Why China still cannot say "Tiananmen" and blocked me 我被中國外交部拉黑的前因後果

Thirty-seven years on, the silence around June 4th is the clearest confession the party-state has to offer 為什麼中國不敢讓人們紀念“天安門”？

中文版在下方

Readers who follow me on X will know that I have been blocked by Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry. The provocation was modest. She had posted a video of a People’s Liberation Army honour guard stepping around an elderly woman in a wheelchair and her family, captioned “the people’s army makes way for the people.”

I asked the obvious question: how could they not make way for some people and a wheelchair with a person in it, march straight over them? I added that when an official has to dress up such a scene as propaganda, in a foreign language and on a foreign platform, you can be confident it is not an ordinary day back home. She blocked me.

That turned out to be a favour. My following grew, which proved useful a few days later when I began posting about June 4th. The thirty-seventh anniversary was trending, with more than 180,000 posts, and I was glad to find myself at the top of them.

Raising the alarm about the Communist regime is the least one can do for the people who died in 1989. Mao Ning and her team had not grasped that parading the PLA at such a sensitive moment could only rebound on them. For a week afterwards her replies were filled with the same reminder: the army’s real talent has been for turning its guns on Chinese citizens.

Lucky for me, blocking is all she can do. Were I in China, the police would already have knocked on my door and taken me away. The censorship around this anniversary has been the heaviest I can remember. Every reference is scrubbed, down to the number 64 itself.

On WeChat, friends trying to split a dinner bill into payments of 64 yuan found the transactions quietly refused. In Hong Kong woman was arrested for holding up six fingers and then four; another was detained for wearing a shirt printed with the official slogan “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” because the police understood he meant it as a joke.

Why is the party so frightened of a date? Because it knows it holds power without a mandate. No Chinese voter ever put it in office. It governs through censorship, propaganda and, when those fail, force. Its apologists like to claim that the Tiananmen protests were never peaceful, that they were a CIA-funded colour revolution.

Yet a government that had truly defeated a foreign plot would say so loudly. It would teach the episode in schools, mark the victory each year and let people argue about it freely. China does none of this. The very fact that the word “Tiananmen” still cannot be spoken, decades on, gives the lie to the story.

History does not cooperate with the conspiracy either. The 1980s were the warmest years in the relationship between Washington and Beijing. America backed Deng Xiaoping’s opening and was beginning to profit from it. A stable China under a friendly government suited American interests; the last thing Washington wanted was bloodshed in the square, but nor did it want the government toppled and the country plunged into uncertainty.

That is why trade resumed so quickly after the killings. To call June 4th a foreign plot to overthrow the state is not merely illogical. It is a claim the Chinese government itself has never endorsed. It survives only as a line for those who wish to excuse the dead.

We should insist on remembering Beijing, and the many other cities where blood was shed, for one plain reason: the regime has not changed. It is the same party-state, and a party-state will always place the party first and sacrifice anything to keep it there. The structure exists to guard its own grip at any cost.

We have watched it do so ever since: the persecution of Falun Gong, the mass arrest of human-rights lawyers, the camps built for Uyghurs, the cultural genocide of Tibetans and Mongolians, the jailing of Christian leaders, the dismantling of Hong Kong’s freedoms, the cruelties of zero-covid, and a campaign of transnational repression that now reaches dissidents far beyond its borders.

To commemorate Tiananmen is to honour those who paid the highest price, and it is also a warning. What happened in 1989 still threatens every Chinese who longs for freedom, and it threatens the peace of the wider world.

June 5, 2026

originally published on Times Now: https://www.timesnownews.com/opinion/world/why-china-still-cannot-say-tiananmen-article-154470751

譯文：

關注我在 X（前 Twitter）的讀者可能知道，我已經被中國外交部發言人毛寧封鎖了。事情的起因其實相當簡單。她發布了一段中國人民解放軍儀仗隊的影片，畫面中儀仗隊繞過了一位坐在輪椅上的老太太及其家人，並配文寫道：「人民軍隊給人民讓路」。

我提出了一個再明顯不過的問題：難道他們還能不讓路嗎？難道要直接從輪椅和行人身上踩過去不成？

我接著補充說，當一位官方發言人必須把這樣的場景包裝成宣傳素材，而且還是用外語、在海外社交平台上發布時，你大概就可以確定，國內此刻一定不是什麼平常日子。

於是，她把我封鎖了。

結果看來，這反而幫了我一個忙。我的追蹤人數因此增加了不少，而幾天之後，當我開始發表有關六四的內容時，這些新增的關注者派上了用場。六四三十七週年在 X 上成為熱門話題，相關貼文超過十八萬篇，而我很高興自己的內容能夠出現在討論熱度最高的位置之一。

對於那些在1989年失去生命的人而言，提醒世人警惕這個共產主義政權，大概已經是我們至少能做到的事情。毛寧和她的團隊顯然沒有意識到，在如此敏感的時刻高調展示解放軍，只會產生反效果。在接下來的一週裡，她的留言區幾乎被同樣的提醒洗版：

解放軍真正擅長的事情，是把槍口對準中國人民。

幸運的是，對我而言，她能做的只有封鎖而已。如果我身在中國，警察恐怕早已敲響我的家門，把我帶走了。

今年圍繞六四週年的審查力度，是我記憶中最嚴厲的一次。任何相關內容都被清除，甚至連「64」這個數字本身都成了禁忌。

在微信上，有朋友試圖把聚餐費拆分成64元付款，結果交易被悄悄拒絕。在香港，一名女子因為先比出六根手指、再比出四根手指而遭到逮捕；另一人則因為穿著印有官方口號「中國特色社會主義」的T恤而被拘留，因為警方知道他是在諷刺。

為什麼中共如此害怕一個日期？因為它知道自己掌握權力，卻沒有來自人民的授權。

沒有任何中國選民曾經透過自由選舉把共產黨送上執政位置。它依靠審查、宣傳，以及在前兩者失效時的武力來維持統治。

中共的辯護者經常聲稱，天安門運動從來不是和平抗議，而是一場由中央情報局（CIA）資助的「顏色革命」。

然而，如果一個政府真的成功粉碎了一場外國勢力策動的陰謀，它理應大張旗鼓地宣揚這項勝利。它會把這段歷史寫進教科書，每年舉辦紀念活動，並允許人民自由討論和爭辯。

但中國什麼都沒有做。恰恰相反，三十多年過去了，「天安門」這個詞依然無法被公開談論。僅僅這個事實本身，就足以推翻官方的那套說法。

歷史事實同樣不支持這種陰謀論。

1980年代其實是華盛頓與北京關係最友好的時期。美國支持鄧小平的改革開放，也開始從中獲益。一個由友好政府統治、穩定發展的中國，符合美國的利益。華盛頓當然不希望看到天安門廣場流血，但同樣也不希望中國政府被推翻、整個國家陷入動盪與不確定之中。這也是為什麼在鎮壓發生之後不久，美中貿易便迅速恢復。

因此，把六四描述成一場外國勢力顛覆國家的陰謀，不僅缺乏邏輯，甚至連中國政府自己都從未正式背書過這種說法。

這種說法之所以至今仍然存在，只不過是某些人用來為六四鎮壓開脫、替死難者被殺尋找藉口的宣傳話術。

我們必須堅持記住北京，也必須記住當年許多同樣流血的中國城市，原因其實很簡單：這個政權從未改變。

它依然是同一個黨國體制，而黨國體制永遠會把黨的利益放在第一位，並願意犧牲一切來維持統治。整個制度存在的目的，就是不惜任何代價守護自身的權力。

而在此後的數十年間，我們也一次又一次看見它這麼做：

對法輪功的迫害；對人權律師的大規模抓捕；為維吾爾人建立拘禁營；對藏族與蒙古族文化的系統性摧毀；對基督教領袖的監禁；對香港自由的瓦解；清零政策期間的種種殘酷措施；以及如今已延伸至海外、針對異議人士的跨國鎮壓行動。

紀念天安門，不只是為了向那些付出最高代價的人致敬。它同時也是一種警告：1989年發生的事情，至今仍然威脅著每一位渴望自由的中國人；而它所代表的威脅，也同樣關係到整個世界的和平與未來。

2026年6月5日