Dozens of people gathered in the rain at a candlelight vigil organized by Hong Kong exiles in Taipei to mark the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests.
Similar events used to draw hundreds of thousands of people to Hong Kong’s Victoria Park, before Beijing introduced the national security law and cracked down on the city’s political opposition in 2020.
Taiwan is now the only place in the Chinese-speaking world where events like the Tiananmen Square anniversary can be openly commemorated.
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee (李家超) cautioned at a press conference yesterday that endangering national security was a grave offense, promising “swift and tough” law enforcement action. He did not directly mention June 4 or Tiananmen Square.
Taiwan, under increasing pressure from China to accept “reunification,” has become a destination for exiled Hong Kongers to voice their concerns about the Chinese government.
“The 1989 Tiananmen massacre remains vivid for Hong Kongers,” former Hong Kong lawmaker Raymond Wong Yuk-man (黃毓民) said at the candlelight vigil, held in Taipei’s 228 Peace Memorial Park. “Our fervor then led to two decades of stability post-1997. But five years ago, the national security law crushed ‘one country, two systems,’ turning Hong Kong into a living hell. We remain in crisis.”
Two Hong Kongers who now live in Taipei and did not want their names to appear in the media told Domino Theory that they feel fortunate there is still a place like Taiwan where protests are still possible to be held.
Thousands of people attended a separate Tiananmen Square commemoration at Taipei’s Liberty Square. One Hong Konger who attended both events said the vigil at 228 park more closely resembled those in Hong Kong, while the gathering at Liberty Square was more like a political event.
Earlier today, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) praised the courage of those who took part in the protests. Lai said human rights are a concept shared by Taiwan and other democracies that transcend generations and borders, via his X account.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Taiwan’s opposition party, in a Facebook post marked June 4, 2025 as a day to recall the struggle for freedom and democracy, urging people to resist dictatorship. The KMT vowed never to forget history, pledging to champion democracy, with the Republic of China’s constitution guiding it as a global beacon.
On June 4, 1989, Chinese troops and tanks crushed student-led protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Estimates of the death toll range from the hundreds to the thousands.
China continues to suppress discussion and acknowledgment of the Tiananmen Square massacre, treating it as a taboo subject. On China’s biggest search engine Baidu, terms related to the event, such as Tiananmen (天安門) and June 4 (六四), are still unsearchable or unavailable.
Speaking at the Shangri-La defense forum in 2019, Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe (魏鳳和) called the crackdown the “correct policy” to ensure stability.
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