Chinese police have for the first time raised the possibility of compensation for those killed in the crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests, families of victims said yesterday.
Police have met twice with relatives of one victim beginning in February, the Tiananmen Mothers said, in a possible sign that the government is changing its view on the brutal June 4 crackdown in the heart of Beijing.
“They only raised the question of how much to pay, emphasizing that this was meant for that individual case and not for the families in the group as a whole,” the group said in an annual open letter to mark the June 4 anniversary.
However, the letter said police did not discuss a formal apology for the killings or a public account of who ordered the shootings — two of the group’s long-standing demands.
“The Tiananmen Mothers have repeatedly appealed to the government over the past 16 years for dialogue, yet government authorities have ignored us,” said the letter, posted on the group’s Web site. “This year, the silence was finally broken.”
The letter was signed by 127 members of the group, which is made up of relatives of those killed in the crackdown. It gave no further details of the discussions.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, are believed to have died when the government sent in tanks and soldiers to clear Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3 to June 4, violently crushing six weeks of pro-democracy protests.
The letter acknowledged that the motives behind the government’s apparent overture were unclear. It noted that the approach came amid what the group called the harshest crackdown on dissent since 1989, carried out this year as Beijing has moved to prevent unrest similar to that which has swept the Arab world.
The Beijing Public Security Bureau refused to comment on the letter or the reported compensation discussions.
The Tiananmen Mothers have documented the killing of 203 people during the crackdown, all of whom were peaceful demonstrators or citizens, the letter said.
The letter also urged the government to open direct talks with the Tiananmen Mothers, instead of discussing the compensation issue through police intermediaries.
“Our door to dialogue with the government has remained open at all times,” the letter said. “If there are discussions, then they should be real discussions, to resolve issues point by point.”
Meanwhile, the State Archives Administration yesterday cracked opened its secretive doors, but kept the lid on some of the most painful parts of its history like the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen crackdown to protect “privacy and reputations.”
The archives, hidden down an alley in central Beijing, holds more than 100 million pages of documents, including the ceasefire agreement to end the Korean War and personal letters from Mao Zedong (毛澤東). However, more than half of them are considered secret.
“According to the law ... files of important interest on national security, defense and foreign affairs are not suitable to be opened up,” the administration’s head, Yang Dongquan (楊冬權), told reporters on a government-organized visit.
Other areas off-limits were the files on “various disputes, including ones of ethnicity, religion and property,” he said.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS