Rubio: 'The World Will Never Forget' Tiananmen Square

For most Chinese, the 36th anniversary of a bloody crackdown that ended pro-democracy protests in China passed like any other weekday. And that's just how the ruling Communist Party wants it. Security was tight Wednesday around Beijing's Tiananmen Square, where weeks of student-led protests shook the party in 1989, the AP reports.

• Under then-leader Deng Xiaoping, the military was sent in to end the protest on the night of June 3-4. Using live ammunition, soldiers forced their way through crowds that tried to block them from reaching the square. Hundreds and possibly thousands of people were killed.

• The party has tried, with some success, to erase what it calls the "political turmoil" of 1989 from the collective memory. It bans any public commemoration or mention of the June 4 crackdown, scrubbing references from the internet.
• In recent years, that ban has been extended to Hong Kong, where a once-massive annual candlelight vigil is no longer permitted. Police said they brought 10 people on suspicion of breaching public peace to a police station for investigation. Three were still detained late Wednesday, while the rest were allowed to leave. Police also arrested a woman for failing to show her identity document and a man for obstructing police officers from performing their duties.

• In Hong Kong, a carnival showcasing Chinese food and products was held in Victoria Park, where tens of thousands of people used to gather for a candlelight vigil to mark the anniversary. Police were out in force to try to prevent any protest, and took several people away from the park on Wednesday.
• A former district council member, Chan Kim-kam, said customs officers questioned her at her shop on the eve of June 4 after she advertised small white candles for sale in an Instagram post titled "June, we don't forget."
• Rows of electronic candles lit up the windows of the US consulate, and the British consulate projected "VIIV"—Roman numerals in reference to June 4—on one of its walls.
• The British and Canadian consulates earlier posted social media messages about remembering June 4. Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997. The US consulate posted a message from Secretary of State Marco Rubio on its website. "The CCP actively tries to censor the facts," Rubio said, referring to China's Communist Party. "But the world will never forget."

(More Tiananmen Square stories.)