The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited

Event Context and Speaker Introduction

• The Milken Institute Forum featured Louisa Lim, author of The People's Republic of Amnesia, discussing the 1989 events in China.
• Lim is an NPR Beijing correspondent and former BBC journalist who has won awards for coverage of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and the Beijing Olympics.
• The presentation focused on how the events of June 4, 1989, were rewritten in China and the human costs of "state-sponsored amnesia."

The 1989 Timeline and Government Response

• Student protests began on April 15 following the death of reformist leader Hu Yaobang, evolving into demands for democracy and anti-corruption measures.
• On April 26, the government labeled the protests "turmoil," signaling a lack of support and escalating tensions.
• By May 4, one million people had gathered in Beijing, initiating a hunger strike in mid-May that intensified the standoff.
• Party Secretary General Zhao Ziyang attempted to mediate on May 19 but was subsequently purged and placed under house arrest for 16 years.
• In late May, the government attempted to deploy troops into Beijing, but civilians physically blocked the vehicles, forcing a temporary military withdrawal.
• On June 3–4, approximately 150,000 soldiers were deployed to clear Tiananmen Square using overwhelming force.
• Casualty figures remain disputed: initial government reports cited 241 deaths, the Red Cross initially estimated 2,600 (later retracted), and independent observers place the number somewhere in between.
• The government shifted from initial propaganda campaigns to a strategy of total erasure, removing all historical records and digital references to the event.

The Strategy of Censorship and Forgetting

• Lim conducted an experiment at four Beijing universities where only 15% of 100 students could identify the "Tank Man" photograph.
• 19% of surveyed students mistook the "Tank Man" image for a military parade, indicating a complete generational disconnect from the event.
• In China, the 1989 event is omitted from primary and secondary school syllabi; university textbooks cover it in only four pages out of 529.
• Search engine results in China (Baidu) for "Tiananmen" yield only tourist information, stripping the term of its historical political context.
• Institutional memory has eroded to the point where Chinese newspaper editors in 2009 failed to recognize a photograph of the 1989 massacre they published.
• Western journalists face restrictive permits and physical barriers, such as "umbrella men" used to block cameras, during anniversary commemorations.
• Public remembrance is treated as a criminal act, with 114 people detained or under house arrest and 47 criminally detained in the lead-up to the 25th anniversary.

The "Forgotten" Crackdown in Chengdu

• Lim's research highlighted a massive crackdown in Chengdu, 1,000 miles from Beijing, where tens of thousands protested following the Beijing events.
• On July 4, Chengdu protesters held signs explicitly citing a "June 4th massacre" and "7,000 killed and injured."
• The crackdown in Chengdu involved armed police using tear gas, water cannons, and batons, resulting in three days of pitched battles.
• A 1989 government report admitted to 8 deaths and 1,800 injuries, though the American Consulate observed at least 100 seriously wounded individuals.
• A specific incident at the Jinjiang Hotel saw plainclothes police brutally beat and detain protesters; witnesses reported bodies being stacked in trucks "like sacks of potatoes."
• Diplomatic cables confirmed 70 detentions at the hotel, though the death toll during that specific roundup remains unverified by official sources.
• Tang Deying, a mother who lost her son in Chengdu, was detained multiple times and eventually paid a "hardship allowance" of nearly $9,000 in 2006 conditional on her ceasing inquiries.

Human Costs and Personal Testimonies

• Zhang Xianling, mother of a victim, and artist Cheng Guang were detained for organizing a private commemoration seminar in May 2014.
• Artist Cheng Guang, a former soldier in the 1989 crackdown, remains in criminal detention after performing an art piece symbolizing the whitewashing of history.
• Artist Shun-Chi, who mutilated his own hand in 1989 as protest, now lies to his 12-year-old son about the injury to protect him from the truth.
• Lim noted that many victims' families and survivors feel compelled to collude with the state's amnesia because remembering carries a high personal cost with no tangible benefit.

Q&A Highlights: Geopolitics, Technology, and Future Outlook

• The Chinese government closely monitored the collapse of the Soviet Union and perestroika, using the comparison to justify its own crackdown as necessary for stability.
• Fear of "color revolutions" and Western-funded NGOs has led to significant restrictions on civil society organizations since 1989.
• While Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) exist, university students in China often do not seek out historical information due to a lack of perceived relevance or fear.
• The "Tiananmen Mothers" organization was unable to issue its first-ever annual statement in 2014 due to the detention of its members.
• The book The People's Republic of Amnesia has not been translated into Chinese, and copies sent to China have been intercepted or destroyed.
• Historical parallels were drawn to the Soviet purging of imagery, though modern censorship is more subtle, relying on digital deletion rather than physical elimination.
• Lim plans to complete a fellowship at the University of Michigan before potentially returning to China, noting that her press credentials have lapsed but not been explicitly revoked.