INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The Tiananmen crackdown is a taboo subject in China
(File)BEIJING: The United States urges China to make a full public account of those killed, detained or who
went missing during a crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo said.The Chinese government sent tanks to quell the June 4, 1989 protests, and has never released a death toll
Estimates from human rights groups and witnesses range from several hundred to several thousand.The Tiananmen crackdown is a taboo subject
in China and 29 years later it remains a point of contention between China and many Western countries.In a statement on Sunday the recently
appointed Pompeo said he remembered "the tragic loss of innocent lives"."As Liu Xiaobo wrote in his 2010 Nobel Peace Prize speech, delivered
in absentia, 'the ghosts of June 4th have not yet been laid to rest'," Pompeo said referring to the Chinese dissident who died last year
while still in custody."We join others in the international community in urging the Chinese government to make a full public accounting of
those killed, detained or missing," Pompeo added.In response to Pompeo's comments, China had lodged "stern representations" with the United
States, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday.China long ago reached a clear conclusion about the events of that era, but
the United States every year issues statements of "gratuitous criticism" and interferes in its internal affairs, Hua said."The U.S
Secretary of State has absolutely no qualifications to demand the Chinese government do anything," she added.Hu Xijin, editor of
nationalistic tabloid the Global Times, called Pompeo's statement a "meaningless stunt" that "represents a wish of the Western world to
meddle in China's political process".The Chinese Communist Party no longer mentions the Tiananmen incident in order to help Chinese society
move on, which it has successfully done, Hu added, writing in English on Twitter, which is blocked in China.Tens of thousands of people are
expected to gather later in the day in Hong Kong to mark the anniversary, the only place in China where such large-scale public
commemorations happen.On Tiananmen Square, security was tight as is usual for the anniversary, with no signs of any protests or other
memorial events.Foreigners' passports were checked by Chinese police at a checkpoint nearly a kilometre from the square
A Reuters reporter was turned away and told that unapproved "interview activities" were forbidden in the square on Monday.In their annual
open letter, the Tiananmen Mothers, who represent the families of those who died, said the government was guilty of serious disrespect by
ignoring their requests for redress."Such a powerful proletarian dictatorship apparatus is afraid of us: the old, the sick, and the weakest
and most vulnerable of our society," they wrote in a letter addressed to Chinese President Xi Jinping.In Taiwan, the democratic and
self-ruled island China claims as its own, President Tsai Ing-wen said that if China could face up to what had happened it could become the
bedrock for China's own democratic transformation."I hope that both sides of the Taiwan Strait can enjoy the universal values of freedom and
democracy," she said in a statement on her Facebook page written in the simplified Chinese script used in China
Facebook is also blocked in China.
