Explainer | Remembering the Tiananmen crackdown: what happened to Hong Kong’s June 4 vigil?
For three decades, Hong Kong served as the only place on Chinese soil where large-scale peaceful demonstrations were organised annually on June 4 to remember those killed in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
The anniversary vigil, held at Victoria Park, was attended by tens of thousands of residents, serving both as a visual spectacle with its sea of candles and a spiritual anchor for the occasion.
But starting in 2020, the authorities denied requests to stage the event for two years, citing risks to public health amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The organiser behind the vigil disbanded in August 2021, citing a more restrictive political environment in the wake of the Beijing-decreed national security law, while pro-Beijing groups also booked the venue for events celebrating the country’s diversity in the past two years.
The Post explains the importance of the June 4 vigil to the city.
1. Why June 4?
In 1989, students in Beijing held demonstrations against the central government calling for democracy and an end to corruption.
In the early hours of June 4, military tanks moved in to remove the demonstrators. An unconfirmed number of unarmed civilians were killed.
Since 1990, a vigil and related activities to commemorate the crackdown had been organised by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, an organisation founded in May 1989 to support student activists in Beijing including those wanted by mainland authorities.
The annual vigil allowed participants to mourn the young lives lost. It also became a symbol of Hong Kong’s enduring freedoms, given the city was the only place on Chinese soil to organise large-scale activities.
According to the vigil organiser, attendance spiked three times, in 2012, 2014 and 2019, when an estimated 180,000 showed up.
2. What activities were held during the vigil?
For three decades, Hongkongers had gathered at Victoria Park, held lit candles, chanted and remembered the day in 1989.
The two-hour programme typically included the presentation of a wreath from the stage to a replica of Tiananmen Square’s Monument to the People’s Heroes, the lighting up of a burning torch on stage, as well as the chanting of slogans and singing of memorial songs.
Participants, mostly dressed in black, would also hold up their candles to remember the victims.
With the rise of anti-mainland sentiments following the Occupy movement in 2014, some young people and student leaders campaigned to snub the annual vigil in Victoria Park, which they denounced as merely a ritual and having no impact on political reform.
3. What has happened since 2019?
The last official vigil held by the alliance in 2019 drew more than 180,000 attendees, according to the organiser, and was seen as the prelude to the months-long social unrest that broke out in the city.
Since then, the alliance has not held an official vigil in the past five years. It was banned in 2020 and 2021 on public health grounds during the Covid-19 pandemic. Simultaneously, Beijing passed a national security law in 2020 to put an end to the civil unrest.
Still, an estimated 20,000 people turned up at Victoria Park that year, including 26 opposition leaders who were later arrested and charged.
In August 2021, police took action against the organiser, accusing the group of acting as a “foreign agent”, an offence under the national security law. Officers demanded information from the organiser about its member list, financial reports and activities – a request that representatives refused to comply with.
The alliance had also come under political pressure for advocating “an end to one-party rule”, one of their five goals chanted in every vigil. Beijing and Hong Kong officials deemed the act as inciting subversion.
The group eventually disbanded and was removed from the Companies Registry in the same year, while leading members were still awaiting trial for subversion.
In 2022, authorities decided to close sections of the park a day before the vigil, after a man was arrested over online calls to attack officers. The government said the closure would help “prevent any unauthorised assemblies in the park that may affect public safety and order”.
In 2023 and 2024, the site was used by pro-Beijing groups to host carnival events.
4. How are people remembering June 4 now?
While sporadic commemorations still took place across the city in 2020 and 2021 after police shut down Victoria Park, observing the event has sharply toned down following the arrest of key members of the 32-year-old alliance in August 2021.
Catholic churches, which previously held an annual mass for the occasion, had opted to skip the ritual.
The remaining organisations observing the occasion are Western consulates, which have a long tradition of issuing statements to remember the Tiananmen crackdown.
The windows of the US consulate in Central are typically filled with dozens of candles to mark the anniversary.
Mass gatherings and seminars continue to be held by Hongkongers in Britain, Prague, the United States and Taiwan.
5. Will the tradition ever be allowed again?
In the initial years following a ban on the mass vigil, some pro-establishment figures suggested low-key, private small group events, or even lawful gatherings at churches should be allowed.
This year, top government advisers including Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, convenor of the key decision-making Executive Council, said individuals should observe the occasion privately and away from the public eye.
“If a person commemorates any dates in private, without the intention of stirring up hatred against the country or institutions established in Hong Kong, I don’t think the person commits an offence,” Ip told the Post.
Barrister and Exco member Ronny Tong Ka-wah said gatherings for the event, whether large or small, were not likely to be allowed because the government had become increasingly cautious since 2019.
Hong Kong leader John Lee Ka-chiu on Tuesday warned of “some people” attempting to hijack the anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown to disturb public peace.
