A group of families demanding justice for the victims of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown has denounced Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for failing to launch political reforms, saying he was taking China “backwards toward Maoist orthodoxy.”
The Tiananmen Mothers activist group has long urged the leadership to open a dialogue and provide a reassessment of the 1989 pro-democracy movement, bloodily suppressed on June 4 that year by the government, which labeled it “counter-revolutionary.”
In an open letter released yesterday through New York-based Human Rights in China, the group said Xi “has mixed together the things that were most unpopular and most in need of repudiation” during the time of former Chinese leaders Mao Zedong (毛澤東) and Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), the latter who oversaw the suppression of the protests.
“This has caused those individuals who originally harbored hopes in him in carrying out political reform to fall into sudden disappointment and despair,” the group said.
Xi became Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary in November and Chinese president in March, at a time of growing public pressure to launch long-stalled political reforms.
Some intellectuals had predicted that Xi would follow in the footsteps of his father, Xi Zhongxun (習仲勛), a reformist former Chinese vice premier and parliament vice chairman. Xi has tried to project a softer and more open image than his predecessor, former Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
However, Xi’s government has clamped down on free expression on the Internet and detained anti-corruption activists, giving no sign the party will ever brook dissent to its rule.
The Tiananmen Mothers said they had not seen Xi “reflect upon or show remorse in the slightest for the sins committed during the three decades of Maoist communism.”
“What we see, precisely, are giant steps backwards towards Maoist orthodoxy,” they said.
The leader of the Tiananmen Mothers group, Ding Zilin (丁子霖), called on Xi to “be courageous enough to take up the responsibility of history and pay the debts left by his predecessors.”
“Everyone knows that a just resolution to the June 4 issue, a re-evaluation of June 4, will not happen by itself. It needs to be tied to progress in China’s political reform and democratization,” said Ding, 77.
Asked about the letter, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) said China had long ago “reached a clear conclusion” about June 4.
The successes of the past two decades “shows that the path we have chosen serves the interest of the Chinese people,” he added.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
One of two tropical depressions that formed off Taiwan yesterday morning could turn into a moderate typhoon by the weekend, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Tropical Depression No. 21 formed at 8am about 1,850km off the southeast coast, CWA forecaster Lee Meng-hsuan (李孟軒) said. The weather system is expected to move northwest as it builds momentum, possibly intensifying this weekend into a typhoon, which would be called Mitag, Lee said. The radius of the storm is expected to reach almost 200km, she said. It is forecast to approach the southeast of Taiwan on Monday next week and pass through the Bashi Channel
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency as well as long-term residency in Taiwan has decreased, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that the reduction of Chinese spouses staying or living in Taiwan is only one facet reflecting the general decrease in the number of people willing to get married in Taiwan. The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency last year was 7,123, down by 2,931, or 29.15 percent, from the previous year. The same census showed that the number of Chinese spouses applying for long-term residency and receiving approval last year stood at 2,973, down 1,520,
RSS