Co-organizer: Professor Kuan Chung-hsiang (管中祥)
Event & livestream page: https://www.facebook.com/events/988021798982091
Closing Session: The June 4th Massacre and China Today
The closing session of the series. June 4th witness Wu Renhua described how, after the 1989 massacre, the Chinese Communist Party set about controlling Chinese society through both institutions and law, and how it still imposes “stability maintenance” on Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong and their people through close surveillance and repressive rule, while its united-front work and political pressure against Taiwan continue to intensify. Discussant Lo Shih-hung (羅世宏) started from how the 1989 student movement shaped Taiwan’s own Wild Lily movement the following year and indirectly contributed to its democratic transition, asking how a democratic Taiwan can make itself count in influencing China and how it might serve as a base for supporting democratization there.
Speakers
- Wu Renhua (lead speaker): Based in Taiwan, he teaches a course on researching the truth of the June 4th incident at Soochow University and National Chung Cheng University. A scholar of historical documents and a participant in and witness to the 1989 democracy movement, he has long been involved in China’s democracy movement and in June 4th archival research. His books include The Bloody Clearing of Tiananmen Square, Declassifying the June 4th Massacre: The Martial Law Troops of the June 4th Incident, and A Day-by-Day Record of the Tiananmen Incident.
- Lo Shih-hung (羅世宏) (discussant): Professor in the Department of Communication and the Graduate Institute of Telecommunications at National Chung Cheng University, chair of the Media Watch Foundation and of the Taiwan FactCheck Center. He holds a BA and MA in journalism from National Chengchi University and a PhD from the London School of Economics. His research interests include the political economy of communication, communications policy, Chinese media studies, new media, and social theories of communication.
- Kuan Chung-hsiang (管中祥) (moderator): Associate professor in the Department of Communication at National Chung Cheng University and a former chair of the Media Watch Foundation. A long-standing participant in media reform, he works on human rights and cultural issues, argues that communication rights are central to media reform, and actively combines community-college media literacy and citizen-journalist training with civil-society work on the environment, human rights, disadvantaged groups, migrant workers and agriculture.