Thousands of Hong Kong protesters yesterday lit candles and chanted democracy slogans as they defied a ban against gathering to commemorate the 31st anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square Massacre, with tensions seething in the territory over new security legislation.
Crowds streamed into one of the territory’s main parks, which has hosted huge Tiananmen anniversary vigils over the past three decades, with smaller rallies erupting across the territory.
Police arrested some demonstrators in a shopping district, although they allowed the main rally at Victoria Park to proceed.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The displays of resistance came hours after the Hong Kong Legislative Council passed a bill criminalizing insults to China’s national anthem, which the pro-democracy movement sees as yet another example of eroding freedoms.
Beijing’s plans to impose security legislation on Hong Kong criminalizing treason and subversion have cemented fears that the semi-autonomous territory is losing its treasured liberties.
“I’ve come here for the vigil for 30 years in memory of the victims of the June 4 crackdown, but this year it is more significant to me,” a 74-year-old man surnamed Yip (葉) told reporters as he joined the crowds inside Victoria Park. “Because Hong Kong is experiencing the same kind of repression from the same regime, just like what happened in Beijing.”
Photo: AFP
Hundreds of people — by some estimates more than 1,000 — were killed in 1989, when the Chinese Communist Party deployed the military into Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to crush a student-led movement for democratic reforms.
Commemorations of the event are forbidden in China, but have been allowed in semi-autonomous Hong Kong, which has been granted liberties under the terms of its 1997 handover from the British.
This year’s vigil was banned, with authorities citing coronavirus restrictions on group gatherings.
However, thousands of people, including prominent democracy activists, poured into the park and lit candles as an act of remembrance and resistance.
Some wore black T-shirts with the word “Truth” emblazoned in white. Others were in office attire.
Many shouted pro-democracy slogans including: “Stand with Hong Kong” and “End one-party rule.”
Other candlelight vigils were held in local neighborhoods, shopping districts and churches across Hong Kong.
Crowds have swelled at Hong Kong’s Tiananmen vigils whenever fears have spiked that Beijing is prematurely stamping out the territory’s cherished freedoms, an issue that has dominated Hong Kong over the past 12 months.
The territory was engulfed by seven straight months of huge and often-violent pro-democracy protests last year — rallies that began five days after the last annual vigil.
In response to those demonstrations, Beijing last month announced plans to impose the security legislation, which would bypass Hong Kong’s legislature, saying that it is needed to tackle “terrorism” and “separatism” in a restless territory it now regards as a direct national security threat.
Critics, including many Western nations, fear that it will bring mainland-style political oppression to the territory.
In China, authorities do not allow any open discussion about the massacre and censors scrub any mention of it off the Internet. The candle emoji has been unavailable in the past few days on China’s microblogging platforms.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs described international calls for Beijing to apologize for the crackdown as “complete nonsense.”
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the