Few visitors, heavy security on Tiananmen anniversary

BEIJING - Stress kindness, value people, defend sincerity, value harmony, and seek an ideal world.

As the 25th anniversary of China's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters passed quietly, if tensely, Wednesday, two large video screens in the center of Tiananmen Square silently flashed a series of Communist Party slogans. No one here was supposed to acknowledge anything was out of the ordinary, but reminders of the extraordinary events of June 4, 1989, were in plain sight.

Troops in fatigues and helmets rode in white open-air jeeps, slowly lapping the plaza. Inside parked air-conditioned buses, scores of uniformed police cooled off until their next shift at security checkpoints. At the northeast corner of the square, a 36-year-old man with a scruffy mustache and a purple shopping bag struck up a quiet conversation with a Los Angeles Times journalist.

"You're a reporter, right? They didn't let you in, did they?" he said, almost under his breath.

Asked why he had come to Tiananmen on this day, he launched into a tale about his impoverished parents and other struggles of his family, despite the nation's economic boom in the last quarter-century.

"Simple. I'm here because Xi Jinping doesn't want anyone here today," he concluded, glancing around a bit cagily after mentioning the Chinese president.

But how many others shared his sentiments - or even his awareness of the anniversary - was unclear. The state-run media do not mention it; China's armies of Internet censors prevent any discussion of it; even some messages including the number 25 were blocked from social-networking sites such as Weibo on Wednesday.

In Hong Kong, tens of thousands joined a candlelight vigil in a downtown park to mark the anniversary. More than 180,000 people joined the gathering, according to organizers, while police put the crowd size at about 99,500. It was likely one of the largest turnouts for the annual event in recent years.

Democracy activists laid a wreath at a makeshift memorial as they read out the names of those who were killed in the military suppression on June 3-4, 1989, in the heart of Beijing. The crackdown killed hundreds, possibly thousands, of unarmed protesters and onlookers.

At Tiananmen Square, a 24-year-old student, when asked if he knew what happened on the site 25 years earlier, replied with apparent sincerity: "No, what? I really don't know."

Tourists seemed to understand that they were supposed to avoid the area. By late afternoon, the square had only a few hundred tourists and a far larger security presence. Armed police in khaki marched in formation. Undercover cops sported T-shirts tight enough to show off their biceps.

At the southeast corner of the square, a queue of several hundred people wilted in the sun, inching forward toward a security checkpoint. Police scrutinized each visitor's national ID.

A Times reporter and two visiting friends from the United States were turned away after officers examined their passport.

"You know why," said one officer. "Come back tomorrow."