The way the 20th anniversary of the crackdown passed last week -- with a muzzled Internet, a cowed press and a Tiananmen Square patrolled by hundreds of police -- once again demonstrated how sensitive the issue is.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands lost their lives when China's rulers sent soldiers and tanks to put an end to seven weeks of peaceful pro-democracy protests in Beijing, but in China the traumatic event remains taboo.

This willed amnesia reflects the fact that China's current rulers are the "heirs of Deng Xiaoping," the architect of reform who also put his prestigious weight behind the decision to take a hard line in 1989, said Jean-Philippe Beja, a China expert.

"President Hu Jintao was picked by Deng, and to a large extent, he derives his legitimacy from the crackdown on June 4," said Beja, a Hong Kong-based researcher at the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China.

"Under these circumstances, questioning the massacre would be the same as questioning the legitimacy of the current leaders."

For the Communist Party, venturing into a discussion of the crackdown, let alone considering a rehabilitation of the victims, could be dangerous or even suicidal.

"The main reason is they cannot afford any more splits. There was a major divergence of views between factions then," said Willy Lam, an expert on Beijing politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

"If not for that, the protests would not have lasted so long."

Any opening is seen as potential encouragement for those in China hoping to challenge the political elite, he argued.

"The government feels that if it gives even a small concession, this would feed expectations that the party would do even more and encourage intellectuals to make further demands," he said.

The one pervasive fear seizing the Chinese Communist Party is that the various social tensions throughout society become politicised.

Rehabilitating the 1989 movement would be tantamount to rehabilitating autonomous social movements, with the risk that people unhappy about social issues will suddenly raise political demands, Beja argued.

"That's unacceptable to the regime," he said.

The Communist Party has stopped talking about the 1989 democracy movement as a "counter-revolutionary rebellion" and instead referred to the "political turmoil" of that year, but that does not reflect any fundamental change.

On May 10, a small group of Chinese intellectuals met in Beijing to discuss June 4, 1989 and demand that the truth be told about the events.

But one of the participants in that meeting, the writer Zhang Yaojie, had no hopes whatsoever that this was going to happen.

"For the time being, there is no change. The government won't allow it... Cracking down and banning free speech are their usual methods," he said.

"What we demand is to allow everyone to discuss this issue, to acknowledge the facts, and to compensate innocent victims."

Twenty years after the events of 1989, China is stronger both economically and diplomatically, and it is in a position to ignore such demands, while claiming that it has chosen the correct path towards Chinese-style democracy.

Late last week, as the Tiananmen anniversary was approaching, the official media reported on a new book from the propaganda authorities which stated once again that adopting the multi-party system of the west was out of the question.

earlier related report
Former Tiananmen soldier depicts crackdown through art
An eerie realism permeates Chen Guang's oil paintings of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, for he was one of the first soldiers to arrive in the square on the night China's democratic hopes were crushed.

Now a member of Beijing's alternative art scene, 37-year-old Chen's hair is greying, but he is determined to pass his recollections on, giving rare testimony of the event from a soldier's perspective.

"My friends, my family, my army buddies, all tell me not to touch this subject. That's how sensitive it is," he said.

"I hope that through my art, people will understand my experience and understand what happened in China," he said, showing off his work on a laptop -- images of protesters, soldiers and tanks.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, lost their lives when China's communist rulers sent the army in to quell peaceful demonstrations in the capital on June 3 and 4, 1989.

In the week that the 20th anniversary passed without incident in China, a chain-smoking Chen described what the traumatic event felt like for a scared 17-year-old who had spent only a few months in uniform.

Born into a blue-collar family in central China's Henan province, he only cared about art and did poorly at school, which was why he joined the army.

Chen, attached to the 65th Group Army headquartered near Beijing, was first in line to face the protesters.

In May, his unit was ordered on to trucks to put down what was branded a "counter-revolutionary rebellion", but once inside the city, the column met a wall of protesters and ground to a halt.

For three days and nights, his unit was stuck on the trucks, surrounded by crowds of students and ordinary citizens who scolded them, but also brought them food and water.

"We soldiers were from all over China, and so were the students," said Chen. "There were youngsters, too, from Henan, and slowly we struck up conversations, and we got to hear their side of the story."

Eventually, the army withdrew the trucks, and when it re-entered the city, on June 3, the soldiers wore civilian clothes to avoid detection.

They travelled in small groups, with orders to meet at the Great Hall of the People, the parliamentary building next to Tiananmen.

"I was in an ordinary bus filled with weapons and ammunition right up to just below the windows, so it looked innocent enough from the outside," said Chen.

After his unit had gathered at Tiananmen, night fell and the crackdown began.

Chen and other soldiers of the 65th were lined up at the east gate of the Great Hall, waiting for orders.

In surrounding streets the gunfire was so loud it reminded him of Chinese New Year firecrackers, but the square itself was quiet. Suddenly around midnight, all the lights went out.

"That was the scariest moment. We knew there was a huge crowd of protesters just opposite us on the square," he said.

"We were aware that weapons had fallen into the hands of the protesters, and we couldn't know for sure if someone out there wasn't armed."

However, the students withdrew in an orderly fashion, and Chen was among the soldiers stepping on to the square without firing a shot.

"We were so relieved," Chen said. "But a few hours later, we learned that soldiers had been killed in the streets, and after several days had passed we also found out that many, many students had died."

The foundation was laid for Chen's later career as a Tiananmen artist when on the night of June 3, an officer gave him a camera and ordered him to take photos of his unit's actions, a routine army procedure.

But he kept about 100 of his photos, which now form the basis of his paintings.

Chen was a soldier for little more than a year before he enrolled at a military-run art school, eventually qualifying for the prestigious Chinese Academy of Fine Art.

As an artist, he has pushed the envelope before, but with his Tiananmen paintings, he is venturing into new, dangerous territory. And he knows it.

"Of course, I'm worried, but everything has a risk," he said. "I've received phone calls from officials about my work but I can't stop just because of that."

He feels this even more keenly when observing how others deal with the past.

"I'm still in touch with about a dozen from my old military unit. None meditates about the past the way I do. Some are policemen today, or officials. They've got good jobs, and they owe that to what happened back in '89."

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