For years it was one of the only places in China in which June 4th remembrance ceremonies and open discussion of the events were permitted. But things are changing
dystopian novel, the ruling party controls the past by feeding reports of inconvenient historical events into a “memory hole”, replacing them with its preferred version. China’s Communist Party has long taken that approach—no more so than when it comes to theof pro-democracy demonstrators that occurred around Tiananmen Square in the early morning of June 4th 1989.
Officials insist that the freedoms of expression and assembly enshrined in Hong Kong’s Basic Law, the mini-constitution enacted after Britain handed back the territory to China in 1997, remain unmolested. But the national-security law, which gives the authorities broad powers to clamp down on anything they deem seditious, renders such statements close to meaningless.
The legislation is so vague that no one knows where its lines are drawn. In March the organisers of the Tiananmen vigil were jailed, even though the last such event had been held before the national-security law was enacted. Chris Tang, Hong Kong’s security chief, is evasive on whether wearing black or lighting candles on June 4th would be considered seditious. Authorities have hauled down statues commemorating Tiananmen and closed a museum dedicated to the massacre.
Earlier this year the government oversaw the removal from public libraries of books that mention the massacre. Accused of censorship, John Lee, Hong Kong’s chief executive, insisted that the works would still be available in private bookshops. But bookshops, too, have been purging their shelves of literature that might upset the authorities. With the legislation ill-defined, and the punishment for transgression so harsh, they have inevitably erred on the side of caution.
by closing down newsrooms and locking up journalists. But the international press is freely available to locals. Government officials, including Mr Lee, still appear before the media to answer difficult questions. Nor is there all-encompassing control of the internet equivalent to China’s Great Firewall . For now the flame of Tiananmen will be more difficult to snuff out in Hong Kong than in Beijing—whether or not those who remember June 4th are allowed to light a candle to its victims.
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