>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." >> we mark this day, the 25th anniversary of the events on june 4, 1989, in beijing, china. tanks rolled into tiananmen square to crush a protest that

had captured the attention of the world. hundreds died. the chinese government has since tried to erase the events of that day from history. this is a report from beijing. >> at dawn, the flag was raised over tiananmen square, as it is every day. but on this anniversary, extra security forces, some with machine guns, were stationed around the square. >> why are you stopping me? >> we found citizens serving as plainclothes informants. as china revealed its authoritarian side. >> 25 years ago, tanks rolled into beijing's tiananmen square to suppress a weeklong student uprising that had spread across china. the communist government crackdown turned bloody. it is still not known how many

died, estimates range from 200 to more than 1000. >> do you learn about tiananmen square in history class? >> no. not mentioned. >> these college students who we will not name acknowledged it is difficult to find information about what the government calls "the june 4 incident." >> we still don't know what happened. i think that is not cool. everyone in china -- we have a right to know the truth. so many years passed and we still don't know what happened. >> china is a very different place today than it was 25 years ago, wealthier, more powerful. but its growth has come at the cost of pollution, corruption, and political repression. joining me to talk about the

on-demand in the past, present, and future of china, evan osnos. he's the author of the new book, "age of ambition." here in new york, orville schell. he has covered china since 1940. nick kristof is a pulitzer prize winning journalist. and from boston, chai ling. number 4 on china's most wanted list. i am pleased to have you all here.

welcome. let's go back, orville, and tell me about that day and what led up to it. >> it was really an extraordinary episode in chinese history and any history. to be in the square during the weeks leading up to june 4, it was like being at some incredible festival. the feeling of elation, as if something had lifted. the press was absolutely free, people all across china were watching what was happening, and it was an amazingly -- a feeling of sudden lack of repression. everybody believed they would

never get this genie back in the bottle. but that was a naïve presumption. >> and hu yaobang's death? >> he had been pushed out a couple years earlier. hard-liners thought he hadn't cracked down hard enough. he was no great champion of liberalization, but given what happened to him, the students did try to mourn his death when he died. signs like "the wrong man died" went up. that gradually went into a call to honor him, into protests -- calls for an end to corruption. the government, candidate by calling for repression and the students protested against it. it all snowballed in a way that nobody could have imagined. >> where were you?

>> i was there every day at beijing in the protests. i was there when the troops opened fire. >> did you think it would end badly? >> after martial law was declared on may 20, we became nervous that it was one possible outcome. the students were overwhelmingly -- they couldn't imagine it would end with bloodshed. there were older folks who warned that this could happen. it was hard to imagine, especially when the soldiers initially came in, unarmed and relaxed. but there was always that nervousness. >> what do the students want? >> the students have slogans and

posters and leaflets. they had loudspeakers. they were talking to hundreds of foreigners every day. i think the basic demands were for more political freedom, free expression, democratic reform -- clear and obvious. but as a mass movement, there are so many different emotions at this moment that exploded. that came out from different walks of life, even beyond tiananmen square. if i had to put one word to it, it was a rare moment of the chinese people enjoyed the sense

of freedom. but that is also a very cruel, cruel conflict with the reality. that moment of truth. what is -- who is ruining china? >> i want to pronounce it correctly -- xiang xi? >> i was at his university, yes, he was my president. >> you are out of the country. >> i left china in 1986 for notre dame. at a time when students were tiananmen square, i was doing my phd thesis. when i watched everyone at the square, i thought i could've been one of them. when i saw what happened on june

4 i went back. it is a moment that, for an entire generation, for the entire country, we never thought we were in such a decisive but also tragic moment, to face ourselves. what is freedom? what is the real truth? >> how much progress have you made towards making sense of tiananmen square? >> china has changed a lot. in many ways, people's lives are freer. but not in the political dimension. as you mention in the beginning, it is wealthier. not even i have been back to china since.

because of my political activities. but everyone has been there, the high-rises, the stock market, the rising economy. this also -- it has closed the door to political liberalization. everyone is so afraid to revisit that question. the legitimacy after the massacre is entirely dependent on economic performance. that, becoming more and more fragile. today, i watched china every day. the number of banned keywords that you cannot search or even type into chinese social media about tiananmen square -- you cannot type june 4.

you cannot search it today. it shows all the memorial discussions. that is how sensitive this topic is, 25 years after. >> does the government have reason to -- are they right in believing that if they don't maintain this tight political repression that their hold is so fragile that they will be overthrown? that they will lose control? >> that is their fear. >> is it founded? >> it is founded after the massacre. after that point there is no way to retrieve -- from what they have done. >> reflects for us how the

government sees tiananmen square today, and with this economic liberalization, why aren't they more confident? >> the government is extremely self-conscious about what happens. officially what it says was that this was a tragic but necessary step on the path of chinese economic rise. you'll see a statement saying that we haven't always been perfecting rule of law and our political and social institutions. they have trained young people in china today to believe that had demonstrations in tiananmen square and elsewhere in the country not been put down, the chinese economic rise would've been impossible. that is the story. at the same time, what you see and what we have described today, they are not interested or willing to put that argument open for debate.

on the internet, they say, we don't want to have this conversation. the judgment that was made after the turmoils, that is the judgment that stands today. it is almost entirely undiscussed. >> chai ling joins us now. >> hello. >> take us back to what you were doing and thinking and how you were able to escape. >> 25 years ago, i was with our last 5000 students in tiananmen square. we were shocked and disbelieved to discover that instead of listening to our cry for freedom, the government sent tanks and troops to silence our dream. it was -- all sorts of emotions

came in. to give up everything we ever hoped for in our lives for ourselves and our families and our nation. i told the students a story of a group of ants on the hill that caught fire. they had to go down the hill to survive. they rolled up into one ball and the outside ants were burned to death but the inside ants survived. through our sacrifice, a new era would be born. after i shared that, everybody's spirit lifted. in that moment, i turned around, back to look into the darkness of the northern part of tiananmen square, the forbidden city, where the chinese government gave the order for our massacre.

i felt this flood of warmth over my heart. great wishes and love for the leaders of china, even though they just declared massacre, for the soldiers who are moving toward us through the tanks and machine guns. we have nothing but love for them. looking back -- looking to the darkness -- all the coming generations -- those who never know us. i know, there is love for china and china has been improved as a result of that great prayer and wish. >> let me ask once again -- how did you escape? >> i was put on the most wanted list and had to escape, hideout for 10 months before i was able to get to freedom.

i was rescued by a root of courageous buddhist believers. it was their faith to save my life. they expanded into a network of 200 families. ring that time of intense terror and persecution, every day my friends and colleagues who were put on the most wanted list would be discovered. there was a great prize on my head, but even under those pressures, these people never betrayed us. my last journey was to be put into a cargo box inside a boat for four nights and five days. we were finally able to come to hong kong, then to paris, then to america.

>> let me review now the decision to do this. what did know about the factors that worked and how he reached the decision? >> many of the senior leaders had this fear, having grown up in a time when china was chaotic, of chaos. that was in the back of their minds. they, historically, had never been shy of shedding blood. they had tried to send in earlier the police and troops that were unarmed. by the end, he wanted to shed the blood. he wanted to scare people. i don't think it was just a matter of it being the only way. >> were there forces that were told not to shed blood? >> there were voices, but not strong ones. the party leader at the time

refused to implement the order. he offered to resign. others were wavering. but china wasn't ruled by them, it was ruled by the older rulers. >> ones who had been there since the revolution. >> yes, and at the end of the day, and there was some army resistance but not a lot. within the party leadership, when they gave the order, people opened fire. >> what was the reaction in the united states? and other governments around the world? >> one of alarm in shock when people saw it.

at that point, they were using live fire. it was said a few days afterwards, "this was a storm that was bound to come." what that means is he could sense, building within this structure of a one-party state, that there were forces who were going to sooner or later erupt. there really is no other possible response except repression, otherwise you risk overthrowing the party. >> it is a fear of russia. >> russia hadn't happened at that point. but there was a deep and abiding sense that the party, if it yielded on this important

question of the split within its own ranks, and he didn't repress those people in the street, it would lead to its downfall. maybe he was right. >> i would push back at that. if the octogenarians had stepped in, something would've happened where you would've had the communist party, had elections. >> except, at that happens, but i don't think that could have happened. that wasn't just deng xiaoping. >> i agree with orville but i want to add something. they couldn't have come out any

other way. and the long history of chinese political history -- china never tolerated dissent. rebels and dissent opinions are the most crushed, always. when the students and particularly the citizens stopped, that is a rebellion, that cannot be tolerated. it has to be absolutely crushed in order to rule china. that is in every china ruler's head.

>> what do you think most governments would have done if, in fact, there were this kind of rebellion in the center of their capital? >> most governments would have used riot control equipment. they might have detained some people. there would've been a discussion about it, political repercussions. but they would not have sent in an army. i have covered lots of wars but i had never seen an army of 200,000 people move into a capital and to just mow people down. there were other countries that faced similar situations. south korea in 1987. mongolia in 1990. indonesia in 1998. in each case he could've gone either way, it in each of those cases it went the other way.

>> china is the worst example of where went the other way. it was the most extreme example of a government crushing its people. >> i think it is a tremendous source of humiliation for the government to have endured this moment. it is something that they will never recover from. it's a bit like germany. until there is adequate reflection and adequate revisiting -- that is hard for them to do. >> i just wanted to say -- i do agree about the assessment of china at the time. he wanted to kill 200,000 people and stood buy 20 years of stability. he did not need to use tanks and troops to clear the square. he only decided to do that and

uses force and influence to convince other people to agree with that. but that is not the best for the nation. not the best for china. at the time, the reformer leader whose death enabled the beginning of the movement, he wanted china to have three reforms. economic, political, and spiritual. deng xiaoping only wanted economic reform and he got it. it is the worst form of economic dictatorship, with no political reform. >> what is the conversation today about tiananmen square? what is the conversation today about political reform?

>> what is amazing is how young people in china today, do know very little about what happened. it has been so systematically removed from the world of information. many of them can go online and shop the firewalls. -- jump the firewalls. but there are technical steps you have to take. for some the obstacles are just large enough. what a striking is that those who are aware of it -- there are young people who aren't aware of it. sometimes they are completely unaware, but the truth is that even among those who went through it, there is a sense today that some of the same issues are present in the country today. corruption, which is so much on the minds of chinese leaders, was very much an ingredient in

those protests, a sense of the government was not responding to people's complaints. what you see is that even though there is not a conversation about 1989, and there really isn't, there is a sense that china is facing its political pressure internally. they're trying to figure out how to go about it without losing the support of this new middle class. >> i think the truth is the chinese government has done a pretty good job, allowing living standards rise, education standards to rise, more connections with the outside world. it's very different from a lot of traditionally repressive countries. when you create a middle class, raise living standards, educate people, you create aspirations for political participation. if i were the chinese leaders i would be nervous.

>> there is a paradox. the shock of this moment played a very significant role into believing something monumental to kickstart china back into gear. it was deng xiaping's unwavering commitment to economic reform, against much opposition, was the catalytic moment of the whole reform process. i think it was without 1989, you would not have gotten such a high velocity economic reform. >> what is the political debate

at the highest level in china about? is about corruption, pollution, sustaining the economy? >> in a certain sense, one big fracture point is how to treat the outside world. how should china depart itself in relation to its neighbors? it is a temptation for china to act in a more grandiose way, both within its neighborhood and in regard to america. this is the really radical change that we are just confronting. >> is there some sense of muscularity and china's role in the world? >> nationalism can help do that, they thought. but there are consequences.

the fundamental debate among chinese leaders now has to do with a long-term vision. there is a reformist group that thinks the way you deal with the pressure cooker is actually create escape mechanisms. village elections, township elections, provincial elections. candidates you approve of, certain amounts of local press freedom. you can control the process. i think the alternative view is, no, you can't yield. >> there is a verse saying that without vision, the people perish. what they are seeking is a vision. i realize there is no difference

between what the communist dream was all about -- it is about building a national dream, our culture's dream. the 1989 massacre-- >> what ought to be the american response the china today? what ought to be the elements of our foreign policy? >> i think we need to -- a pivot to asia as a way of engaging china. i think that's important. i think we got a little too close to japan, but i think paying attention to the maritime disputes is important. we need to continue the economic

engagement. i think that is important. >> how many chinese are studying in america? >> far more by huge ratio. but i think human rights are a part of that. they can be part of our conversation. we have nobel peace prize winners in prison while his wife is under house arrest, just for being his wife. these are things we can raise and we shouldn't feel intimidated. >> do you think the president is intimidated? >> i think shortly after he took office, he tried to improve relations with china and it was perceived in beijing as weakness and they walked all over us. i think initially, being accommodating was perceived as

weakness. >> let me close with this. what is it about china? >> the dilemma is that china, over the last century, is reinventing itself in serial form. trying to find a new ideology, to be in the world. it is still in the process. it is difficult to know exactly what it is that is there when you think about china. >> do they think they have a longer view of history than we do? >> i think they do believe that. one of the things we're seeing now is the acting out -- that old notion of china being a sovereign within the asian neighborhood. to rejuvenate itself ends to reinstall itself is a central

idea in the asian proposition. >> should we worry about aggressive china? >> i think we should. there is some risk of military conflict in the south china sea. i think it's unlikely. i don't think either china or japan wants a conflict, but i think it is possible that one would arise by accident. i think that is a good thing to worry about. >> thank you all. back in a moment, stay with us. ♪

>> jeff widener is here, he is an award-winning photojournalist who has worked in more than 100 countries. on june 5, 1989, he stood on the balcony of beijing and took one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century. it shows a column of tanks near tiananmen square. it captured the bravery and the tragedy of the chinese democracy in one single image. it appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the world.

on the 25th anniversary of that moment, i am pleased to have jeff widener here. >> when you see that, what do you first think? >> i think how close i came to losing that photograph. i botched the exposure. it taunts me to this day. i don't even have it on the wall of my apartment. >> because of how close you came to not having it? >> it's like being vacated a basketball game. if you missed the winning point, you would be scarred for life. when i look at it-- >> only you would've known. >> no, i think everyone would've known. i had been in beijing for about a week.

i had covered the events of june 4. that night i was hit in the face with the rock. the camera saves my life. my head goes back, boom, the rock went through the mirror. then i started asking people around me if anyone had a flash. i have no camera but a flash on. i went to rich paramedics situation, got back to the ap office, they ran my images, then i went back to the hotel. mark avery said, "they're killing people, don't go back out." i went back, and it was one of the most difficult decisions i have ever had to make in my life. it was a big story but i was too sick and too injured.

i am looking at all this footage in my hotel room and thinking, something is not right. i'm getting room service will this is going on down the street. the next day i came back to the office and when i walked in, there was a message for me from new york. it said, "we don't want anyone to make any unnecessary risks but if someone could photograph the square, we would appreciate it." i was scared to death. i did want to go through the incident with the rock again. i was concerned about getting into the beijing hotel. people were being stunned by cattle prods by the secret

police. i had to figure out a way to get in and i had my cameras inside my jacket. i walked up the door and the security guard on the left -- there was this young american kid, kurt. i said, hey, where have you been? he said, can you get me into your room? a bunch of tourists were just shot. so we get up and i wiped out. i get to the balcony and i had to be careful. i documented many of the tanks going by, and i will occasionally hear a tingle of a bell signaling a dead body on the back of the card. then there was the familiar sound of tanks.

i went to the balcony and i thought, it's a nice shot. then a man walks out with shopping bags. i think, this is going to screw up my composition. they're going to kill this guy. i am waiting on the balcony for the shot. nothing happens and i am thinking this picture is too far away. so i look back at the bed and i see a tele-converter. i go back out to the balcony, but the tele-converter on and take one, two, three photos. i had run out of film and i asked the kid to get me some more. he went down to the lobby and managed to wrangle one roll of film from a tourist. he managed to get it.

it was 100 asa film speed. i normally shoot 800. the shutter speed was too long. he asked if i got and i said i do not think so. but i did. >> never forget that day. >> no, but i was so knocked out from the concussion -- a man walking in front of the tank seemed like routine. >> what your member about being their overall, in terms of the fear and seeing people shot? the whole sense of that moment in which china is exploding in front of our eyes? >> i knew it was one of the greatest news stories probably of the 20th century that i was in the middle of. i kept thinking how much i had missed when i was hit.

i was upset that i missed so much. my photographing of that event was cut way short. i missed a lot, an incredible amount. the things i saw that night -- it was incredible. it was insane. right after i got hit in the face, a soldier jumps out of the tank to surrender. i still remember how pristine his uniform was. and he just ordered beating someone. then there was another soldier who was already dead and on the ground. people were grabbing my cameras and ripping them apart. i was waving my passport, screaming i was american. >> what happened to kurt? the kid?

>> he was supposed to go to the ap office but he got lost in the side streets because he was trying to avoid the gunfire. so he went to the u.s. embassy and gave them the film and said this is very important. the embassy passed it on to ap. but kurt risked his life to get that film back. and listen for him i never would've had that photo on the wire. i owe him a lot. there were three other photographers, and just recently one of them found a ground-level image that recently showed up. a different angle that nobody else had. >> was an interesting angle?

>> it was interesting in the sense that you can sort of see what was happening on the ground with the angle and how far away the tank was. but it was not as sharp or as close. historically, it was an important image. >> what do you think it defines the people who see this? courage? >> everything. the other day got an e-mail from somebody, saying can you please send me this photograph, my son has cancer, i want to give him this picture to be an inspiration. i think some people look at this as a spiritual thing. it seems to grow as the years go by. it is amazing to see how this keeps developing. i was just a guy who loves photography who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. it is been amazing.

>> what has it done for you? >> i'd like to think it hasn't done that much, but i would be lying. it really has. i was sort of a charlie brown in school. one day in high school, i am on the kodak-scholastic photography scholarship, and i realize i could do something. i kept going, i had something to prove. but there's that saying, be careful what you wish for. it's been a love-hate relationship. >> who is he? >> good question, we all want to know. after a quarter of century, nobody has been able to identify

him. nobody knows his family, and i am interested to know who was the driver of the tank. why did he stop? why did he not run him over? another big mystery. where are these guys in the tank? >> do you think he has seen the photograph? >> i don't assume, i don't know. we do know that they are in prison. we don't know if they are dead. it is like they have been erased from the planet earth. >> the chinese have interest in making sure the photograph does not have the resonance that it does. >> i do know what they're thinking, i think they shot themselves in the foot by making this guy a martyr. i spoke to a guide in las vegas who said that a lot of people in china know about this picture.

>> you would think somebody would know, because he would've told somebody, and they would say do you know about this photograph? >> they get scared. they turn away, they don't want to talk about it. >> tell me about this photograph. >> oh, god. this is taken a few days before. i would get up at 6:00 in the morning and photograph the events in the square, he would get up at 9:00, by the time he was up i would be filing pictures, we had a competitive thing. >> how old were you? >> i was 33. >> and this? >> this is the goddess of democracy. i watched them build this.

i remember the day after this crackdown, looking on chinese tv, and there is a black-and-white tv footage of it looked like an armored car bulldozing the goddess of democracy. i remember the happiness and joy of all these protesters, and then to see that -- it was symbolic in my mind. >> this? >> that was on may 3, that was a hairy situation. i held a camera over my head and i was one of the lucky photographers. people were taking cameras and smashing them, i was lucky. i stopped eventually because i was concerned, but that picture has gotten a lot of play. >> this? >> things were getting a little heated up, and what would happen if they would have these little events -- some people would sing or dance, it was kind of like a carnival.

to try to keep attention down. some of the soldiers were given gifts, but you just get the feel of the buildings. you can feel the tensions. we knew it wouldn't last forever. >> it's an amazing picture. look at that expression. this one? >> that was taken from the balcony before the tank. i was photographing the different events. look at these guys, they are cocked and ready to go. you never knew when they would fire. i'm literally leaning of his balcony, a prime target. >> this? >> that was near the great hall of the people. nothing was happening until this old chinese man came up to me, laughing, and he opens up a

heavy coat and underneath is a big hatchet with blood. i figure, the tempo was changing. i came around to the side and i heard a noise and the armored car came ripping around so fast that sparks were flying. i dived for cover. eventually i had to pick myself up and chase the guys. i photograph that it was running out of film. that is going back to what i said earlier -- because i did enough battery power, it saved my life. the split-second, had it been here, i would not be talking. it would've cracked my skull open.

that's it. right after that, that is when i got nailed. that's the quickest photo i have ever taken. i was so petrified, my nerves were shot. ap said we need to take a photograph. so i went out, i had an 18 mm lens. i got a bike and went back to the office. it must of been taken about five minutes. i think they ran in newsweek. this is almost comical... the whole burned-out bus, and then these people with brooms. >> i think this may be... >> this was right after the crackdown. nobody to get near the square. what i did was i took a city bus and i took it back and forth.

a press bus, click a picture as we go by. >> once you do this film is so iconic, did you live the rest of your life thinking, this is so sweet, i'm so proud that i was right there at the moment i got the picture, that you are in search of the moment again? >> i just feel very privileged and lucky. sometimes i like to think, i am used to it. this picture is part of me. sometimes i think about it like, i can't believe it. it's almost like it is someone else's. that i see the media attention that i have had. it is overwhelming. i just feel so lucky and fortunate that this has happened. in the beginning it was kind of an annoyance, but now it is not

that way, i have accepted that it is something that is happened in my life. >> thank you and congratulations. ♪

>> the chinese smartphone maker xiaomi has great ambitions. already more popular in china than apple and with a staggering $10 billion. now china's number three smartphone maker is going global, launching into new countries this year. will it become apple's biggest threat in china? we reveal its secrets in this "bloomberg west" special. welcome to this special edition of "bloomberg west." it's one of the fastest-growing tech markets in the world.