Candlelight in the Dark

We remember what had happened, and we will never forget.

This Friday, June 4th, will mark the 32-anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. This horrific event occurred between the evening of June 3rd to the early morning of June 4th, 1989, when the People's Liberation Army brutally cracked down on peaceful pro-democracy protestors in Tiananmen Square. 

Even before all bodies were buried and all bloodstain in the Square was washed away, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) declared its victory over a "counter-revolution riot." But in the years following, the CCP hasn't acted as if it had won. Instead, it has spent tremendous energy and resources to erase the 1989 crackdown by criminalizing any public mentioning or public commemoration of the "June 4th Incident" (that's how the CCP addresses the Tiananmen Massacre). Moreover, every year around this time, the Chinese authorities make sure that those prominent pro-democracy activists will either remain in jail or are subject to intense surveillance. In addition, government censors work with Chinese big tech firms to scrub the internet and social media with such efficiency and intensity that Chinese people won't even be able to post numbers such as "6," "4," and "89."

For three decades, Hong Kong stood out in this darkness of suppression. Some courageous Hong Kongers went to Beijing to take part in the pro-democracy protest in 1989. After the massacre, they helped some activists to escape first to Hong Kong and then abroad. Hong Kongers also collected photos and other memorabilia of the event and later created a dedicated museum. Since 1989, Hong Kongers had held candlelight vigils to commemorate the Tiananmen Massacre.

In 1997, the United Kingdom handed over Hong Kong to Beijing. Since then, Hong Kong had been one of the only two cities (the other one is Macau) under the CCP's rule, where people could organize or attend such a vigil without having to face any jail time. Thus, many mainland China tourists chose to visit Hong Kong around June 4th for the specific purposes of learning about the truth of the 1989 crackdown and remembering the victims, something they couldn't legally do in mainland China. In some way, Hong Kong itself had been the candlelight in the darkness, which offered hope for the Chinese people.

All that came to a complete stop this year.

Hong Kong authorities banned the annual candlelight vigil on June 4th last year in the name of the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, thousands of Hong Kongers showed up at Victoria Park, where the annual vigil has been held since 1989, to sing songs and light candles. This year, the authorities warned that any public assembly to commemorate the 1989 crackdown would violate the National Security Law (NSL) and be subject to five years in prison (Macau issued a similar ban). 

The CCP imposed NSL on Hong Kong’s over seven million residents since last July. The law criminalizes any act of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with a foreign country or external elements, with a maximum penalty of life in prison. However, the definition of each supposed “crime” and even what constitutes “national security” has been so vaguely defined that the law essentially stripped away Hong Kongers cherished political freedom and effectively ended Beijing’s “One Country, Two Systems” pledge.

The NSL grants Hong Kong police unprecedented power, including “the ability to conduct warrantless searches, seize property, investigate suspects, intercept communications, freeze assets, and prevent people from leaving.” Since the passing of NSL, political organizations have disbanded. Hong Kongers have been busy scrubbing their digital footprints, deleting past social media posts supporting pro-democracy protests, and installing virtual private networks. Some activists have fled to undisclosed locations, while others such as Agnes Chow, Joshua Wong, Jimmy Lai, and Martin Lee are currently in jail for trumped-up charges of attending “unlawful assembly” in 2020. Under Beijing’s pressure, the Hong Kong legislature changed its election law, which severely reduces the public’s ability to vote in local districts while increasing the number of lawmakers who are loyal to Beijing. 

Last Sunday, Hong Kong authorities arrested 65-year-old Hong Kong activist Grandma Wong. They claimed that Grandma Wong violated NSL when she was alone downtown, holding a placard saying “32, June 4th, Tiananmen lament” and a yellow umbrella, a symbol of 2014 Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Umbrella Movement. Apparently, under Hong Kong’s NSL, even a one-person protest was still considered an illegal public assembly. This Wednesday, Hong Kong police also forced the Tiananmen Square Museum to close.

If there is no annual candlelight vigil, Hong Kong’s Victoria Park will be dark on June 4th. Its darkness will mark that the final descent of Hong Kong is complete. The CCP has successfully put out the last candlelight and turned this once one of the freest places on earth into another Chinese city ruled by the Party iron fist. A dark Victoria Park on June 4th will be a symbol that tyranny has triumphed. Or will it?

Whenever I feel discouraged about the future, I always remind myself of this story.

In the 1980s and at the height of the Cold War, a husband-wife team, both were journalists, ran a short-wave radio station that supported Poland's anticommunist movement. Their activities landed them in jail for a few years. As soon as they were released in 1985, they restarted the anticommunism broadcasts. It was a hazardous undertaking. To make it harder for police to catch them, they could only be on air for 10-15 minutes. Then they had to get off the airwaves, pack up their equipment and move to another location. They did not have a dedicated phone line for their audience to call in. They did not have a mailing address so that their listeners could send letters. Therefore, they never knew if anyone listened to their program or if their program made any difference.

They played this cat and mouse game with the police for a while. Then, one day, the wife felt discouraged. She asked her husband if what they were doing was worth it since they didn’t know if anyone cared or was listening. The husband thought about it for a while, and then he had an idea. The next time, before he closed the programming, he asked listeners, “My dear friends, if you are listening to our radio programs and if you like us to continue, please count to 5 and turn off your lights. Then turn them on and off three times.” Then he signed off and started packing up their equipment. His wife strolled to the window and looked outside. She began to gasp.

Initially, all she saw was darkness. But, then, she saw one blinking light, two blinking lights, very soon, it seemed the entire city was swimming in a sea of blinking, shining lights as if the people were saying: “Yes, we are listening,” “Thank you for your courage and sacrifice,” and “Keep up with the good work.”

Every time I retell this story, I find renewed hope to carry on. After all, hope is “seeing the light despite being surrounded by the darkness.”

One of the most effective ways to fight back tyranny is our refusal to forget. Yan Lianke, a Chinese writer, explains that under an authoritarian regime, “memories have become a tool of the era, used to forge collective and national memories, made up of what we’re either told to forget or asked to remember.” And, forgetful people are not free. As Yan once explained: “Forgetful people are, in essence, dirt in the fields and on the roads. Grooves on the sole of a shoe can step on them in whichever way they please. Forgetful people are, in essence, woodblocks and planks that have cut ties with the tree that gave them life. Saws and axes are in full control of what they become in the future.”

Even if Hong Kong's Victoria Park goes dark this Friday, I do not doubt that there will be blinking lights somewhere in the city. But Hong Kongers and the rest Chinese people could use some moral support. So if you can, please light a candle on June 4th and talk to your families and friends about what happened 32 years ago. These are small gestures, but also important ones to let both the authoritarian regime and the people suffering under it know: we remember what had happened, and we will never forget.

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My op-ed in National Review

President Biden pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels. However, one dirty secret that president Biden and his green allies don’t want to talk about is how the “clean” energy is largely built on forced labor in Xinjiang, China. Please read my latest piece in NR about the dirty secret of “clean” energy.