{"id":431,"date":"2014-05-18T00:14:36","date_gmt":"2014-05-18T00:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=431"},"modified":"2014-05-18T00:15:55","modified_gmt":"2014-05-18T00:15:55","slug":"june-fourth-seventeen-years-later-how-i-kept-a-promise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/june-fourth-seventeen-years-later-how-i-kept-a-promise","title":{"rendered":"PU ZHIQIANG:\u2018June Fourth\u2019 Seventeen Years Later: How I Kept a Promise"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/a>\"pu_zhiqiang_photo_0<\/a><\/p>\n

PU ZHIQIANG08.10.06
\nThe weekend of June 3, 2006, was the seventeenth anniversary of the Beijing massacre and also the first time I ever received a summons. It happened, as the police put it, \u201caccording to law.\u201d Twice within twenty-four hours Deputy Chief Sun Di of Department 1 of the Beijing Public Security Bureau ordered me\u2014\u201ccontrolled\u201d me, in police lingo\u2014to go to the Fanjiacun police station in the Fengtai District of Beijing. This \u201cpractical action\u201d of the Chinese government, although it violated basic human rights, was taken in support of the \u201cstability\u201d that the violent suppression at Tiananmen had brought about.<\/p>\n

I recall the early hours of June 4, 1989. The few thousand students and other citizens who refused to disperse remained huddled at the north face of the Martyrs\u2019 Monument in Tiananmen Square. The glare of fires leaped skyward and gunfire crackled. The pine hedges that lined the square had been set ablaze while loudspeakers screeched their mordant warnings. The bloodbath on outlying roads had already exceeded anyone\u2019s counting. Martial law troops had taken up their staging positions around the square, awaiting final orders, largely invisible except for the steely green glint that their helmets reflected from the light of the fires. It was then that I turned to a friend and commented that the Martyrs\u2019 Monument might soon be witness to our deaths, but that if not, I would come back to this place every year on this date to remember the victims.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

That comment somehow turned into a vow\u2014one that I may need to be fulfilling indefinitely. So far, I have. Every year on the evening of June 3, I have come back to Tiananmen to linger for a while. My wife and I join a few good friends\u2014and beginning in 1995, have brought our son\u2014to gather at the base of the Martyrs\u2019 Monument and spend some time in reflection.<\/p>\n

For me these visits have also aroused guilt feelings. The government\u2019s pressures to forget June Fourth have caused the day slowly to erode in public memory: each year the Tiananmen Mothers seem more isolated, and the massacre seems more a topic to be avoided in daily conversation; even singing \u201cThe Internationale,\u201d as students did that night, has become vaguely embarrassing. A certain lazy comfort attends this forgetting, and that is why I feel guilt. If I just slouch along through life, taking the easy route, what do I say to the spirits of those murdered \u201crioters\u201d of seventeen years ago? And if everyone forgets, are we not opening the door to future massacres? Our Tiananmen generation is now in middle age; we are in positions where we can make a difference. Do we not want to? At a minimum, my guilt feelings cause me to telephone Professor Ding Zilin, a leader of the Tiananmen Mothers, every year on June 3 from Tiananmen Square. It allows me to feel that I am bringing greetings to this white-haired mother from the spirit of her dead son.<\/p>\n

I know that I am not alone in these feelings, and that is why I involve others in my annual visits. My purpose is not to stimulate resentment. Reconciliation is fine, but it must be based on truth.<\/p>\n

This year, about 9 PM on June 2, I sent the following cell-phone text message to a number of friends:<\/p>\n

On the evening of June 3 we will gather at the base of the Martyrs\u2019 Monument in Tiananmen Square to reflect upon the 1989 massacre. The purpose is to remind ourselves that those events have not been consigned to history but remain deeply rooted in our minds. Pu Zhiqiang asks your support in declaring: do not forget the massacre; uphold truth; promote reconciliation based on legal rights.<\/p>\n

In fact it was a minimal gesture, aimed mostly at assuaging my own unease.<\/p>\n

I also forwarded the message to the low-ranking police who are assigned to \u201ccare for\u201d me. I did the same last year. It is better for all concerned to do this. It prevents causing a shock to the police higher-ups, who, if angered, take it out on their underlings as well as on me. I did not anticipate that this time my message would set off a ruckus.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

At 1:10 AM on June 3 my phone rang. It was Officer Cheng Guanglei of the National Security Unit in Fengtai District. He had been ordered to \u201cfind his way\u201d to the doorway of my building, from where he was calling to inform me that the Public Security Bureau of Beijing City wanted to have a chat with me. He earnestly hoped that I would \u201ccoordinate\u201d with this plan. I offered a perfunctory protest, but then went downstairs, got into the officer\u2019s car, and went to the Fanjiacun police station. As we entered the main hall I noticed a blackboard bearing the words \u201cBe Civilized in Raising Dogs.\u201d I had to stifle a laugh. If our government were to reach the level of \u201ccivilization in raising dogs,\u201d then, yes, we would be well on our way to the \u201charmonious society\u201d that our leaders were touting.<\/p>\n

Deputy Chief Sun Di and Officer Han Feng were waiting for me. Sun Di is about six feet tall. He struck me as good-natured, but deadpan: there was no way to guess what he was thinking. He said the police had received a report about my text message, so they needed to talk to me in order to understand the details.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know what place Tiananmen Square is, and what day tomorrow is,\u201d he said. \u201cYou sent a text message to a lot of people, including quite a few foreign and domestic media, saying that you intend to go there. If everybody goes, and something happens, then what?\u201d In the view of his superiors my text message \u201cendangers stability,\u201d he said, so he needed to get clear on a few things: my motive, the message contents, the number of recipients, and the identity of each recipient. He invited me to explain.<\/p>\n

I began by saying that I was confident that no one on my list of recipients would inform on me. I didn\u2019t imagine that all the recipients would head for Tiananmen Square, either. \u201cI don\u2019t have that kind of charisma,\u201d I said, \u201cnot even Hu Jintao does.\u201d Would reporters go? Chinese journalists had long been frightened into silence on this topic, and even if one went, no report could be published. The foreign media? They always report the Tiananmen anniversary anyway\u2014there\u2019s nothing you can do about that. People are going to have their own opinions of what I\u2019m doing in any event, so there\u2019s no point getting all hot and bothered by it.<\/p>\n

Then I explained why I had forwarded the text message to the police. Since I had been under their surveillance for some time now, I thought I might as well be aboveboard about everything and avoid any misunderstandings. But you can\u2019t deprive a person of his will, I said, and going to Tiananmen every June 3 to commemorate the dead is a promise that I made to myself. I go there to keep the promise, and would feel wrong if I did not.<\/p>\n

I ended by saying that I understood it to be legal to send text messages in China and legal to go to Tiananmen Square on June 3. Moreover, no law prohibits citizens from commemorating the victims of 1989. Since this is so, our whole chat right now is superfluous. For you to come to my building in the middle of the night, without any legal papers and asking for a \u201cchat,\u201d is itself an example of illegal use of police power.<\/p>\n

Deputy Chief Sun responded that he wished I would lower my profile a bit and stop sending text messages all over the place. \u201cIf you want to go, then just quietly go,\u201d he advised. \u201cWhat\u2019s the need for text messages?\u201d He promised not to restrict my movements, but said he might assign some people to accompany me \u201cfor protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFine,\u201d I said. \u201cI understand.\u201d Then I asked Sun to relay to his superiors my own promise that, although I view China\u2019s \u201cLaw on Assembly, Marches, and Demonstrations\u201d to be in violation of China\u2019s constitution, I would make written application in advance if I ever were to plan \u201can assembly, march, or demonstration.\u201d But since my present plan is a purely personal matter, and since Tiananmen Square is a public space, police obstruction of my movement would be unconstitutional. Please also tell your superiors, I said, that I hope the government will finally face history squarely and solve the \u201cJune Fourth\u201d problem. A world of make-believe on this issue cannot last forever, and it generates quite a lot of contempt.<\/p>\n

Our chat ended about 3:00 AM. Officer Cheng Guanglei saw me home. But that was not the end of it.<\/p>\n

At 10:20 AM the police called my home to tell me that I could not go out. This meant, without their saying it, that Sun Di\u2019s promise of a few hours earlier was no longer valid. Although I had half-expected this news, it angered me. I went downstairs to walk the dog. Three patrolmen from the National Security Unit of Fengtai District were already on duty at my door. They looked bedraggled from lack of sleep. I telephoned Sun Di from the spot. Since he had broken his promise, I had no choice but to send out a text message explaining that fact, I said. I hoped that he would stay in touch, though, both with me and with his superiors, and do what he could not to break his word too grievously. At least, I said, he should help me to keep my promise of a yearly visit to Tiananmen this evening. Then I walked the dog.<\/p>\n

The police joined me on the walk, and afterward I invited one of them, with whom I was fairly well acquainted, to come upstairs for lunch. My elderly mother was home, and we didn\u2019t often have guests, so she was delighted to have one. She made special dumplings, and the young policeman helped by rolling the dumpling skins. I was busy composing my text message about \u201cthe story that I had no choice but to tell.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Shortly after 1:00 PM Officer Cheng Guanglei reappeared downstairs. He called on his cell phone to invite me down for \u201canother chat.\u201d I gobbled down a few dumplings, pressed \u201csend\u201d on my text message, and went down to see him dressed in a T-shirt, shorts, and slippers. He, too, looked short of sleep. He told me I would need to come down to the police station again, because some municipal-level officers wanted to see me.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t they come here?\u201d I asked. \u201cSee how cool and bright it is here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know such things aren\u2019t up to me,\u201d Cheng said. \u201cCould you cut the questions and just \u2018coordinate\u2019 with us again?\u201d<\/p>\n

I could see what was going on. In order to guarantee that I would not be seen that night at the base of the Martyrs\u2019 Monument, the police were going to \u201cspend time\u201d with me for a while. They had instructions from above to \u201cfrustrate\u201d my personal plans, but they couldn\u2019t plainly say so.<\/p>\n

The people waiting for me were Jiang Qingjie and Zhang Kaijun of Department 1 of the Public Security City Bureau. Sun Di joined us later. Jiang Qingjie, a 1996 graduate of the Chinese People\u2019s Public Security University, was the picture of competence and efficiency\u2014but, like his colleagues, skipped the step of showing any legal papers. Their formal agenda remained the same: they wanted to inquire about my text message, my motive for sending it, and a recipient list. But their real objective, clearly, was to \u201ctie up\u201d my time.<\/p>\n

Jiang Qingjie began by saying that to send a text message like this, at a time like this, harms stability and produces consequences. This is why he has to get clear about everything.<\/p>\n

I responded that Sun Di had broken his word. Then I inquired whether sending text messages, going to Tiananmen Square, or commemorating June Fourth was illegal. Who, I asked, was actually breaking the law? Just as I have no right to force other people to commemorate June Fourth, so the government has no right to bar me from doing so. But that, I said, is exactly what you are doing right now. If we go by the rules, I don\u2019t have to \u201ccoordinate\u201d with you and we can end our chat right here.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

But the chat did drag on, all afternoon, as the room grew heavy with cigarette smoke. Every now and then we discussed some legal matter, but for the most part the topics lay elsewhere. I asked if the inmates at their detention center could eat wheat pancakes and dough-drop soup these days, or if they still had to survive on corn balls. The policemen offered many topics of their own: how their pay was low, promotions were impossible, and how they always had to work overtime because there were too many cases. I joked with them that if they did a good job \u201caccompanying\u201d me they might get raises. Last year the young man who was assigned to be with me around the clock during the \u201csensitive time\u201d after Zhao Ziyang\u2019s* death got a promotion shortly thereafter to deputy station chief in charge of several dozen people.<\/p>\n

About 6 or 7 PM, after box dinners all around, they wanted to \u201cdo a formality\u201d about my summons.<\/p>\n

\u201cSummons? You mean this was a summons?\u201d I asked. \u201cTo me it felt rather more like a kidnapping.\u201d I told Zhang Kaijun that if I\u2019d known it to be a formal summons, I would have wanted a lawyer.<\/p>\n

Zhang answered that he was basing himself on article 82 of the Penal Code of the People\u2019s Republic of China on the Management of Public Order.<\/p>\n

I said that I was used to illegal detention for \u201cchats,\u201d but had never received a summons before. So could he please read to me what that article says? He didn\u2019t read it, but showed it to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re mistaken,\u201d I said after glancing through it. \u201cIt says here that a summons may be issued \u2018according to law\u2019 only after discovery that a person\u2019s behavior has violated the penal code on public order. My behavior has not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The police responded that article 82 was only a procedural regulation. \u201cIf you don\u2019t agree with what we\u2019re doing, you can go into detail in your statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I \u201ccoordinated\u201d again. I answered their questions\u2014pointing out, in passing, where they had broken the law. They took notes. In the end I affixed my signature and thumbprint to their written record, noting explicitly that they had omitted mention of the illegal behavior of the police.<\/p>\n

By then I was starting to get cell-phone calls from friends at Tiananmen who wondered where I was. Something else strange was going on, they said. In earlier years the police cleared the square sometime after 9 PM, but this year they were already shooing people out by 8 PM. I explained to my friends that I was at a police station, kidnapped \u201caccording to law\u201d for seven or eight hours, and that they should take care not to get into trouble.<\/p>\n

At 9:30 PM Sun Di asked me to sign my name \u201cconfirming\u201d that my summons had ended at 10 PM. It had begun at 2:30 PM, he said, and as long as it ended within eight hours it was legal. I congratulated him on the successful completion of his mission, which was, as both he and I knew, to thwart my plans to go to Tiananmen. On my side, though, the half-day detention at a police station made me feel as if I had, in fact, kept my promise to remember the massacre victims.<\/p>\n

I reminded Sun Di that, counting the two hours of summons in the middle of the night, the total for the day was more than eight. Was this not a dangling vulnerability in his work?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe morning wasn\u2019t a summons,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was just a private chat.\u201d<\/p>\n

At noon on Sunday, June 4, I went into the offices of my law firm to do some overtime work. Two policemen, assigned to \u201cmaintain overall stability,\u201d came with me.<\/p>\n

Translated from the Chinese by Perry Link.<\/p>\n

General Secretary of the Communist Party of China 1987\u20131989, disgraced and held under house arrest from June 1989 until he died on January 17, 2005.\u21a9<\/p>\n

From<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.chinafile.com\/contributors\/pu-zhiqiang<\/p>\n

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