Tiananmen

By Hamish McKenzie In Commentary

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13th June, 2009
It's a grey and drizzly day in Tiananmen Square, one week out from the 20th anniversary of a massacre that is rarely spoken of here in China. Although the weather is grim, clumps of tourists pound the paving stones of this formidable testament to state power, following coloured tour-group flags to each historic corner, posing for happy snaps in front of a giant portrait of their cherished Chairman, and soaking up the site's importance as the starting point for a Cultural Revolution that tore a country asunder. Just south of the mausoleum that houses an embalmed and unsleeping Mao Zedong, ...

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