SCU Human Rights Study Center Launches New Book on Tiananmen Square Protests

Experts from Chang Fo-Chuan Center for the Study of Human Rights at Soochow University discussed their latest publication “30 Years After Tiananmen－Back to 1989,” which elaborates from different angles on the Tiananmen Square Incident and reiterates its historical significance in the new book launch at Soochow’s Waishuangsi Campus on June 4^th, 2020.

Embodying twelve articles derived from an earlier seminar on the 30^th anniversary of Tiananmen, the book collects the perspectives from multiple scholars so as to piece together the big picture of this democratic movement. The more Chinese readers are informed of the Tiananmen Square Protests, the less likely people’s collective memory for this incident will be obliterated, Dean of SCU’s School of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Shiow-Duan Hwang said.

The writing is divided into three segments: The first section is devoted to the description and analysis of the process of the democratic movement in 1989 and the Tiananmen Massacre while the second and the third parts respectively depict the circumstances of China and other countries in the aftermath of the event. It intends to inspire better development of a regional protection mechanism for human rights by bringing the cloudy future of the human rights issues in contemporary Mainland China to the attention of more people.

As the economy expands and technology advances, the Chinese government has been adopting extremely totalitarian policies, such as tightly-controlled internet and constant surveillance. With those youngsters who once stood in Tiananmen Square in 1989 stepping into their 50s, many are anxious that their efforts in the Incident would be just a flash in the pan. Still, judging from the fact that the Communist Chinese leaders have gone to great lengths to erase the Incident from any official records and school textbooks, the influence of the event can never be more self-evident.