Boston Debates the Fate of its Tiananmen Memorial

Twenty years ago, in the aftermath of the Tiananmen massacre, numerous memorials, status, and other symbols of remembrance were established all around the world. Today, most of them have fell into disrepair or been ignored by the general public. But once a while, a local controversial might erupt on what to do with them. The latest happened within Boston's Chinatown.


According to Boston Globe, The Mary Soo Hoo Park(aka, Chinatown Gateway Park), which hosts the memorial, is being renovated and some residents asked that the memorial to be removed so that the part could become "a place of repose, where adults can relax and children can play without the intrusion of politics."

Other activists, of course, have other ideas. They questioned city designers repeatedly on the issue and insisted to preserve the memorial.

A final decision has yet to be made.

Feng Zhenghu Returns Home

Feng Zhenghu is now at home.

Chinese Income Distribution in Four Decades

From Frog in a Well, one can see an interesting diagram showing how China developed from a homogeneous society to one that possesses a significantly divergent income distribution:

In late 1980s, the emerging divergence was an important factor in social discontent that contributed to the eruption of the 1989 student movement. That trend did not stop at the time but is becoming even more evident today.

Feng Zhenghu Will Return to China

After living at an airport terminal in Japan for 90 days, Feng Zhenghu finally got the good news he had been waiting for: the Chinese government will allow him to return to his home country. A couple of days ago, officials from the Chinese embassy in Japan visited Feng Zhenghu in person and it looks like they have successfully resolved their differences.

Feng Zhenghu announced that he will host a press conference at the terminal on February 2. He will finally enter Japan on the 3rd and return to China after a few days of rest. He is looking forward to spend the Chinese New Year in China.

People of 1989: Luo Haixing

Luo Haixing (罗海星) was born in 1949 in Hong Kong. His father was a prominent magazine editor there and also a member of the Chinese Communist Party. Luo Haixing spent his childhood in mainland China and became a Red Guard during Cultural Revolution while he was in high school. However, his faith in communism was shaken in the 1980s when his father became a victim of a political struggle.

During the 1980s, Luo Haixing spent most of his time in Beijing working for Sino-Hong Kong trade. He was in Beijing when the student movement erupted in 1989. After the massacre, he joined the efforts organized by people in Hong Kong to rescue movement leaders. The details of his involvement is still sketchy, but he was apparently successful in helping a few leaders reach safety in Hong Kong through a makeshift underground route.

Later that year, in an effort to rescue Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming, Luo Haixing fell into a trap and was arrested by the Chinese government on October 14, 1989. He was sentenced for five years. He ended up serving only two years, when he was released on the account of British premier John Major's visit to China in 1991.

Luo Haixing passed away on January 14, 2010, at the age of 61.


People of 1989

Zhou Yongjun Sentenced for Nine Years

A local court in China has sentenced Zhou Yongjun to nine years in prison on charges of attempted fraud. He was also fined 80,000 Yuan ($11,700). The AP story describes his case as:

Details of the charges against Zhou remain murky, as is common in China's opaque legal system.

Chen says the case stems from a complaint by Hong Kong's Hang Seng bank about a suspicious request for the transfer of funds out of an account registered to Wang Xingxiang — the name in Zhou's fake passport.

The signature on the transfer form did not match that of the original account holder and the name Wang Xingxiang was placed on a money laundering watch list, according to Chen.

He said the amount of the attempted fraud was listed as $6 million Hong Kong dollars ($773,000), but declined to give other details of the case or Zhou's defense.

Zhou denied the fraud charge, saying he was the victim of bad luck and mistaken identity. He says he obtained the fake passport through an immigration agency, a common practice among Chinese exiles who often find themselves stateless after Beijing refuses to renew their passports.

Hong Kong's government refuses to comment on Zhou's case. Visitors whose travel documents do not meet requirements are usually returned to their "place of embarkation or origin," it has said in the past.

As a student leader in 1989, Zhou Yongjun has been profiled here.

People of 1989: Zhao Ziyang

Zhao Ziyang came to national prominence when he was appointed as the Premier of China in 1980. Along with the then General Secretary Hu Yaobang, he was considered young and upcoming in the ranks of communist officials. For almost a decade, he skillfully guided the reform effort advocated by the behind-the-scene supreme leader Deng Xiaoping and earned a well-deserved reputation as a pragmatic leader.

His fortune first changed in January 1987, when Hu Yaobang was sacked in disgrace after a wave of student demonstrations. Zhao Ziyang's own role in Hu Yaobang's downfall is still unclear to this day. However, he became the one who succeeded Hu Yaobang as the General Secretary and the apparent heir to Deng Xiaoping.

When the student movement broke out in 1989 following Hu Yaobang's death, Zhao Ziyang was not a favorite figure, partly due to his beneficiary status in the Hu Yaobang episode. In fact, there were rampant rumors about corruption within his family, particularly his son, making him one of the targets of the movement.

Zhao Ziyang's very first public move during that movement was a puzzling one. Following Hu Yaobang's funeral and just as student movement was gaining momentum, he left the country for a lengthy state visit to North Korea. While abroad, he approved the publication of the infamous April 26 People's Daily editorial, a move that perhaps sealed his fate a few weeks later.

After returning to Beijing in early May, Zhao Ziyang pushed for his non-confrontational approach toward resolving the crisis and briefly won the upper hand within the government. Most significantly, he abolished the censorship in official media and allowed the movement being freely reported. He also advocated dialogues with the masses. But for reasons that are still unclear today, he did not promptly initiate direct dialogue with the students until very late.

On May 16, 1989, during his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Zhao Ziyang made a surprise revelation that Deng Xiaoping was still the supreme leader in China, turning the movement toward targeting Deng Xiaoping. It was yet another mysterious move of his that has not yet been properly explained. It did not work out for him. The government moved on to impose martial law and he resigned in protest.

Zhao Ziyang later appeared in Tiananmen Square himself and made a passionate, impromptu speech to students, during which he famously uttered "we are already old, it does not matter to us any more." He was going to be seen in public ever since.

After years of house arrest, Zhao Ziyang passed away on January 17, 2005, at the age of 85. Four years later, his secret memo was discovered and published posthumously. Yet the best-selling book fell short in telling his story.

Zhao Ziyang is remembered mainly for his refusal to endorse the martial law and the eventual massacre. He is also frequently criticized for being weak, especially in comparison to the Russian leader Boris Yeltsin who later courageously joined the masses in a somewhat similar crisis situation.



People of 1989