The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 11 | Issue 26 | Number 4 | Article ID 4143 | Jun 30, 2013

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Border Crossing Into Tiananmen Square; still under lockdowntwenty-five years on 天安門広場への越境　25年後、いまだに封鎖状態

Philip J. Cunningham

What follows is an account of a return visit toTiananmen Square in commemoration of the2 5 t h a n n i v e r s a r y o f t h e p e a c e f u ldemonstrations and violent crackdown that Iwitnessed in Beijing in 1989.

Initially I had planned to go to Hong Kong, as Ihad been invited to join the well-publicizedcommemoration in Victoria Park where thepeople of Hong Kong have held a candlelightvigil for the lost souls and lost dreams of 1989

on an annual basis for a quarter of a centurynow. In past years I have marched with theconscientious objectors of Hong Kong, litcandles in the warm tropical air and drawnstrength from the distant but principled andpersistent expression of solidarity with theuprising at Tiananmen.

In Beijing during the weeks leading up to theanniversary, there were numerous policevehicles and armed guards at key locations, butmost especially in and around TiananmenSquare where pedestrian access was tightlyrestricted. The Square is a beacon, the obviousground zero for such an anniversary, but anyveterans of the movement who would like tohave visited in commemoration were eitherunder house arrest, denied visa entry or werebeing so closely monitored as to make arespectful pilgrimage all but impossible.

It seemed eerily possible that not a singleveteran of Tiananmen 1989 would be there thisyear.

I felt beholden to get as close to the scene ofthe uprising and the symbolic scene of thecrime, as much for the survivors who couldn’tgo, as for the memory of the lost souls whosespirit has hovered in and around Tiananmenever since.

A l t h o u g h t h e b o i s t e r o u s s t u d e n tdemonstrations of 1989 were the most crowdedcommunal event I ever took part in, I could notseek comfort in a group, as Beijing authoritieswere on the lookout for anything that smackedof an organized vigil.

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So I walked to the Square alone, but notunaccompanied. The faint echo of long-forgotten millions, the joyous outbursts of song,the plaintive cries for help and the wail ofambulances still rang in the air.

I had recently finished revising TiananmenMoon, which records and recollects theexperience of a month on Tiananmen Square inthe midst of a people’s uprising, just publishedin an expanded twenty-fifth anniversary edition,but predictably banned in China.

On June 2, 2014 security was extremely tight,but it was possible to spend half a day on theSquare. The third of June, I went by the Squareagain only to find it eerily empty. On that date,which marked the onset of the violentcrackdown of 1989, the Square was closeddown for almost the whole day because of the"coincidental" scheduling of a state receptionfor a minor foreign dignitary, hosted at theGreat Hall of the People. I went again onthefourth but could only skirt the northern face ofthe Square, as controls were even tighter. Theentry below was written in Beijing and firstposted in Beijing using a VPN to access theInternet on June 3, 2014.

I approached the Square from the ceremonialgateway of Qianmen and Zhengyangmen,which back in the old days of the Qing Dynastycomposed the first barrier of the formalentrance into the Forbidden City. Nowadays it'sstill a gateway of significance; it's the point ofentry to a quasi-forbidden public square.

In better times, when the Communist Partyenjoyed the trust of the people, one used to justwalk onto the Square, from almost anydirection, at almost any time. It was wide,inviting and open to the public. I had flownkites there under blue skies, cycled there andrested by the monument at midnight, and hadbeen there amidst a defiant crowd of onemillion. There were no fences and few guards.You simply walked in or rode around theSquare on your bicycle

But ever since 1989, and the subsequentregimen of information control that renderstaboo public discussion of a crackdown that

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still cannot be countenanced, the Square hasbeen circumscribed and carefully fenced infrom every angle.

On this hot June day, the only way to enter thevast Square from the south is winding andcircuitous. One has to first go underground andpass through the easternmost entrance of theQianmen subway station, where one issubjected to X-ray bag checks as a generalsecurity measure. From there one walks up anarrow staircase and emerges onto thesouthern perimeter of the Square, only to entera maze of crowd-control fencing with signswarning not to jump the fence. After zigzaggingthrough the chrome maze, there's a shortbreakaway abutting empty pavement and thena line of people waiting to enter the Square,bottled up by a security shack guardinganother fenced-in area, passage through whichleads to the Square proper.

I took my place on a long line that movedslowly, almost imperceptibly so. The waypeople were painstakingly being processedseemed a deliberate deterrent designed to keepthe Square free of crowds; the pace ofinspection appeared to be staggered out toslow things down, if not limit, entrance to theSquare. I watched the Chinese day-trippers atthe front of the line endure ID check, friskingand bag searches. There were about 50 peopleahead of me, all Chinese, mostly stoic and

docile, some hiding under umbrellas to keepaway the hot rays, others smoking, which onlymade the wait worse.

We were guided like farm animals in a fenced-in corral, there was only one way in and youcouldn't deviate from the path. The finalbottleneck involved individual security checksas thorough as a border crossing or an airport,as individual IDs were checked against a policedatabase on a handheld computer.

After a fifteen-minute wait in the hot sun, I gotto the front of the line where I was singled outby an unfriendly guard. He pulled me aside,took my passport and instructed me not tomove. I moved to the side, testing his resolve,but also to get out of the sun. From the shadeof the police booth, I waited and watched theprocedure by which each visitor was asked toproduce ID, answer questions and get frisked.All bags were X-rayed and some were hand-inspected as well.

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My shoulder bag contained a book and littleelse, but I knew the book would get looked at. Iwas reading Shijizhilian, about the Chineserevolutionary poet Xiao San. Written by hisGerman-Jewish wife, Eva, who I met while astudent in Beijing in the 1980’s, and translatedinto Chinese by his son Victor, a Beijing friend,it offers a largely positive view of Chinathrough the lens of a cross-cultural marriage.Xiao San was a school friend of Mao Zedong,though the book's harrowing description of howthe couple was arrested and thrown in prisonfor seven years during the height of theCultural Revolut ion certainly raisesuncomfortable questions about what it meantto be a friend of Mao, and the sanity ofCommunist Party leadership in general.

Had I been carrying my own book, TiananmenMoon the title would have been arrestingenough to get me turned away, if not detainedand investigated. It is banned in China. Evenwith a book about a communist poet in hand Icould see it was no simple matter to getthrough. Those behind me on line wereinspected and let in, one by one, while Ilingered uncomfortably to the side. The copwho collared me probably equated foreignerswith trouble, as in journalists, but it could havebeen the black shirt I was wearing, too.

Why would anyone with innocent intentionswear the color of mourning for an event that's

been officially erased from history?

The atmosphere was lackadaisical yet lacedwith unspoken tension. Deprived of mypassport, I was left face to face with an array ofsecurity personal who lorded over the hoi polloiday-trippers with the bespoke imperiousness ofgatekeepers, taking their time, and singling outcertain individuals for more intrusive checksthan others, turning some away, letting othersthrough. The uniformed agent who held mypassport s tarted mutter ing to me inincomprehensible English. And then in verycomprehensible Chinese, he addressed thecrowd. "Is anyone with him or is he alone?"

Nobody knew the foreigner. Theonly thing thatwas clear was that I wasn't going anywheresoon. The guard gestured that I should stepnext to the police booth, barking someincomprehensible words in English. I told him I

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couldn't understand what he was saying, hesaid he was calling in a supervisor who spokebetter English. I said why don't we speak inChinese and save some time? He asked me if Iwas a journalist. I explained I was not on ajournalist visa, I was on a personal visit, but hewasn't satisfied with my minimal explanation.He got busy on his phone, and his handhelddatabase device, apparently trying to see ifthey had anything on me.

As the crowd shuffled past me for obligatorybag inspections and ID checks, the cop startedto walk away with my passport; I asked him toreturn it before stepping out of sight. Hehalted, glaring angrily. Meanwhile, a tall olderman brushed against me, cigarette dangling ashe waited his turn to enter the security booth. Iasked him to please not smoke next to me. Thecop was taken aback. "Who are you telling himnot to smoke? Even I don't have the right to tellhim that. He can smoke if he wants to."

Rights. The right to smoke in a crowded publicplace was upheld while the right to visit apublic square was held in delicate abeyance.

The cop and I continued to regard one anotheras if in a face off, each waiting for the other toblink. He clung close to me, as if he hadcollared a prime suspect. We whiled away thetime, exchanging terse comments, me pressinghim to speed it up, him clutching onto mypassport, which was as good as holding me onleash. I asked, do you like doing this? Isn't thisboring (wuliao) and he snapped, what job isn'tboring? I said last time I visited the Square wasnot much security, what's with this, somethingabout 6/4? He stared knowingly, a thin smilebreaking on his tight lips, but didn't answer.The short repartee that followed earned asuppressed grin, but no rapport.

The supervisor arrived at last, and with it thepromise of closure, one way or the other. "Thisis the guy, he speaks Chinese (shi zheige ren,ta hui shuo zhongwen") the indignant inspectorsaid by way of introduction.

The supervisor was slightly pudgy, bright-eyed,bespectacled and confident. He smiled ingreeting; I smiled in return. He was relaxedand pleasant, rather what you'd hope an officerof the peace to be, in comparison to the ball-buster beat cop who was now assiduously hand-copying my passport data on a piece of paper.The supervisor asked amiably, visiting people?Yeah. Where? Shida. Are you a reporter? No, Iam not a reporter. A teacher? Yeah, you couldsay that, but not at Shida.

He took my passport and the notepaper fromhis testy subordinate, studied at my visa andthen pocketed my passport, handing me thepolice notepaper by mistake. I said, no thanks;I'd rather have my passport back. He grinnedand quickly corrected himself, saying I was freeto go on. In parting I said your subordinateneeds to learn more about visas; he doesn'tknow about visa types, and it's hot standinghere in the sun and he's wasted a lot ofeveryone 's t ime. The inspector wasappropriately humble in front of his supervisor;he looked at me with a thin-lipped smile andsaid he would study more (xuexi, xuexi). Thenmy passport was checked by a femaleinspector, my bag X-rayed and subject to ahand-search. The book was thumbed throughwith curiosity, as if to ascertain that thecontents corresponded to the cover, and then Iwas "free" to walk out onto the emptypavement of a vast downtown plaza.

As I stepped into the clear, I could see thatTiananmen Square was ringed with heavysecurity every direction of the compass. Ipressed forward, at once giddy and downcast tofind myself at last on a public square wherepolice vehicles were parked and idling in everynook and cranny. The street facing museumand running the length of the square was

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entirely closed off to traffic, other than crowdcontrol busses and security vehicles. Therewere policing techniques that were new to me,at least as seen on the Square. Police patrolledthe perimeter with hefty-looking guard dogs.

Mounted cameras seemed to whir from everyother pole, and the metallic sheen of temporaryfencing, in addition to the more permanentfencing that has been put in place over theyears, gave the open vista of the people's plazaa confining, penned-in feeling, like a giantprison yard.

Men in uniform patrolled and watched at everyjuncture, sometimes they would approachpeople already on the Square for a follow upsecurity check or interrogation. I saw only fiveforeigners on the Square in the two-and-a-halfhour period that I wandered around. Three ofthose foreigners, blond and female, werestopped and interrogated in the middle of theSquare. Hadn’t they passed enough security

just to get in? They looked a little scared so Iapproached them to ask if everything wasalright, which of course prompted the cops toturn their sights to me, asking if we weretogether. A female officer ushered me awaywhen it became obvious I wasn't part of thethree-person “cell” they were questioning.Content the three foreign ladies were not beingunduly abused, but only experiencingcommunication difficulties due to the impliedconspiracy of visiting in a group, I moved on,aware of being observed from many differentangles, from prowling security staff on foot andon wheel, some carrying weapons of war,others with dogs on leash.

Being solo didn’t avert the stares, but at least Icould evade trumped up charges of conspiracy.

Empty busses and police vehicles idled and satin the setting sun, ready to process detainees inbatches of hundreds, if necessary. But thecrowd was thin, a few hundred scattered

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tourists at most, and there wasn’t a whiff of apolitical expression anywhere. Nothing muchhappened, but every move was monitored. Whyit was even hard to take a selfie without apolice vehicle rolling into view.

There were conspicuous plainsclothesmenstudying new arrivals at entrance staircasesfrom underground passages, on the north faceof the Square, even though visitors had alreadypassed through a series of checkpoints on theway in.

The centerpiece of the Square, the Monumentof the People's Heroes was unapproachable;fully fenced off and guarded. Just the mere actof pointing my phone camera at the stoneobelisk that had served as the epicenter of thehistoric demonstrations provoked attentionfrom security personnel.

There were "garbage collectors" riding aroundon electric scooters, clutching mobile phones in

hand. The frequency with which they passedme when I paused to take snapshots suggestedtheir cleanup duties extended to reporting on“unkempt” individuals as well.

I found a few local tourists sitting in the shadeof a stationary police van and I joined them.Sitting down felt good, it reminded me of beingon the Square day and night in '89, the wayvoices echoed off the stone, the way the skyseemed so vast and unreachable. By chance Ihad chosen a spot along the central axis, notfar from where the Goddess of Democracystatue had once stood.

The crowd was sparse, mostly provincialvisitors judging from accents and attire. Therewere two affable Tibetan monks, or perhaps Ishould say two Potemkin monks, for there wassomething slightly unreal about their getup.

One wore a rainbow beanie cap umbrella on hishead, and they both exuded cheer despite the

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tight security. Giddy about being in the capitalof their motherland, or something else?

The early June sun was hot and unforgiving,but the constant monitoring and suspicion ofany kind of human interaction made for a coldreception. One of the handful of Caucasianstraipsing across the Square by chance came tobe standing next to me at the rai l ingoverlooking the boulevard and Mao's portraiton the other side. The mere, inadvertentproximity of two foreign men quickly raisedpert stares and suspicious movements from thewell-built T-shirted scouts prowling across thenorth side of the Square. It's as if they saw usas co-conspirators.

I said hello to a few people, and got one smilein return, but that was about it. Otherwisethere was an unusual degree of sobriety andsilence about scattered, apolitical crowd. Thesober mood was pierced by the occasionalawkward "hal-low" shouted by provincials withlimited English ability, and one practiced"Hello-where-are-you-from?" routine from twoenterprising bargirls who had braved thesecurity measures to seek prey in a captivelocation. "We are from Harbin. “What is yourcountry?" I humored the perfumed pair longenough to sense a routine, and then brushedthem off; I had been interrogated enough forone day. A few minutes later they closed in onthe other foreign man, asking, “What is your

country?” and other standard questions. BeforeI walked out of earshot I heard them suggest hejoin them for a beer, probably at a bar of theirchoice with extravagant prices, or so goes thescam.

The only “people’s heroes” in the vicinity wereembalmed, as the one in Mao's tomb, or etchedin stone, commemorating revolutionary eventslong before the unspeakable event that stainedthe Square in 1989.

The open vista on the north side of themonument has for some time been blocked bytwo gargantuan high-tech video boards thatflash scenes of beautiful China and the latestlame slogans exhorting unity in one form oranother. The screen on the west flank neatlyblocked the spot where the hunger strikersgathered a quarter of a century ago.

Nestled in the southeast corner of themonument, where the students briefly had theirheadquarters in the broadcast tent, stood anempty guard booth and a “do not enter” sign.

About the only sign of normalcy was seeingfamilies with small kids, who as ever, rompedabout without apolitical abandon and urinatedopenly on the Square, and one could hardlychastise them. To return from the long trek tothe public restrooms would have involvedanother security check.

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There were several police scooting around onSegways.And then there were periodic briskmarching formations of men in khaki, dressedto impress but going nowhere in particular.

There were armored vehicles and tow trucksand black-windowed vans and green armytrucks, all idling all the time. It was like China'sversion of the out-of-control, out-of-proportionUS security state, no expense spared to keepTiananmen under wraps.

I lingered on the perimeter of the sterile,fenced-in Square to watch the sun set and redflag go down. I thought about how political lies,fear of truth and denial of history continue tohurt and haunt China.

And then I walked. I walked out of the prisonpen that is Tiananmen and back into the realworld. I ambled along Changan Boulevard, andthen went north to Donghuamen. From there I

threaded through the portion of the ForbiddenCity open to the public, which, for all thehorrors of imperial history, was tranquil,majestic and at peace with itself.

I walked past the secretive compound ofZhongnanhai, where the living leaders of Chinawere safely guarded with a fraction of themanpower and hardware deployed to makesure nothing happened on the cold pavingstones of an empty Square. I circled past Beihaiand Jingshan Park and walked on past the barsof Houhai and boutiques of the Drum Towerdistrict where it was just another raucous funnight for youthful revelers with no memory andlittle knowledge of Tiananmen in 1989.

Recommended citation: Philip J. Cunningham,"Border Crossing Into Tiananmen Square; stillunder lockdown twenty-five years on", TheAsia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 26, No. 4,June 30, 2014.

Phi l ip J Cunningham is the author ofTiananmen Moon, which was recently releasedby Rowman & Littlefield in a special expandededition for the 25 t h anniversary of theTiananmen demonstrations of 1989.

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