Tiananmen’s 30th year marked by repressionBy ASSOCIATED PRESShome/News/World/Tiananmen’s 30th year marked by repressionBEIJING: Thirty years since the Tiananmen Square protests, China’s economy has catapulted up the world rankings, yet political repression is harsher than ever. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims are held in reeducation camps without charge, student activists face relentless harassment and leaders in the beleaguered dissident community have been locked up or simply vanished. Religious groups face ever-greater pressure to conform, and a web of mass surveillance is bolstering a system many call totalitarian. In the three decades since the protests, China has risen to become the world’s second-largest economy, and is forging ahead in areas from high-speed rail to artificial intelligence and 5G mobile communications. An attempt to introduce grassroots democracy at the village level years ago foundered after the Communist Party refused to concede even a modicum of control.

Source: Manila Times June 03, 2019 16:13 UTC