ABSTRACT
Sometimes, silence can be deafening. The way the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has treated the anniversary of the June 4th Massacre since it took place 20 years ago is a good illustration of this saying. Since 1990, every 15 April and during the first days of June, Tiananmen Square, the centre of the 1989 democracy movement, has been occupied by plainclothes policemen, prominent actors of the 1989 democracy movement have been ‘taken on vacation’ out of the capital or placed under 24-hour surveillance, the Babaoshan cemetery has been closed to the public, and, last year, the Beijing municipal government issued an order prohibiting its inhabitants from wearing white, the colour of mourning in China. The nervousness displayed by the authorities shows clearly that despite their imposition of a blackout on any information relating to June 4th, this event still casts a long shadow over Zhongnanhai.
