Column: Tiananmen Shaped China’s History. But Chinese Millennials Have Mixed Views About Its Legacy

It has become tradition around anniversaries of the 1989 Beijing massacre to contrast youth of that era with young Chinese of today. The former, these comparisons suggest, clamored for political change, while the latter show little hint of that revolutionary zeal — in fact they suffer from “amnesia” and “apathy” toward the events.

In June of 1989, the blood on Beijing’s streets had barely dried before the state-enforced forgetting began.

It has become tradition around anniversaries of the 1989 Beijing massacre to contrast youth of that era with young Chinese of today. The former, these comparisons suggest, clamored for political change, while the latter show little hint of that revolutionary zeal — in fact they suffer from “amnesia” and “apathy” toward the events. In June of 1989, the blood on Beijing’s streets had barely dried before the state-enforced forgetting began.