What the Tiananmen Square massacre teaches us about Xi’s China

As millions of Brits celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, others will be gathering outside the Chinese Embassy in London to mark a different event: the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Beijing has done its best to wipe this day from the history books, but it’s vital we don’t forget an event that has foreshadowed the direction the Chinese Communist Party has taken in the years since.

33 years ago on the streets of China’s capital, we saw the true nature of the Chinese regime as it turned its guns and tanks on thousands of peaceful protesters.

‘They were shooting, people were running, and people tried to rescue others,’ said Jan Wong, a veteran Canadian journalist who was in Tiananmen Square on the day of the massacre. ‘They brought out bodies on bicycle seats and pedicabs. They just ran into gunfire’.

Wong saw the infamous ‘Tank Man’ scene – when a single protester faced down the Chinese army – unfold in front of her: ‘The army had been running people over, and I had watched the tanks.