President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) and Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) made commemorative posts on their respective Facebook pages Wednesday, the 36th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.
On June 4, 1989, then-Chairman of China Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) ordered Chinese troops to crack down on peaceful Chinese protesters who had gathered at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The massacre ended efforts toward political reform that had begun in 1986.
President Lai took the opportunity to reflect on Taiwan’s White Terror period and subsequent efforts to implement transitional justice rather than attempt to erase history. He stressed the importance of safeguarding democratic values by standing with other members of the international community against the threat posed by authoritarianism.
Per his Facebook post, Cho recalled the zeitgeist of 1989, which saw him serve his first term in public office on the Taipei City Council and when Taiwan began to move away from martial law toward democracy. At the same time, China began to move in an opposite direction.
Cho said the date of the incident has since become a taboo number in China and the topic remains widely censored to this day. Taiwan, on the other hand, took a different path preserving history and pursuing a democratic system of government.
Both leaders emphasized that it is Taiwan’s duty to protect human rights and a democratic way of life for every Taiwanese citizen and future generations to come.