Chinese troops and tanks forcibly dispersed peaceful protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, quelling huge, weeks-long demonstrations demanding greater political freedoms.
Decades on, China still censors any mention of the crackdown.
On Tuesday evening, hundreds of people converged around Taipei's Liberty Square for an annual vigil, placing candles on a laid-flat banner with the date of the crackdown, while listening to activists criticise the Chinese government for alleged rights abuses.
China claims democratic, self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory, to be seized one day.
"We will continue to work hard to keep this historical memory alive and touch everyone who cares about Chinese democracy," Lai, Taiwan's newly inaugurated president, said in a Facebook post Tuesday.
"Because this reminds us that democracy and freedom are not easy to come by, we must... respond to autocracy with freedom, face the expansion of authoritarianism with courage."
China has repeatedly lashed out against Lai, branding him a "dangerous separatist" and a "saboteur of peace and stability".
His inauguration in May prompted Beijing to launch military drills around the self-ruled island.
Lai's Democratic Progressive Party has long defended the sovereignty and democracy of Taiwan, which has its own government, military and currency.
"China is becoming more and more authoritarian and (Chinese President) Xi Jinping is like an emperor," said Taipei vigil attendee Vincent Lee, 46.
"I think commemorating June 4th is a way to protect Taiwan's democracy and freedom against China's dictatorship... we need to protect Taiwan's free and democratic values."
- Tourists at Tiananmen -
China's Tiananmen crackdown killed hundreds of people, with some estimating the death toll was higher than a thousand.
Beijing described the events as riots, while rights groups and exiled dissidents depict it as a massacre of innocent people, including many students.
Many young people today in China are unaware of the 1989 events due to wide-reaching censorship.
In Beijing on Tuesday, tourist groups visited Tiananmen Square donning matching neon hats and posing for pictures beside the mausoleum of China's founding leader Mao Zedong.
The Tiananmen Mothers, a group comprised of relatives of victims of the 1989 crackdown, called for the tragedy to be resolved "in an open, fair and just manner" in a statement.
"We shall never allow your lives to be sacrificed in vain. The historical tragedy must not repeat," it said.
Asked about the anniversary on Tuesday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said "the Chinese government has long since reached a clear conclusion".
"We have always opposed anyone using this as a pretext to attack and smear China and to interfere in China's internal affairs," spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
Meanwhile, the European Union and United States said separately on Tuesday that they stand "in solidarity" with the Tiananmen Square victims and rights activists continuing to fight for greater freedoms.
- 'People still remember' -
In Hong Kong, once the sole place on Chinese soil where public commemoration was allowed, an annual Tiananmen vigil has been banned since Beijing imposed a national security law to quell dissent in 2020.
The mass mourning was once a symbol of Hong Kong's unique freedoms.
In the week leading up to the anniversary, Hong Kong police arrested eight people over commemorating the Tiananmen crackdown on social media, with authorities accusing them of publishing "seditious" online posts.
AFP journalists on Tuesday saw scores of police patrolling the Causeway Bay area, where tens of thousands previously gathered each year to mourn the dead.
Authorities stopped and searched shoppers, including confused Chinese tourists, with AFP journalists witnessing some being taken away.
In a statement issued early Wednesday, police said that four had been arrested around the area.
One of them was a 68-year-old woman arrested for "offences in connection with seditious intention", a crime under Hong Kong's new controversial security law Hong Kong enacted in March.
The statement said five others were removed "for investigation of disrupting public peace", and released soon after.
Earlier in the evening, seated on a park bench reading the play "May 35" -- a coded reference to June 4 -- theatre worker Tsang said she "came here for those who can't speak out for themselves".
"I want to show that people still remember," she told AFP. "People may not come out because they are worried, but there is still a seed in their hearts."
Four arrested in Hong Kong on Tiananmen anniversary: police
Hong Kong (AFP) June 4, 2024 -
Hong Kong police said four people were arrested Tuesday on the 35th anniversary of Beijing's Tiananmen Square crackdown.
The finance hub and former British colony used to be the sole place on Chinese soil where public commemorations were allowed for people to mourn those killed in Beijing on June 4, 1989.
But an annual vigil, which previously drew tens of thousands with candles to Hong Kong's Victoria Park, has been banned since 2020 as Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong.
Authorities in March enacted a second security law, which has drawn sharp criticism from foreign governments over worries of further curbs to freedoms to Hong Kong.
A police statement released early Wednesday said that two men and two women were arrested on Tuesday around Causeway Bay, a shopping district where Victoria Park is located.
One of them was a 68-year-old woman who "was arrested over suspicion of 'offences in connection with seditious intention' under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance," said the police statement, referring to the official name of Hong Kong's new security law.
She had been "chanting slogans in public areas on Yee Wo Street... this afternoon," it said.
The other three were arrested over suspicion of "attacking police", "assaulting two security guards" and "disorderly conducts in public places".
Earlier in the evening, scores of police were seen by AFP journalists stopping and searching people around Causeway Bay.
Some appeared to be taken away by the police.
The police statement said that besides the four arrested, five other people were removed "for investigation of disrupting public peace".
They were released soon after.
US vows solidarity as Tiananmen Square leaders plea to keep memory alive
Washington (AFP) June 4, 2024 -
The United States vowed Tuesday to never stop promoting human rights in China 35 years after the bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square, as the protest movement's exiled leaders pleaded for action to help keep the memory alive.
With China meticulously censoring any mention of the 1989 student uprising -- a blackout increasingly extended to once-open Hong Kong -- Tiananmen Square veterans commemorated the anniversary overseas, including in the United States and Taiwan.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken -- who has visited Beijing twice since last year as he sought to ease tensions -- did not hold back from calling the events at Tiananmen Square a "massacre."
"As Beijing attempts to suppress the memory of June 4, the United States stands in solidarity with those who continue the struggle for human rights and individual freedom," Blinken said in a statement.
"The courage and sacrifice of the people who stood up in Tiananmen Square 35 years ago will not be forgotten," he said.
Blinken said the United States will "continue to speak out and work with the international community to promote accountability" over Beijing's "human rights abuses both within and outside its borders."
Tanks rolled into the vast central Beijing square on June 4, 1989, clearing out students who had been clamoring for democratic reforms.
The exact toll is unknown but hundreds died, with some estimates of more than 1,000. China's communist rulers have since sought to erase any public mention of the crackdown.
Wang Dan, one of the most visible Tiananmen protesters who was arrested but later allowed to go into exile in the United States, quoted Martin Luther King Jr as he said he still had "my own Chinese dream."
"I dream that one day the Chinese people will have freedom and dignity," he said outside the US Capitol, flanked by lawmakers including former speakers Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy.
"For 35 years, I have not forgotten this dream for a single day."
- Calls on tech companies -
Images from Tiananmen Square -- including the famous "Tank Man" who showed solitary defiance -- gripped the United States, but political leaders quickly moved to preserve relations with Beijing.
The United States opened its vast market to manufactured goods, helping fuel China's rise into the world's second largest economy.
"United States policymakers have deliberately put their heads in the sand," Zhou Fengsuo, a Tiananmen Square leader who now heads the Human Rights in China advocacy group, told a hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
Zhou urged pressure on Western tech companies to stop work with China to enforce censorship that has included complying with bans on social media accounts.
"Companies must be held to account for their role in supporting the CCP's censorship, surveillance and harassment," he said of the Chinese Communist Party.
The veteran activist testified alongside "Karin," a Chinese student who appeared in the congressional hearing room disguised in an all-encompassing mask with dark sunglasses under a North Face baseball cap.
A student at Columbia University, she said she only learned about the Tiananmen Square crackdown when she was able to access Wikipedia.
She told the lawmakers that Beijing has put heavy pressure on students overseas, including by using classmates to report in critical voices among them and by detaining activist students when they return home.
She called on US lawmakers to compel student groups to disclose funding and to press universities to support students who feel they are targets of transnational repression.
Generations after the United States welcomed Tiananmen students, she said, "those first pioneers who lit the spark for us all should not be allowed to freeze in the wind and snow."
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