The government again defended the decision to put down the demonstrations, which left hundreds and perhaps thousands dead, and firmly dismissed a US demand for a public accounting of the events of June 3-4, 1989.

Tens of thousands of people crowded a park late Thursday in semi-autonomous Hong Kong for the only major commemoration of the anniversary on Chinese soil. Thousands more were expected to attend events in other cities around the world.

Hundreds of police and security forces were deployed throughout the day in Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing, where protesters rallied for weeks in 1989 for democratic reform before the army's deadly intervention.

Police officers searched the bags and pockets of thousands of Chinese and foreign tourists streaming through checkpoints to visit the giant plaza in the Chinese capital, and foreign journalists were barred from entering.

"There are far more police than on normal days," said a 35-year-old Chinese man. "It's pretty scary having so much police. There are a lot of plainclothes officers too."

China has for days worked to prevent any public discussion or remembrance of the events by blocking access to social networking websites like Twitter, blacking out some foreign news reports and hiding away key dissidents.

An AFP TV journalist was ordered by police to delete footage from his camera, and local tourists near the square were reluctant to discuss the crackdown -- a subject that remains taboo.

In Hong Kong, Victoria Park was illuminated by tens of thousands of candles lit in remembrance of the victims. Organisers said 150,000 attended the vigil, while police put the figure at 62,800.

"I'm deeply moved, it was proof that Hong Kong people still preserve their conscience," said Debby Chan, aged 28, a campaigner on behalf of mothers of the victims of the crackdown.

"This rally will tell the world... that we still remember the Tiananmen Square democracy movement," Xiong Yan, a student leader of the 1989 protests who was surprisingly let into Hong Kong on Saturday, told AFP.

But the government in Beijing dismissed calls for a review of the crackdown and expressed "strong dissatisfaction" with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's demand for an account of the dead and missing.

"On the political incident that took place in the 1980s, the party and the government have already reached a conclusion," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters.

Clinton had called on Beijing to publish victim's names, saying it would help China "learn and heal".

Canada echoed US calls for an official account of what happened.

"Twenty years later, we hope that they will be able to examine these events in an open and transparent fashion -- including the public accounting of those killed, detained or missing," Canadian foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon said in a statement late Thursday.

From his home in exile in India, Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama also called for a review of the bloodshed and urged China to "pursue a policy of greater accommodation and tolerance of diverse views".

The events that unfolded in Tiananmen Square in 1989 played out on television screens around the world and temporarily made Beijing a pariah in the West.

Twenty years on, the government's authority at home is intact and its global clout greater than ever, thanks mainly to its ranking as the world's third-biggest economy.

But activists have continued to press the government to address the crackdown.

"The Communist Party has to acknowledge the crimes that it committed," Qi Zhiyong, 53, who lost a leg in June 1989, told AFP ahead of the anniversary.

Exiled leaders of the uprising appealed for democracy in China at a news conference in Washington.

"It is our unfailing pursuit to build a democratic China," some 15 dissidents said in a joint statement.

"We are calling on the generation of the 1989 massacre, both in China and overseas, as well as those who came before us and those who will come after us to work together and combine our strengths."

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