new law that would allow extradition to China.

“I think we will not have this freedom anymore in 10 or 20 years,” vigil attendee Priscilla Lau said of Hong Kong’s commemoration of Tiananmen Square.

“We can see China has hidden hands inside Hong Kong.”