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Every year around this time we say the names and remember the images from Tiananmen Square. But China’s rulers do everything they can to make sure nobody inside China remembers. That avoidance is not harmless. It is a warning. Recent episodes — an activist who risked his life to flee to South Korea and the odd diplomatic theater around Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s trip to Beijing — show how the Chinese Communist Party treats truth as a threat. We should treat that threat the same way.
Why Tiananmen Square Still Matters
Tiananmen Square is not just an old news story. It is a lesson about what happens when power goes unchecked. The CCP erased photos, jailed memorializers, and even reaches beyond its borders to threaten critics. That kind of transnational repression is not abstract. It is a real attack on free speech and on the people who dare to tell the truth about China.
China’s Name Game and the Limits of Appeasement
Here’s a reminder of how serious Beijing is about control: they once banned Senator Rubio from entry, then quietly changed a Chinese character in his name so he could travel with President Trump. Cute bureaucratic trick — if you like theater. If you don’t, it looks like a regime willing to bend facts and stall accountability for the sake of optics. Meanwhile an activist, Dong Guangping, risked his life sailing toward safety and now sits in custody in South Korea. If China’s reaction to memory is this extreme, why would anyone trust them on anything else?
What America Must Do: Put Human Rights at the Center
The United States should not treat Tiananmen as a quaint anniversary. We should make human rights and transnational repression central to policy with China. That means protecting dissidents who escape, sanctioning officials who order or carry out repression, and making clear that trade and deals won’t paper over moral rot. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been loud on China for years. His appointment gives the administration a chance to act tougher and smarter — not just pose for a photo in Beijing while the CCP keeps hunting its critics overseas.
Remember and Act
We owe the victims of Tiananmen more than a footnote. Memory matters because it shapes how we react. If the West forgets or looks the other way, the CCP grows bolder. If we remember and act, their intimidation has less bite. So keep the names in your mouth, keep the cameras pointed at repression, and don’t let a regime build a parking lot over truth. That’s what real foreign policy — and real moral clarity — looks like.
