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BEIJING (AFP) - More than 100 relatives of people killed in the Tiananmen massacre have called on the government to apologize as the 16th anniversary of the tragedy approaches. In an open letter by 125 relatives to President Hu Jintao, the Tiananmen Mothers group said the government's recent accusations against Japan for failing to acknowledge its World War II atrocities were meaningless because it has not apologized for its own transgressions. "You and your predecessors have wiped the memory of the June 4 massacre from the books and have covered up this despicable event from history," the letter said....

"The Chinese Communist Party survived a brutal civil war with the Nationalists, battles with American forces in Korea and massive pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square. But now it may finally have met its match - the Internet. The collision between the Internet and Chinese authorities is one of the grand wrestling matches of history, visible in part at http://www.yuluncn.com. That's the Web site of a self-appointed journalist named Li Xinde. He made a modest fortune selling Chinese medicine around the country, and now he's started the Chinese Public Opinion Surveillance Net - one of four million blogs in China. Mr....

China Calls Off Democracy Conference By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer Tue May 17, 3:15 AM ET China abruptly called off an international conference on human rights and democracy this week, apparently because it was too close to the June 4 anniversary of Beijing's 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations, a participant said Tuesday. The three-day conference was to begin Thursday in Beijing, but speakers were told to "assume that it's been canceled," pending official notice, said Bruce Gilley, the author of several books on Chinese politics who was invited to speak at the conference. It would be the second time...

 Tiananmen inmates linked to EU arms embargo Jonathan Watts in BeijingThursday May 12, 2005The Guardian China should release those of its citizens imprisoned since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown if it wants the European Union to end its arms ban, a senior EU delegation told their hosts in Beijing yesterday. The request for an amnesty, one of four areas in which the EU is seeking better human rights, raises the bar for lifting the 16-year embargo, making a change unlikely this year. The linkage is embarrassing for Beijing's communist leaders, who sees removal of the "discriminatory" ban as a central...

t is hard to imagine what China's leaders figured they had to gain by pushing through a law authorizing an attack on Taiwan if it moves toward formal independence. Beijing has been threatening such an attack for years, and the Communist Party's all-powerful leaders hardly need to get their toothless legislature's permission if they ever decide to plunge ahead with such lunacy.But it is easy enough to see what damage this gambit has already done to China's international reputation and objectives. By reminding the world that Beijing seriously thinks about launching a shooting war across the Taiwan Strait that could...

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERSFROM: ELLEN BORK, Deputy DirectorSUBJECT: Human Rights and the EU Arms EmbargoFrom numerous accounts, it appears that the European Union will postpone plans to lift the arms embargo it imposed on Beijing in response to the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. According to the same accounts, Beijing’s enactment last week of a “law” authorizing the use of force against Taiwan tipped the scale against lifting the embargo before summer. Actions taken to exert even greater control over the Beijing-appointed leadership in Hong Kong reportedly also played a role, especially in London.Neither China’s intentions toward Taiwan, nor its...

* Says European Union’s move to resume weapons sales to China threatens to upset the balance of power in the Pacific BEIJING: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggested on Sunday that European governments are irresponsible if they sell sophisticated weaponry to China that might one day be used against US forces in the Pacific. “It is the United States, not Europe, that is defending the Pacific,” Rice said. She spoke in Seoul, the penultimate stop on her weeklong tour of Asia. South Korea, Japan and the United States are all Pacific powers and all contribute resources to keep the...

Beginning Feb 6, 2005, dozens of homes and individuals in the Washington D.C. area have been bombarded by phone calls with recorded messages that apparently come from China's Communist regime. The messages contain propaganda, demonizing the practice of "Falun Gong,” and claiming the Chinese Government is defending "human rights” by "saving” people from the Chinese spiritual practice. The curious and remarkably benign target of the phone campaign, Falun Gong, also known as "Falun Dafa,” is a spiritual practice that consists of gentle exercises and postures, combined with a meditation component. Three values - truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance - form the...

Deposed Chinese leader Zhao cremated in tightly controlled funeral BEIJING (AFP) - Former Chinese party chief Zhao Ziyang was cremated in a tightly controlled funeral as Beijing signalled it had no intention of changing its stance on the reformist leader purged for opposing the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. AFP/Pool Photo "Comrade Zhao Ziyang, who passed away on January 17 at the age of 85, was cremated at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in western Beijing Saturday morning," the official Xinhua news agency said in a brief dispatch. The cremation followed a nearly three-hour funeral attended by an estimated 2,000 people, with hundreds...

Family wants fair appraisal for Zhao BEIJING (Reuters) - The bereaved family of China's purged Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang wants the authorities to give him a posthumous fair appraisal in his funeral eulogy, sources close to his children have said. Zhao was toppled and accused of committing "grave mistakes" by splitting the party after he opposed sending in troops to crush the student-led Tiananmen Square demonstrations for democracy on June 3-4, 1989. He staunchly refused to admit fault. "The family hopes to have a fair appraisal," one source who spoke on condition of anonymity told Reuters on Monday. "They...

Zhao Ziyang, former Secretary-General of mainland China’s Communist Party, died at a Beijing hospital last Monday. Good riddance to another communist? In this case, no. Not all tigers are incapable of changing their stripes. During his tenure in China’s one and only political party, Zhao took steps that truly can be called “reforms.” Zhao's greatest moment occurred during the pro-democracy rebellion of 1989, which was centered in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. He opposed the use of China’s vast military might against the peaceful protestors gathered in the square. On May 19, 1989, Zhao personally pleaded with the protestors, mostly...

PART 4: The peasant Tiananmen time bombBy Pepe Escobar PART 1: The Great Wall of shoppingPART 2: Selling China to the world PART 3: The hottest label: China chic "There is chaos under heaven and things could not be better." - Mao Zedong "The biggest danger to the Party since taking over has been losing touch with the masses." - Hu Jintao SHANGHAI - Everywhere in developed, urban China - Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou - the message was the same. The next "counterrevolutionary rebellion" - as the Communist Party defined the student uprising in Tiananmen Square in 1989 - if it happens,...

China crops its history By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor HONG KONG – When Britain's Margaret Thatcher signed the 1984 agreement handing Hong Kong over to China, the man she signed it with was one of China's brightest lights, reform-minded premier Zhao Ziyang. It was a moment of great hope, with lots of pride and a sense that China, after years under the yoke of Mao Zedong, would become a forward-looking, less extreme state. Yet official photos of that signing now blur or diminish Zhao, or crop him out entirely. Zhao, who opposed the bloody...

Wife Hopes China SARS Hero Will Be Freed-Source BEIJING (Reuters) - The wife of the military doctor who exposed China's SARS (news - web sites) cover-up last year has been released from custody and hopes her husband will also be freed, a source close to the family said Wednesday. Hua Zhongwei returned to their Beijing home late on Tuesday, two weeks after she and her outspoken husband, Jiang Yanyong, disappeared just days before the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, said the source who asked not to be identified. Jiang had upset the authorities after writing to China's top...

Ellen BorkNew York SunJune 4, 2004 Today is the 15th anniversary of the Communist Chinese government's massacre of democracy protesters. Every year, the anniversary causes anxiety for the regime. Security is tightened around the square at Tiananmen, the focal point of the 1989 demonstrations. Dissidents are rounded up or sequestered. Among these, apparently, is Jiang Yanyong, the retired doctor who exposed government deceit about SARS and urged Chinese leaders to reverse official policy that the murdered protesters were counterrevolutionaries. Authorities have also issued a warning to Ding Zilin - the mother of a 17-year-old who was shot in the heart...

Richard Spencer on the true meaning of the massacre that horrified the world 15 years ago Beijing ‘Tell me,’ a Chinese friend asked me the other day. ‘Why are you so interested in poor people?’ Urban sophisticate that she is, she couldn’t quite figure out the point of the story I was writing, about a poverty-stricken village in the middle of nowhere. I wasn’t entirely sure myself, actually, but rather than go into the difference between Telegraph and Guardian readers I decided to try a bit of home-spun egalitarianism. ‘Well, put it this way. You have a smart flat, a...

Beijing Worried about Zhao Ziyang’s Nobel Peace Prize Nomination The Epoch Times Translated from Chinese Edition Jun 07, 2004 Fifteen years after the Tiananmen Massacre, Chinese leaders are still apprehensive of Zhao Ziyang, former Communist Party General Secretary who opposed the military crackdown of students. While the Chinese leaders are trying to wipe out his name from history, Zhao is being nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize overseas. According to the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, which is headquartered in Hong Kong, Zhao has been nominated for the prize every year since 1999. Political Firestorm Possible upon...

Peking Uni: 15 years after Tiananmen From CNN Beijing Bureau Chief Jaime FlorCruzFriday, June 4, 2004 Posted: 2:21 AM EDT (0621 GMT) Student leader Wang Dan leads the protest in Tiananmen Square 15 years ago. VIDEO Tiananmen Square is still a symbol of the winds of change in China. Today's Chinese students know little about the 1989 protests. With China's booming economy, those who would not have returned home just a few years ago are changing their minds. RELATED ?Why Tiananmen is not forgotten ?Carnage in Tiananmen Square ?Gallery: ?TIME.com: China turns the page   (CNN) -- A student dorm...

Tens of thousands demonstrate in Hong Kong to mark Tiananmen anniversary 08:38 PM EDT Jun 04 DIRK BEVERIDGE HONG KONG (AP) - Angered by China's hard line against democracy in Hong Kong, tens of thousands of people waved candles, sang and chanted Friday night to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing. "Hong Kong should be democratic," university student Rocker Tsui said at an annual vigil that was highly charged as a result of the recent bitter dispute over the territory's political future. "Hong Kong people should be ruling Hong Kong ourselves." Beijing shocked and...

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article appeared in the August 4, 1989, of National Review.For several weeks in May and June, Tiananmen Square in central Peking held the world's attention. As the drama unfolded on the television screen, the world was shocked to witness an extraordinary display of the cruel reality of Communist dictatorial power. The paramount leader of China, Deng Xiaoping, had said, "We do not mind spilling a little blood." Spilling blood was what did happen. Soldiers with automatic weapons, tanks, and armored vehicles attacked unarmed civilians. Bloody ground, prostrate bodies, wild-eyed young soldiers firing in all directions were seen...