General News

Tiananmen Anniversary Marked in Japan, Taiwan with Calls for Democratization of China, Hong Kong

AP
Hundreds of participants attend a candlelight vigil at Democracy Square in Taipei on Sunday to mark the 34th anniversary of the Chinese military suppression of the pro-democracy movement in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:50 JST, June 5, 2023

On the 34th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, rallies were held in Taiwan and Japan to remember victims and call for the democratization of Hong Kong and the rest of China.

At a Taiwan rally, participants offered prayers and displayed candle-shaped LED lights. Amid increasing pressure from the Chinese government, the number of rally participants has been increasing in recent years. Hong Kongers who immigrated to Taiwan have often been seen at rallies.

Lam Wing-kee, 67, the former manager of Hong Kong-based bookstore Causeway Bay Books, which had sold books that were banned in China, escaped from Hong Kong to Taiwan. Lam, who opened another bookstore in Taipei in 2020 under the same name of his Hong Kong shop, stressed the necessity of continuing to demand the democratization of both Hong Kong and the rest of China.

In Japan, about 50 people, including members of an organization of former Chinese students who wound up living in exile after the crackdown, held demonstrations in front of the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo and other places.

They stated their demands in both Japanese and Chinese, saying: “We don’t need the Chinese Communist Party. We don’t need an autocratic regime.”