Where [are] Hitler's Nazis? Where is the former Soviet Union? Where is Suharto's Indonesia or Pinochet's Chile? They're all gone, and the Chinese Communist Party and its dictatorship will be gone. And the men standing in front of tanks will stay. … And that's what this picture stands for me.

Xiao Qiang
Director of the Berkeley China Internet Project at the University of California, Berkeley.

Remember Tank Man? Half a generation after Tiananmen Square, has the Chinese government succeeded in their mission to crush the spirit and the memory of that moment? Frontline looks into the political legacy of Tank Man within the Hidden Kleptocracy:

After all others had been silenced, his lonely act of defiance against the Chinese regime amazed the world. What became of him? And 17 years later, has China succeeded in erasing this event from its history?

May 4

Student demonstrators mark the anniversary of "May Fourth."
Tens of thousands of students march into Tiananmen Square to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the 1919 "May Fourth Movement," which also took place in the square. They pledge to return to classes the next day but intend to keep pressing for reforms.

Zhao Ziyang, in a speech to foreign bankers, expresses support for the students' "patriotism" and essentially contradicts the government's April 26 editorial. This angers senior Party members.

While he's become a political icon for many of those in the Chinese diaspora as well as for those who were on the outside looking in, within China he's known, if he's known at all, as a criminal subversive. Religion truly is the opiate of the people, and in contemporary China they worship money. Stoned with the soma of seemingly instant cash, when confronted with proof of conspiracy among the princes they laugh it off and chalk it up to greater subtlety on their part, something to be emulated rather than fought against. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Indeed.

After the massacre, the enforced prohibition on any discussion of it, no challenge allowed to what the government did that night, no debate — that has induced deep cynicism amongst those same people who were active participants in the May '89 movement towards the realm of politics as a whole. They have been beaten back. Once again, the message has been driven home that they have no role in politics. They're not wanted. None of their business! Stay out!

[The people have] gotten the message. They're now deeply cynical about anything like that. Those aspirations have been crushed, and all that's left is what the Party is now offering them, which is the chance to make more money, if they're lucky. And who wouldn't take up that offer if it's all that's on offer?

It's possible change will never come from within, although we've seen compelling proof of the desire for it within our own lifetimes. I still remember the Spy magazine which listed every official fax number in China and advised you to fax a protest letter (also supplied) to as many as you could. It did actually bring the Mandarins to their knees for a time. This kind of culture jamming is still possible, aided if not abetted by the camel through the eye of a needle model of Internet access the government has dictated, but one factor we have to deal with today that we did not before is that, by culture jamming China, we will be costing American companies Google and Yahoo, among others, actual dollars. This tends to give Americans pause, if not because they want American companies to be rich, then because they don't want to get sued up the ass by American lawyers.

We are as of one mind in this.

But we're willing to do some culture jamming, or at least witness-bearing, unlike that ex of mine who, upon seeing hundreds of people on bicycles rolling into the square, and hearing shots and screams coming from the square, and seeing tanks and soldiers headed to the square, promptly went to his hotel room, locked the door, drew the curtains, and turned on the tv.

Note "ex."