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China Marks Martyrs' Day in Beijing's Tiananmen Square
Posted
September 30, 2021
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11,777
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September 30, 2021
11,777
147
204
2.98%
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21:09Now PlayingChina’s President Xi Jinping leads a ceremony marking Martyrs' Day in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, a day before the National Day of the People's Republic of China. Since taking power in 2012, Xi has sought to put his government on the right side of martyrdom. He designated Martyrs’ Day to commemorate the country’s heroes, and in 2019 he laid a wreath at the Tiananmen Square monument to mark the 70th anniversary of Communist Party rule. He also paid respect to the only Chinese leader in history more powerful than him, Mao Zedong, whose son was killed fighting in the Korean War.
Martyrs have always played a central role in China’s opaque politics—both for authorities to rally nationalism and for the opposition to resist. Xi fully recognizes the power of history, and martyrs, in maintaining legitimacy to rule. In the middle of Tiananmen Square, in the heart of Beijing, sits the 10-story Monument to the People’s Heroes commissioned by Communist Party leaders shortly after taking power in 1949. It commemorates soldiers who fought in the civil war and against foreign enemies, including during the “Century of Humiliation” that brought parts of China—such as Hong Kong and Shanghai—under the control of such powers as Britain and Japan.
The monument also served as a lightning rod for the most famous anti-government uprising in China’s modern history: the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Pro-democracy activists gathered there to mourn the death of Hu Yaobang, a top Communist Party official who advocated Western-style reforms. Less than two months later, soldiers killed hundreds and possibly thousands of them—there’s never been an independent investigation—in a bloodbath that’s defined perceptions of China in the West ever since.
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