Twenty-five years ago on June 4 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) turned on Chinese citizens in a ruthless display of violence, not for the first time, slaughtering many in the streets of Beijing to crush a pro-democracy movement lead by university students.
From April 1989 they had occupied Tiananmen Square at the heart of the nation's capital, some engaging in a hunger strike, to draw attention to their demands for democratic reforms. They also campaigned against rampant corruption and nepotism. It was a campaign that captured the imagination of many Chinese and people all over the world. It ended in tragedy, one that was perhaps most eloquently expressed in a People's Daily editorial issued in conjunction with celebrations of the CCP's 40th anniversary in power later that year on Oct. 1 when it praised the dedication and hard work of crematorium workers. Apparently they had been over-fulfilling their quotas in the aftermath of the Beijing massacre.
Fernando Mezzetti was covering these events as correspondent for the Italian newspaper La Stampa. In a recent interview he told me about his experiences in the weeks and final hours heading up to June 4, 1989, as the student occupation of Tiananmen Square cast wider ripples through the murky depths of Chinese politics. In his view the students were naive and out of their depth, not knowing what they wanted or how to achieve that, improvising an agenda that ultimately failed to consider realistic possibilities and goals. He also questions to what extent the students really understood democracy and its principles, pointing out their organizational approach replicated the CCP with a central committee, politburo and even bodyguards. He recalls when three students defaced a large portrait of Mao and were handed over to the police by fellow students. In his view this suggests the students were pro-Mao Zedong and anti-Deng Xiaoping, but ironically, "it was only thanks to Deng, that they could dare to demonstrate." Philip Cunningham, author of "Tiananmen Moon" (2014), was inside the students' encampment and responds: "Not so simple. Mao is an unavoidable meme in China, but it was not about him and a lot of the Mao stuff was tongue-in-cheek or just provocative without an accompanying ideology." Much else remains disputed.