Pursuing Democracy Without Fear — June 4th 35th Anniversary Vigil

Following the passage of Hong Kong’s domestic national security legislation earlier that year, June 4th gatherings were banned in Hong Kong and Macau, and on the eve of the anniversary the authorities used the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (Article 23 of the Basic Law) for the first time to arrest six people: former Hong Kong Alliance vice-chair Chow Hang-tung, her mother Chow Lau Wah-chun (鄒劉華珍), former Alliance standing committee members Lau Ka-yee (劉家儀) and Kwan Chun-pong (關振邦), League of Social Democrats volunteer Lee Ying-chi (李盈姿), and former pro-democracy Tsuen Wan district councillor Chan Kim-kam (陳劍琴). Taiwan had become, entirely, the only place in the Chinese-speaking world where a June 4th commemoration could be held freely, without suppression and with legal protection.

Programme

The vigil opened with a site-specific performance by Hong Kong artist and co-host Kacey Wong, restaging the young cyclists of Tiananmen Square in 1989 and re-enacting the scene in interaction with Taiwanese youth activist and co-host Hu Chia-ying (胡嘉穎), the two presenting in both Cantonese and Mandarin. Kacey Wong said the last time he attended a June 4th vigil in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park was in 2019, and that he had brought with him the candle he used in mourning there that year, lamenting that no commemoration of any kind is now possible in Hong Kong. A replica of Jens Galschiøt’s Pillar of Shame was displayed on site, and small models of the sculpture were given to those attending.

Historian Wu Renhua recalled that in 1989 he was teaching at the China University of Political Science and Law and stayed in Tiananmen Square with his students to the last moment. He condemned the Party’s two great lies about June 4th — that the martial law troops did not open fire, and that no students were crushed by tanks — which have not changed in 35 years. The Tiananmen Mothers had recently issued another open letter demanding the truth, accountability and state compensation, and received no response at all, facing political persecution and harassment instead.

Fang Zheng, who lost both legs beneath a tank during the massacre, said in a pre-recorded video: “My legs were taken from me in that massacre, on West Chang’an Avenue, when the army’s tanks came after us from behind and crushed me. We cannot forget that terrible moment.” Zhou Fengsuo, founder of Humanitarian China, said that June 4th, the Uyghur camps in Xinjiang, the self-immolations of Tibetans, and the stripping away of Hong Kong’s freedoms over the past five years are all the same regime’s war against its own people: “What has happened in Hong Kong could happen to the people of Taiwan in future.”

New School for Democracy chair Lin Chi-hua (林啓驊) said: “Everyone here has their own reason for marking June 4th — for some it’s universal human rights, for others it’s protesting state violence or refusing to forget. I’m a simple man: if it makes Beijing unhappy, we’ll do it.” Damon Wilson, President of the National Endowment for Democracy, said in a pre-recorded message that since 1984 the NED has supported those advancing democratic values and institutions in China, and that “a democratic world is possible, but only by standing together for truth, justice and human dignity can we reverse the impunity that surrounds human rights violations.”

Lee Ming-che, the NGO worker held in China for five years, said the Party uses its stability-maintenance apparatus, grid-based management and every kind of technology to watch each individual — “that is what June 4th means for us” — and that the freedom Taiwan enjoys was bought by the sacrifice of countless people before: “We will not casually throw away Taiwan’s democracy; we must defend the democracy Taiwanese hold in their hands.” The evening also featured two immersive performance pieces, Why Am I Here? and To All the Departures That Are Ours, staged by the theatre groups Stalker (潛行者) and Taiwan-Hong Kong Theatre Workers (台港劇場工作者), and a set by the Taiwanese band Kou Chou Ching in solidarity with democracy and freedom and in mourning for those killed.

An NGO human rights and democracy market ran that afternoon, along with a screening of One Child Nation, selected for the second Taiwan International Democratic Film Festival, on the social experiment of China’s family-planning policy. The vigil was linked up with June 4th commemorations in New Zealand, Canada and elsewhere, jointly calling on the world to attend to the danger that one-party rule poses to people’s freedom and safety.