‘Thirty Years After Tiananmen Square: A Campus Conversation’ set for June 5 at CSUSB

A panel discussion will look back to the spring of 1989, when Chinese college students and workers occupied Tiananmen Square in Beijing to call for political reforms in the People’s Republic of China, and the years since a government crackdown on the movement in June that year. “Thirty Years After Tiananmen Square: A Campus Conversation,” presented by the Cal State San Bernardino John M. Pfau Library and the Department of History, will take place on Wednesday, June 5, beginning at noon at the library’s multimedia center, room PL-5005. The program is free and open to the public; parking is $6 at CSUSB. Jeremy Murray, associate professor of history, and King-To Yeung, associate professor of   sociology, will participate in the panel discussion that will examine the history, impact and legacy of the Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown of June 1989.  The program will take place 30 years to the date when an iconic photo and video was taken of a man wearing a white shirt, black pants and carrying two shopping bags, as he stood in front of a line of Chinese army tanks, trying to block them from entering Tiananmen Square. Television footage that day showed him moving in front of the lead tank whenever it tried to move past him. One day before, June 4, the Chinese military violently cracked down on unarmed students and workers who had occupied the square for nearly seven weeks, peacefully demanding that the Chinese communist government reform. Though exact numbers are not known, news reports said hundreds of people were killed that day. Topics the panel will discuss include: How are the events remembered and forgotten in China and around the world?  What are some of the common misconceptions about the events?  What can a discussion of the events and their legacy tell us about Sino-U.S. relations over the past 30 years and more? For more information, contact Jeremy Murray in the CSUSB history department at jmurray@csusb.edu.