Sixteen years since the bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square, China's grip on dissent has tightened under the leadership of President Hu Jintao (
From religion to the media, political activism to the Internet, Hu's regime watches all -- and silences all that challenge the Communist Party's authority.
Members of non-sanctioned churches risk detention, potentially incendiary chat rooms are shut down, newspapers are kept under a short rein and employees of foreign news organizations have been arrested and accused of spying. Last month, an international conference on democracy was canceled.
When Hu came to power in 2002, many speculated that the new generation he represented would re-examine the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests -- which mark their 16th anniversary today. But he has refused appeals to do so.
"Hu Jintao is by inclination a more authoritarian figure than [former president] Jiang Zemin [
"He takes a harder line against dissent than Jiang. He's much more decisive. He can see what needs to be done to maintain the regime's position and he's willing to do it," Tsang said.
This week, Beijing accused a detained Hong Kong-based reporter of spying for "a foreign intelligence agency."
Ching Cheong (
The protests are a still sensitive for China's rulers, which have deemed them a counter-revolutionary riot. Hundreds, if not thousands, were killed when the government sent tanks and troops into Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, to crush a month-long occupation by protesters.
Each year, authorities try to prevent public memorials by confining dissidents to their homes or taking them away from the capital as the anniversary approaches. Officers patrol the square and quickly arrest anyone who unfurls a banner or shouts remembrance.
"Even if I don't see police in front of the house, my phones are tapped. I am never at ease," said Ding Zilin (丁子霖), whose son was killed in the bloodshed. She is a co-founder of the Tiananmen Mothers, a group that represents families of those who died.
"The repression has become worse since Hu Jintao took power," she said.
The Tiananmen Mothers released an open letter to Hu last week, appealing to the government to reassess the crackdown, which Chinese leaders have defended as necessary for what they say is the nation's stunning economic success.
"We've done this for 10 years and we've never gotten an answer," Ding said.
Hu's government has presented itself as one dedicated to improving the lot of the people, especially the rural poor. There is also a strong sense of corporate efficiency. Those who do not measure up -- like former health minister Zhang Wenkang (
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching