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But as Beijing has moved to crush Hong Kong’s own pro-democracy movement and imposed a sweeping national security law on the city, the annual public remembrance of the June 4 crackdown has been silenced, and even media documenting the events are disappearing from library shelves.
Since the national security law took effect in 2020 — criminalizing any activity seeming to question Beijing’s authority and sending dozens to prison for actions like holding blank pieces of paper in public — more than 40 percent of documentaries, magazines and books involving “political themes” have vanished from Hong Kong’s libraries, according to Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao.
A search by The Washington Post of the library system’s online archive in Chinese and in English using keywords such as “June 4, 1989”, “89 movement” and “Tiananmen Square” yielded no results about the crackdown.
When asked about the removal of media relating to June 4 from public libraries on Tuesday, Hong Kong’s leader said libraries must comply with the law.
“These books are accessible by people in private book shops. If they want to buy, they can buy,” Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee told reporters.
“What libraries need to do is to ensure that there’s no breach of any laws in Hong Kong, including of course, copyrights etc., and also if they spread any kind of messages that are not in the interests of Hong Kong,” said Lee.
A Hong Kong government report in April said that the department which operates the libraries needed to “step up efforts in examining library materials for safeguarding national security.”
According to the report, a preliminary review had been conducted that focused on authors and publishers “suspected of publishing books on ‘Hong Kong independence.’” The review was ongoing, said the report.
Documentaries made by public broadcaster RTHK were also removed from the library catalogue. A number of independent Hong Kong media outlets have been subject to raids and arrests since the national security law came into effect, casting a chill over the city’s once-raucous media landscape.
As the 34th anniversary of the June 4 crackdown approaches, here are nine titles that can’t be found on Hong Kong’s library shelves as authorities move to erase the city’s reputation for preserving the things that the Chinese Communist Party would like to forget.
People’s Republic of Amnesia by Louisa Lim
Lim, who reported from China for more than a decade for the BBC and NPR, chronicled the ripple effects of the Tiananmen Square crackdown through Chinese society with eyewitness interviews and deep dives into official records.
“When you find out that your own Amnesia book has been disappeared from HK public libraries. It should not come as a surprise, given recent moves, and yet it shows how quickly the authorities are moving,” wrote Lim on Twitter about her book’s disappearance.
Mandate of Heaven by Orville Schell
China specialist Orville Schell described the cultural changes in China wrought by the events in Tiananmen Square in this 1995 book as China underwent a period of dramatic economic development in the years after the crackdown.
On China and Hong Kong after Tiananmen by Lee Kuan Yew
This collection documents recorded speeches by former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew outlining his views on Hong Kong’s complex relationship with China in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Tiananmen Exiles by Rowena He
In her first book, Hong Kong-based historian Rowena He interviewed three Chinese student leaders in exile about their childhood during the Cultural Revolution, their activism work and personal accounts of June 4.
Prison Memoir by Wang Dan
Chinese dissident Wang Dan’s memoir of his years in prison from 1989 to 1993 for his actions as a student leader in the Tiananmen Square protests.
The Power of Tiananmen by Zhao Dingxin
In this book published a dozen years after the crackdown, Chinese sociologist Zhao Dingxin compiled interviews with Tiananmen protesters and chronicled how relations between the state and society changed in 1980s China.
The Factual Account of a Search for the June 4 Victims by Ding Zilin
After her son was killed during the government’s crackdown on protesters, Ding co-founded the group “Tiananmen Mothers” that lobbied the government to reinvestigate the events of June 4 and publicly release the number and names of deceased.
People Will Not Forget by the Hong Kong Journalists Association
When this group of more than 60 Hong Kong journalists published their account of covering the Tiananmen Square protests, it immediately sold out. The association is still operating today despite heightened scrutiny.
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