there's. always a way. secretive. definitely around 20 or more. germany's wealthiest people are going to think. we have a snoop around to. talking. to st. george. w. . this is. coming up on the program it's been 30 years since the student protests on china's tiananmen square and his subsequent government crushing the movement we look back at what happened and why china does its best to censor that part of its history.

i'm melissa chan you're watching news asia it's good to have you with us today we take a look at china in the spring of 1989 it was still the time of the cold war the berlin wall would only fall later that year and in may the soviet union leader mikhail gorbachev was visiting communist leaders in beijing that is the reason why we have so much video and photographic evidence of the student protests on tiananmen square that ended in a military crackdown on june 4th because foreign media had been allowed into communist china to cover the scene as soviet summit they stayed for what looked like the beginning of a revolution. it has been 30 years since the crushing of that student movement 30

years since we 1st saw this iconic image estimates of the number killed range from a few 100 to more than 2000. mathias ballinger walks us through the events leading up to that historic crisis he speaks to a father and son the father a high powered official at the time and the son a protester. who was a book publisher in hong kong there was in 1989 i was a 4th year student in university. so i wasn't very interested in society. that year he was living in beijing. were to sit down i just went to tiananmen square to have a look everybody went there i didn't expect anything special that bush. in april we all banged a former general secretary of the communist party di impromptu memorials at the square became the focus for student rallies the reform minded leader had been 2

years before all of pushing each other we're not historians but we firmly believe time will bring justice to him. just students saw him as a victim of a corrupt party and soon they started raising more issues who are living standards human rights corruption. public mourning turned into the biggest anti-party demonstrations in china's history the awful for the i had had an argument with my father and he had already said if the students continue this might lead to bloodshed was not on i was like all the students nobody thought about bloodshed. his father bowed to him was then a high ranking official. and we didn't know this would end in such a tragedy physical freedom but i knew it was a very difficult situation that might bring many conflicts to light or talk. about home had been a close aide to jobs the young the successor to. the young was also very formal and

want to dialogue with the students but you had to write. the conservative prime minister favored a hardline approach. i wasn't interested in my father's work especially what he was doing in the government to me he was part of that negative phenomenon i saw the communist party and. what the son did not know was that another man was in control behind the scenes. behind china's economic reforms fishley retired from most due to. chair the whole country need of the students knew that it was done shopping who had ousted all you know about until years before. the end of april and dung made a decision they labeled the demonstrations and counter-revolutionary to moil via

the party newspaper people stayed and ignited this issue and. more than 1000000 people took to the streets students and citizens in light of god. they sang the international now and read from the constitution to remind the party of its own words of. god at least if the government thinks it can suppress says it acts like a donkey trying to scare away a tiger. it is. over the next few weeks the students became more and more confident they demanded negotiations with the party some went on a hunger strike they want to not have sympathy around the world. but when i came home there was a pessimistic atmosphere in which i learned the government was getting nervous and

preparing something that i started to become more and more afraid that i mean. want to show to your kind of have hopped. on may 18th being instructed the government to do clear. the reformers in the party. that night the young appeared on the square chinese t.v. broadcast became his last appearance. and we have come too late. to the law. nothing not the real story of. his sympathy for the students cause course to me he spent the rest of his life under house arrest. what's and i know that investigate me within the party purges began. close aide was the

target. i didn't know they would investigate me and prisoners. he was detained a week after jobs for meanwhile troops tried to enter the city but they were blocked by civilians several times i. was. on the night of june 4th the troops were back this time with the order to use and it's necessary bob who was watching from their own. creation that's why when they started shooting i thought they would shoot in the air or use rubber bullets you know a book with it all then i saw somebody with a bullet hole in his belly people were rushing the wounded on bikes into the hospital you know that's when i understood they were really killing people. in the for quite commonly people who lost their lives that night remains unknown to date canon and square is

a tourist destination and well guarded and with restricted access most people in today's china are too afraid to talk i think it's right. there with i for you or for me the events of 989 are still like an open wound here for who left the country shortly after he became a publisher of critical books about the communist party many of them about 1992 a teenager when i saw my father again in 1997 we found that we agreed on many things to show that something i'm very happy about and that most people my age envy me for most of them don't have a connection to their parents i don't have this problem that's great look at how many went here water. bottom lives in beijing and is a vocal critic of the party humane zonda constant surveillance. with a culture where they expelled me from the party they liberated me my brain and my

mouth are free today. father and son cannot talk often about who was allowed to visit once a year and some years not at all. joining us now is mathias bullinger from hong kong the only territory that is a part of china where people are allowed to commemorate what happened mathias give us a sense of what the day has been like how do people feel there. this is a very important day for hong kong civil society a lot of organizations are here they rally this is also to remind or to talk about hong kong's own problems in maintaining its freedom this has been going on for 30 years in 1909 homecoming was a british colony and people were watching closely what was happening in beijing because they knew they would be returned to mainland china 8 years later so ever

since then june 4th has been a very important day in hong kong i'm not fields of course now outside of china we will see a lot of media coverage on tiananmen today why can't the government in beijing come to honest terms with what happened on june 4th. well we can only guess that because they very rarely say anything about it the only thing they say is that we should all be grateful for them shooting the students because china has been stable since then and growing i think this scene in a government shooting its own population if this was widely discussed in china the digit in a sea of the party would be washed away quickly and people would not accept this government anymore so silencing the the the remembrance of the event is vital to

the maintenance of power for the communist party in china they make reference to this in your answer just now about the way the economy. was booming in the 1990 s. after what has. and in tiananmen square did this incident on june 4th have an impact on government policy and decision making on how the leadership wanted to run the country. it did and 1st of all the economy was slowing down due to western sanctions and also due to certain cautiousness in the government because any. dynamics in the economy might have an impact on other things it took them 2 years to get back on track to get the economy back on track to growth and when they figured out how to increase oppression of public opinion and still let the economy

float a little bit free. is there a situation my ts where you think it's possible for the government in beijing to admit fully what happened in chatham and and include it in part of its history. as long as the communist party sees as its most important principle to stay in power no matter what as long as they are not ready to. make a transition into a system that would maybe be less centralized that was less reliant on the top much of the party to govern the country unless this is happening and we have no signs that this will be happening any time soon i don't think they will be able to do that to acknowledge their mistakes their crimes but he is falling there thank

you. that's it for now be sure to check out our other stories on the dot com ford slash asia or on facebook and twitter we leave you with pictures of the crackdown on protesters in 1900. i thank you for watching i will see you next time . every journey begins with the 1st step and every language but the 1st word emerged from the group. rico is in germany to learn german why not come with him simple online on your mobile and free to shop for d w z e learning course nikos free german made easy. rock'n'roll

do it. seems a little silly content but the church should. stop the come. and religious clash that brings many to light. the double. doors to 17 w. . apologies oba and it's back to business u.s. president still has trump meets with british business leaders to discuss a potential u.k. u.s. trade deal off the brics it's also coming up i'm going to back to the captains of german industry hoping for wall support from a government that is industry also willing to do its bit to keep the economy

growing. but come to do business asia jones of berlin good to have you with us and was starting with soybeans soybeans like the ones you see behind me help. the world's but they could also be a sign of trouble on the horizon china is said to stockpile around $7000000.00 tons of american produced soybeans according to media reports and they were purchased as part of a truce in the trade conflict between beijing and washington last december normally they'd be used to feed chinese livestock a traders say china aims to store the soybeans a move that could mean that beijing is buckling down for a drawn out conflict with washington. all right china stockpiling soybeans is this a sign that it is also preparing for a protracted trade war with the united states let's hear listen to water the french .