Residents gather next to burnt-out tanks in the aftermath of the crackdown (via CNN)

Last year was the 25th anniversary of the “June 4 Incident,” as it is officially known. State security went full bore over the ultra-sensitive date, harassing journalists and activists, detaining anyone who sneezed on the subject.

They succeeded in maintaining the collective amnesia in-house, earned their bonuses and overtime, but in doing so, trolled foreign media so hard that the blowback was intense. I don’t know how much coverage was originally intended, but several journalist friends indicated they’d been so royally pissed off with the constant intimidation, their editors were all but sounding the bugle on the topic. Coverage was wall to wall, with stories everywhere.

This year, of course, will be much quieter: 26 isn’t as catchy as 25. But Global Times hasn’t forgotten, and duly produces a bungled editorial on the subject, attacking – and casually libeling – a group of overseas students for writing an open letter, requesting transparency over the crackdown. Here’s the closing paragraph:

Chinese society has reached a consensus on not debating the 1989 incident. Students born in the 1980s and 1990s have become the new targets of overseas hostile forces. When China is moving forward, some are trying to drag up history in an attempt to tear apart society. It’s a meaningless attempt and is unlikely to be realized.

Frankly, the rest of the rant isn’t worth the click. Moreover, there is really little point to GT’s article (even less so than usual, that is). No mainstream outlet had even reported on the letter prior to the editorial. The first was the Guardian, which published its article shortly before midnight a day later, referencing GT in the third graf.

If Streisand Effect was the intention of the trolling, so be it. There aren’t any other logical reasons for flagging the date by turning the full glare of the Batshit Signal on this group of 11 Chinese students while accusing them, ad hominem, of being “brainwashed” by a “paranoid minority” in an “attempt to tear society apart.” (Just because they’re “paranoid,” GT, doesn’t mean the government isn’t out to get them.)

It’s telling how an authoritarian apparatus that has engineered a culture of amnesia and self-censorship is, itself, quite incapable of either. Like a sinner with a guilty conscience, GT can’t help running its own mouth. An annual hit-piece on Tiananmen has become almost as symbolic and ritualistic as the candlelit gathering in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park. Rather than memorializing the victims, though, it simply serves to shame the perpetrators.

UPDATE: The shambles continues with an order from the goon squad to “urgently delete the Global Times commentary.” So dignified.

There are those moments when you feel the weight of history pressing on you — that awestruck realization that a great moment happened here, and now you’re bearing witness. Maybe you’ve ducked into a tower while on the Great Wall. Or you’re standing just inside the Lincoln Memorial. The thing is, I never expected to have that feeling while standing in my basement, squinting up at an unidentified roll of film. But that’s what happened to me last Sunday, as I was searching through an old shoebox from my parents labeled “photos.”

I found a black film canister at the bottom of the box, the kind that stores unused film rolls. But what I pulled out of that canister, protected by a small twist of tissue paper, was instead a tightly wrapped roll of already processed negatives. Holding them up to the light, I saw… what looked like black-and-white negatives of Tiananmen Square. With some kind of giant white figure holding what could be a torch. And that’s when I felt it. The history.

I had no idea why or how my parents had these pictures. They had never said anything about them. But I had to find out what they were, so I went to get them printed. I came back with two sets of photos, one from a march to Tiananmen Square, and one from the short period of time when the Goddess of Democracy rose over the crowds. I believe the photos were from my uncle, who was an art student in Beijing in 1989. I didn’t know that he had taken pictures, or that he had somehow gotten those pictures to my parents, who were already in America.

There’s so much to see in these photos. Every time I look at them, I spot something new. People laughing in the background. Balloons in the air. A surprising number of little kids around the square. Many of the articles I’ve read on the 25th anniversary of June 4th talk about memory, whether Chinese people choose to remember or forget. In one of my uncle’s photos, a sign on the Monument to the People’s Heroes says, “The People Will Not Forget 1989.” So let’s look, and remember.

For more of these photos, visit The China Girls.

It was just another day on the Square, though it seemed there were slightly fewer people than usual. Many must have been turned away at the security line underground, as officers informed, “If you don’t have ID, don’t bother waiting in line.” The sternest reprimand we heard all day came from an officer who halted a woman sauntering past the queue. “Go wait in line,” he barked. “Do you not see all these people waiting?”

The Square itself was as you’d expect it to be: immaculate, expansive, as clean as the day it was built, as if nothing ever happened there. Across the Avenue of Eternal Peace, Tiananmen — the size of which always takes me aback — stood as an apt symbol of modern China: big, red, bold, full of right angles, refurbished, a mixture of old and new. Mao gazed out from between giant block letters. You look long enough and you just might convince yourself he’ll be there forever.

The flag will go back up at 4:47 am.

Via NY Times: “A photograph of Tiananmen Square that was uploaded to the Chinese social network Weibo ahead of the 25th anniversary of the crackdown there on pro-democracy protesters on June 4, 1989.”

The image — snapped behind the back of a police officer and in front of the flag that is raised above the square each day from a distinctive podium — was uploaded to Sina Weibo, the Chinese microblogging site, before being deleted late last week. The image has also been posted on Facebook and Google Plus, where it was shared and debated by several thousand Chinese users able to evade the Great Firewall.

We’ll have more coverage in a bit, hopefully along with a picture from the square.

The flag-lowering ceremony today is at 7:39 pm, for those who were wondering.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of a turning point in modern Chinese history. In the run-up, around 20 key intellectuals and campaigners have been been detained, and security around Beijing heightened. And who knows how many warnings and threats have been issued to the family and friends of conscience-driven citizens across the country.

Such policies are part of the Chinese Communist Party’s comprehensive attempt to eradicate the memory of June 4, 1989 from this country’s history. Louisa Lim, veteran NPR correspondent in Beijing, focuses on this policy and its impact on Chinese society in The People’s Republic of Amnesia. The title of the book comes from an essay penned by a soldier-turned-novelist and fearless government critic, Yan Lianke, in 2003. He wrote that in contemporary China, one must be “willing to see what is allowed to be seen, and look away from what is not allowed to be looked at… our amnesia is a state sponsored sport.”

Lim investigates this state-promoted amnesia through interviews with those involved in the Tiananmen Square protests, such as prominent student leader Wu’er Kaixi, the brave and resilient Tiananmen Mothers, a young soldier ordered to clear the square on that tragic night, a senior member of Deng Xiaoping’s government, and a number of people from younger generations, to whom any knowledge of the events must come through deliberate and determined searching within a restricted realm of information. From these diverse perspectives, Lim builds a complex picture of the significance of the brutal events of 1989 to Chinese society today.

Most apparent from these series of profiles is the generation gap in knowledge and government approach. The last 25 years has seen government strategy move away from the active suppression of information to the careful cultivation of a situation where ignorance is the status quo. Lim sees this shift reflected in official rhetoric. Originally labeled “counter revolutionary turmoil,” the events of June 4, by way of “political storm,” are now called an “incident.”

This strategy has also seen official policy on June 4 move from confrontation to all-out avoidance. In the immediate aftermath of the events, the government drew up a list of most-wanted culprits, a number of whom escaped through a network of human smugglers via Hong Kong, and foreign embassy sponsors and triad organizations across China. The government now avoids contact with them. When in 2009 the exiled Wu’er Kaixi tried to turn himself in to the authorities, they simply refused. “Like football players on the bench, the overseas activists have been removed from the field of play,” Lim summarizes. (Good luck to Murong Xuecun, who last week announced he would hand himself over in an act of defiance against the state.)

Other than the rare opportunity to hear all these perspectives, the real coup of the book is Lim’s investigation into one of the numerous parallel protests and suppressions, Chengdu, an event largely forgotten both within and outside of China.

Through conversations with relatives of the Chengdu protesters, Lim paints one of the first pictures of the brutal crackdown that happened there. “Lacking an independent media to amplify their voices, [Chengdu’s] short-lived scream of fury became a cry into thin air,” Lim writes.

It is estimated that student protests took place in at least 63 cities across the country that summer. That 1989 was about far more than just Tiananmen is a part of history almost totally conquered by China’s state-sponsored amnesia.

For Lim, 1989 marks a watershed in the CCP’s rule. She believes the consequence of the government turning guns on the people and its sinister attempt to erase this fact from history is an ever-growing moral vacuum at the heart of contemporary Chinese society. Her words echo those of Bao Tong, a senior government minister who was purged in 1989. He sees June 4th as having laid the groundwork for a form of governance based on coercion, threat, and violence at all levels. “If that was possible at the highest levels, then why not at the lower levels? … How many little Tiananmens are there every day?’

The People’s Republic of Amnesia concludes on a radical note. Lim, believing facts can never be fully conquered, quotes the fiery language of Lu Xun: “Lies written in ink can never disguise facts written in blood. All blood debts must be repaid in kind.” The People’s Republic of Amnesia is a fearless investigation and survey of the post-Tiananmen era. The government may prefer an epilogue never be written, but it will be — it’s just a matter of when.

Tom Baxter is a Beijing-based freelancer writer. He is also co-founder and editor of Concrete Flux, an online journal on urban spaces. You can follow him @TomBaxter17. His previous piece for BJC was a review of Adam Minter‘s Junkyard Planet.

Also see, from June 4, 2013: The Conversion Of Liao Yiwu: How A Poet Becomes A Dissident.

Photo: Catherine Henriette, AFP/Getty Images, via USA Today

This notice has been going around Twitter and Facebook all day, so it’s likely you’ve seen it, but we want to hear from the students in Beijing — what happens if you say no to this “study tour” that “all foreign students have to attend”? Drop us a line.

But even better… if you do take up this offer — Inner Mongolia is lovely! — let us know how it goes.

(H/T James Fallows)

Never mind, for the moment, the merit of Tiananmen vox pox in Sanlitun. We’re two days away from the 25th anniversary of that incident, and everyone is on edge. Careful out there.

UPDATE, 7:29 pm: The full email from the FCCC:

The FCCC condemns the increasing harassment and intimidation of overseas media and their local staff by Chinese authorities in an apparent effort to block reporting about the 25th anniversary of the military crackdown on Tiananmen Square.

The FCCC is deeply concerned that correspondents and their local staff have been summoned by Public Security officers to their office to be given videotaped lectures dissuading them from reporting on the anniversary. Some of the journalists were warned of serious consequences should they disobey the authorities.

This effort to deter news coverage is a gross violation of Chinese government rules governing foreign correspondents, which expressly permit them to interview anybody who consents to be interviewed.

The FCCC calls on the Chinese government and police to halt their harassment of foreign reporters and to abide by their own rules concerning the international media.

Examples of harassment:
“We showed the iconic photo of “Tank-Man” (a civilian who stood in front of a tank during the military crackdown on June 4th 1989) to people on the street in Sanlitun and tried to interview them about the events 25 years ago.
After 10 minutes police showed up and stopped our reporting. They ordered us into their police car and brought us to Sanlitun police station. They told us they had orders from PSB to do so. After one hour PSB officers showed up and interrogated us. They searched my handbag against my will. They took out the photos, put them in front of us and filmed the photos with us in the background. They took away two business cards of my contacts and photocopied them. We had to hand over the chip from our camera, which had no images on it. They separated us and questioned us for hours while video taping everything. The officer said: “You were speaking about a sensitive topic. You know that the topic is sensitive and the government don’t want people to speak about it.” I asked which Chinese law I broke. He answered: “It’s not a matter of law. It’s a matter of culture. The culture is above the law.”  They brought us back to the corner where we did our interviews. We had to show them where we interviewed people. They videotaped us showing the places. They kept our press cards and ordered us to come to the PSB the next day. We were released at around 9pm after six hours of interrogation.
The next day at the PSB two officers questioned us while another one was videoing. They accused us of “disturbance of public order”. We had to go in front of a video camera and they recorded our statements. We had to admit that we did something “very sensitive” which could cause “disturbance” and  we had to promise not to do what we are accused of in the next days. We got our press cards back and were warned that next time police will keep the press cards and our visas will be canceled.”
– French Broadcaster

“We were reporting on the strict security in central Beijing ahead of the June 4th anniversary.  In a span of two hours, police asked me for my documents five times. The next day two policemen came into my flat, which also serves as my office. They came with two women, who didn´t wear uniform. These women recorded my house with some mobile phones while the police asked us for documentation. The police said the documentation was for internal use.”
– European broadcaster

“I was called to the (police) Entry and Exit Bureau (which issues visas), and basically told this year security will be specially strict during the “sensitive period”, in “sensitive areas”, and with “sensitive interviews” related to the June 4thanniversary. They asked me to convey this to the bureau chief and other journalists in our bureau. They said that this is a second warning for me personally, and if I do not abide Chinese law, I should ‘expect the most serious consequences.”
– North American Media

“I found it very difficult to interview people this year regarding June fourth anniversary. Several well-known intellectuals, including people who are not considered dissidents, refused to be interviewed. They expressed concern for their own freedom or fear they would not be allowed to travel or to continue their work. Two had already been approached and specifically told not to give interviews on the topic. I had to cancel one interview in person the day before the meeting, since the interviewee told me the police was showing up to every appointment. The person later confirmed that the police showed up at the entrance of the compound as well as at the door at the time we were supposed to meet, and left only after been told I wasn’t going.”
– TV Correspondent

As the US and EU prepare to levy economic sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine, Russia’s leaders may be growing desperate to find support wherever they can. On Tuesday at 12:14 pm, the official Sina Weibo microblog of the Russian Embassy posted a message that, in no uncertain terms, sought Chinese empathy. There was one big problem: the post contained a remarkably tone deaf reference to the “Tiananmen Incident,” i.e. the 1989 student protests in Beijing that resulted in a violent government crackdown, i.e. the one event that no one here is supposed to talk about.

The Russian embassy compared the current sanctions against them to the sanctions against China following its June Fourth crackdown, which you may have heard referred to as a “massacre.” Is Russia foreshadowing what’ll happen in the Crimea if Ukraine doesn’t cooperate?

The reference amounted to “ripping open [our] wounds,” as one netizen commented; “selling out comrades,” wrote another.

Two days after the posting, the weibo is still up. Do Sina’s censors have limits? Does their censoring power stop at the verified accounts of foreign embassies?

Bernd Zhang of Hug China first alerted us to this story. We thank him for translating part of the Russian embassy’s message:

西方制裁应让俄中两国走得更近。 美国和欧盟因克里米亚入俄而对俄罗斯采取的第三波制裁包括一些西方国家停止同俄罗斯进行军事合作。目前俄罗斯所处的境况有点儿类似于中国在天安门事件后所遭遇的境况。

Western sanctions should bring China and Russia closer. The third wave of sanctions imposed by the US and EU on Russia over the annexation of Crimea includes cancellation of military cooperation with Russia. The current situation in Russia is somewhat similar to what China encountered after the Tiananmen Incident.

We wonder how many people even get the reference? Hug China has translated some netizen responses:

時l光：Blackening Chinese government in an allusive way.

我是你影子____：A dying man wants someone to accompany him to the hell.

个记尴尬了：Idiot Russia, who goes closer with you?

我是李鸽：Russia, haven’t you done enough harm on us?

木秋亦：Go away! Who is your friend? Do not drag us into the same water! West is the largest market for us.

桂人路问：Moral values have pushed Chinese people closer to USA.

忽悠人被忽悠：Already reported to authority. Where and when did what incident happen? There is not a clue on Baidu so it must be a rumor!

个记尴尬了：Sina, you should block this account!

Diplomacy in the digital / social media age sure can be interesting.

This Weibo posted by Russian embassy in Beijing comparing Crimea Crisis with Tiananmen Incident has attracted much attention in China (Hug China)

Wu’er Kaixi, who fled China following the 1989 student-led protests at Tiananmen, reportedly flew into Hong Kong this morning via Taiwan and is pleading with authorities to extradite him to face trial on the mainland.

As the 45-year-old posted to his website today:

I hereby make an appeal to the Hong Kong SAR and to the world.

I am willing to turn myself in to the Chinese authorities. I urge the SAR government, based on Chinese law, and by my own agreement, to exercise its judicial power and extradite me to the Chinese authorities.

This is not the first time Wu’er Kaixi — a Taiwanese citizen — has tried to enter the PRC. In 2004 he was permitted to enter Hong Kong, where he said, “I have to have that hope — that one day we will come home (that I’ll be allowed to enter China).”

As pointed out on the Facebook page of journalist Paul Mooney (who’s had some difficulty of his own getting into the PRC):

In June 2009, he attempted to surrender himself via Macau; in June 2010, he attempted to break into the Chinese embassy in Tokyo; and in May 2012, he attempted to do the same in Washington.

In Wu’er Kaixi’s post, he noted that he has been unable to see his parents or other family for the 24 years since his exile.

My parents are old and in ill health. The Chinese government refuses to issue passports for them to travel aboard and visit me. My parents have been told clearly that the reason they will not be issued passports is that their son is a dissident. I would like to ask the Chinese government, is this behavior in keeping with the international treaties it has signed; is it true to the spirit of Chinese traditional values; is it in accordance with PRC law?

I believe the answer to those questions is, no, and that is why I feel I have no alternative but to turn myself in. I miss my parents and my family, and I hope to be able to be reunited with them while they are still alive, even if the reunion would have to take place behind a glass wall.

The open letter is addressed to Hong Kong citizens, and concludes, “I hope my efforts to return home are finally a success on this occasion. If so, let me take this last opportunity to take a deep bow to Hong Kong, and express my deepest gratitude and admiration.”

Updates as they become available.

UPDATE, 1:42 pm: Wu’er Kaixi is traveling with Albert Ho, “chairman of the Hong Kong Democratic Party from 2006 to 2012, and is currently a solicitor, member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, and secretary general of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China.” That quote and the below picture is from this Wu’er Kaixi Tumblr (h/t Paul Mooney).

UPDATE, 11/26, 2:51 pm: Wu’er Kaixi did not succeed. Via AP:

The second most-wanted student leader from the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests was turned back from Hong Kong on Monday in his latest attempt to surrender to Chinese authorities and return home.

It was the fourth such attempt by Wu’er Kaixi, who said his lack of success so far was the result of “absurd” actions by the Chinese government. Wu’er, who has lived in exile for more than two decades, is stuck in a situation in which he’s both wanted for arrest and, like many other dissidents who have fled, prevented from returning to China.

Details are still being sorted out, but a jeep crashed into a crowd in front of the Tiananmen Rostrum around noon today, leaving three dead — “a driver and two passengers,” according to Xinhua. Tourists and policemen were reportedly also injured.

Sina Weibo is buzzing, and the Youku news blast below has been viewed 166,000 times. Further details forthcoming.

UPDATE, 10/30, 6:10 pm: It was apparently a suicide attack, and police are now searching for suspects across the city. Via Reuters:

Chinese authorities investigating what could be Beijing’s first major suicide attack were searching for two men from Muslim-dominated Xinjiang on Tuesday after three people suspected to be from the restive region drove a SUV into a crowd at Tiananmen Square and set it on fire.

…Police have spread a dragnet across the capital, checking hotels and vehicles, seeking two people suspected to be ethnic Uighurs, a Muslim minority from Xinjiang in China’s far west, on the borders of ex-Soviet Central Asia.

Here’s a picture:

天安门 tiananmen square pic.twitter.com/gkEAGzwaul

— leon李翔 (@leonxli) October 28, 2013

And more via this slideshow:

Tourists are expected to flock to Tiananmen this week during National Day holiday. Here’s a reminder that the gate you see isn’t exactly the gate of history.

Adapted with permission from Hug China.

Every year, millions of Chinese and foreign tourists swarm the country’s national symbol, the Gate of Heavenly Peace — Tiananmen. But few know that the current gate is actually an imitation that was only built 43 years ago.

Tiananmen has actually been rebuilt several times. The original was constructed in 1420 during the Ming Dynasty. A lightning strike in July 1457 burned it down, and it was rebuilt in 1465. In 1644, the gate was burned down again, this time by rebels led by Li Zicheng. Following the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, the gate was once again rebuilt in 1651.

More than 300 years later, Tiananmen Gate was torn down, as Shanghai-based Liberation Daily reminds us. As authorities were doing this, they put tarps around the structure and said it was undergoing “renovations.”

The complete demolition and rebuilding of Tiananmen was considered a top political secret until the 21st century. Liberation Daily:

The gate had badly deteriorated due to centuries of war, fire, dilapidation, and lack of repair. The main structure had been deformed and the base of the gate showed serious sedimentation. The 7.5-magnitude Xingtai earthquake in Hebei province in 1969 caused further devastating damage to the gate.

For safety reasons, the Chinese State Council decided in 1969 to completely demolish the gate and rebuild it at the same place, the same size, but with modern materials.

The Tiananmen Gate Security Team (TGST) drafted three plans for top leaders to choose from. The TGST preferred the first plan, which was to retain much of the wooden frame while replacing other parts with first-grade wood.

The second plan was to retain the base, the front red wall, while replacing everything else with modern concrete and iron. The third plan was to completely demolish the old gate and replace it with a brand new one with concrete and steel.

Eventually, the leaders chose the third option, which included new security measures, regarded as a top priority.

As the gate was a national symbol, the State Council ordered that the rebuilding was to be kept top-secret. The gate was covered in scaffolding, and the project was officially called a “renovation.”

To keep such an important project a secret in China’s political center, where tens of thousands of tourists visit every year, was actually easy for the leadership…. Even workers in nearby Zhongshan Park’s Nationalities Cultural Palace didn’t know what was happening inside the tightly closed scaffolding.

All workers who participated in the rebuilding of Tiananmen Gate were ordered to stay silent, and couldn’t tell anyone, including family members, since it was political.

The rebuilding started on December 15, 1969. The new Tiananmen was reopened to the public on May 1, 1970. Workers were picked among the country’s top technicians.

The demolition of the gate took only seven days.

What you may not know: current Tiananmen Gate is a fake… (Hug China)

On Friday, the opening night of Cirque du Soleil’s three-night performance of Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour in Beijing, a highly sensitive image was displayed on the giant big-screens above the stage in Wukesong MasterCard Arena: the Tiananmen Tank Man. As first reported by a local magazine, then excerpted by Shanghaiist:

This was not some politically-sensitive rock concert, but the opening night of Cirque du Soleil’s Michael Jackson ‘The Immortal’ world tour, where during the climax of the track “They Don’t Care About Us” the image appeared momentarily for a total of about four seconds within a montage sequence of civil-rights style protest movements, resulting in an audible collective gasp from the audience.

The image, although recognized throughout the world, has been almost completely erased inside of China, where any mention of the events surrounding the protests remain strictly forbidden. The response of the audience (or at least those sat around us) suggests, however, that the image is still recognized, even when taken out of context.

So what happened?

Laura Silverman, publicist for the Michael Jackson world tour, emailed us this statement:

Cirque du Soleil has abided by all the rules that were required by the Chinese Ministry of Culture including submitting the full show for approval. The show that is being presented here in China is the same show that has been touring the world for almost 2 years.

So, the Ministry of Culture knew. Or… “knew.” Someone in that office obviously didn’t pay very close attention to what was submitted. Maybe the chap just wasn’t a Michael Jackson fan. Maybe he was too riveted by a game of Glorious Mission Online.

Asked for clarification, Silverman replied:

Yes the show in its entirety was submitted for approval. The image is no longer in the show.

I think what we have here is a pretty fascinating glimpse into how big shows are screened in a politically sensitive environment such as China: by humans, who are fallible.

If the Ministry of Culture got in touch with Cirque du Soleil after this incident — to this question, Silverman offered no reply — we surmise the conversation was brief but polite, with a firm demand. The image is no longer in the show. And the show went on.

Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour played in Beijing on Saturday and Sunday. We’ve been in touch with four people who were present, and none of them sensed anything was amiss. The Tank Man image, indeed, was not seen.

(Top image via SCMP) The show’s next stops: Shanghai, August 16-18; Hong Kong, August 22-25.

Alibaba founder and chairman Jack Ma (Yun) was interviewed by South China Morning Post last week, and in an article published Saturday, dropped this nugget of a quote:

“I made cruel decisions when thousands of Alibaba’s customers were involved in fraud, and when we adjusted Alipay’s structure. As the CEO of a company, you have to do that. It’s like Deng Xiaoping, the then top leader, had to make cruel decisions during the June 4 crackdown for the country’s stability.”

The sound bite has been highlighted by Bloomberg, which reports that Ma has faced social media backlash, and that there’s an online petition asking for Ma to rescind his comment.

On June 4, 1989, Deng’s decision to send in PLA soldiers to suppress the demonstrations on and around Tiananmen Square remains the most controversial in modern Chinese history, raising questions that remain unanswered — indeed, unasked — and leaving scars on the national psyche that manifest itself in ways subtle and obvious.

In February 2011, Ma’s company faced its first true adversity when more than 2,000 high-volume sellers were found to have defrauded customers, leading to an 8 percent stock price decrease in Hong Kong. Alibaba CEO David Wei and COO Elvis Lee fell on the sword by resigning.

If the equivalence isn’t obvious, it’s because we fail to appreciate what living in a post-6/4 China entails. Nothing is more important than commerce — economic development, the inexorable road to GDP growth — and the means by which to conduct it. Does a CEO’s decisions really have the impact of a paramount leader’s? If you force yourself to think the way they want you to, in which apparatuses to maintain individual, societal, and national wealth are of paramount importance, the answer might as well be yes. Jack Ma was being downright patriotic.

UPDATE, 1:32 pm: Global Voices has a lot more details: “Many netizens were disappointed and wondering why Ma chose to destroy his image…. Many also believed that Ma has made a deal with the devil, coming to some agreement with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) so that they exercise direct control over his businesses to keep them expanding.”

Chen Xitong, who was Beijing’s mayor from 1983 to 1993, has died at age 84, multiple sources have told SCMP. The news was first reported by Hong Kong China News Agency (HKCNA) today.

Chen’s exact date of death is not confirmed, but it’s ironic that the public would learn about his passing on today of all days, the 24th anniversary of the brutal military crackdown on Tiananmen Square.

One source said Chen died at 9:45am in Beijing last Sunday. Another source – a close friend of the family – confirmed the news and said he was waiting for authorities to notify him of the date of the funeral so that he might be able to attend it.

Chen – whose name is forever associated with the massacre 24 years ago – was known to be in the final stages of terminal colon cancer. He was released from jail on medical parole in 2006 and died just two months before finishing the jail sentence would have ended.

None other than premier Li Peng, one of the most hated figures from that time, fingered Chen as overseeing the crackdown. Chen described the military action as “correct” and publicly stated that the pro-democracy rallies were orchestrated by a “tiny handful of people,” including foreign agents.

Chen was sentenced to prison in 1998 for corruption. His death announcement today has been called “divine retribution” by Wang Fandi, who lost her son in the massacre.

June 4 crackdown mastermind Chen Xitong dies (SCMP)