Born in 1989, Steve Wang sometimes wonders what happened in his hometown of Beijing that year. But his curiosity about pro-democracy protests and the crackdown on them passes quickly.

"I was not part of it," he said. "I know it could be important, but I cannot feel it."

A quarter century after the Communist Party's attack on demonstrations centered on Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, it is little more than a distant tale to most young Chinese. The ruling party prohibits public discussion and 1989 is banned from textbooks and Chinese websites.

Many have managed to learn something about the crackdown, through people they know, by navigating around China's tight Internet controls or by traveling abroad. Some are aware of the iconic image of resistance — the lone Chinese man standing in front of a line of tanks moving down the Avenue of Eternal Peace.

But often, they seem not to care. They grew up in an atmosphere of nationalism and pride over two decades of strong economic growth. The turmoil caused by a student movement 25 years ago seems irrelevant to a generation more worried about finding jobs and buying an apartment.

"They basically don't bother to try to find out further," said Fu King-wa, a journalism professor at Hong Kong University. "Even if they learn about it, they believe in the government version."

Rowena He, author of the book "Tiananmen Exiles," about lives of student protesters after the crackdown, said many Chinese students abroad claim they know a lot about it, but in fact know little. "Some others would say, 'We knew what happened, so what?' That's typical," said He, who teaches at Harvard University.

Young Chinese tend to find it hard to empathize with students of the late 1980s, she said. "The younger generation is more influenced by cynicism and materialism," said He. "A Chinese student once said to me, 'I really do not believe they took to the street for ideals.'"

Born in July 1989, in a Beijing hospital not far from the sites of the bloody crackdown, Wang grew up without hearing a word about the student movement from parents or teachers. He first heard about it from friends in college in China.

"I was quite curious and wanted to know about it. But I could not find anything," Wang said.

In 2010, the young man went to school in England, where he met a Hong Kong student who showed him a video of the crackdown.

"All I could remember was a young man trying to stop a tank from rolling forward," Wang said. The Hong Kong student "asked me why it has to be like this. I was stupefied."

Back in Beijing, Wang does not think the student movement would come up in any discussion.

"Who would bring it up? There's been no reason to talk about it," Wang said. "Much time has passed since then, and China will not report it anymore. Now the foreign media want to make a fuss out of it. They are talking up the negative things about China."

At Peking University, once a center of student protest, Tiananmen seems to have little relevance to today's students.

"It is not something that concerns us anymore," said Zhang Yu, a graduate student in sociology.

Although some bold Peking University professors have shared their knowledge with their students, most keep the topic out of the classroom.

Chen Haoyun, a freshman majoring in aeronautics, said he first heard about it when a teaching assistant mentioned it in a history class.

"I do not know much about it. All I know is that it cannot be talked about," said Chen. "I am interested, but the school does not talk about it."

The university's party secretary, Zhu Shanlu, warns that teachers must be careful when speaking to students about Tiananmen.

"You must take responsibility for the students and their values. It's like buttoning up the first button, and you cannot get the first button wrong," he told an Associated Press reporter when asked if the issue is off limits on campus.

Even some young people with connections to the crackdown know little about it, including Wang Jiaying, a Beijing college student whose father participated in the student movement.

"He said he was not sensible at the time," Wang said of her father. "I think it was a special event at a special time, which cannot be discussed now."

Her roommate, Lu Qiuxuan, 21, learned it about from her mother, who was at a Beijing hospital caring for her grandmother at the time. She told Lu about the constant flow of wounded students. Lu said she looked up information when she spent time overseas.

"I didn't expect it was this huge, and there were so many people, and so many injuries. I was shocked," Lu said.

"I don't know what should be the right conclusion, as long as the Chinese government does not say anything," she said. "I regret that people of my generation cannot learn and understand it during our school years, and I think that has changed our outlook about our future lives."

I was born in 1966, in a staunch Labour family, so I lived through the 1970s and early 1980s within the “protected” section of the Maltese society that was then. Yet I could not but observe what unbridled use of power can do to people's lives and what the herd instinct lets people accept as a way of life. I know that Joseph Muscat has so far proven himself as a brilliant strategist and rational leader, but the rising acceptance of clientelism as a way to maintain a powerbase and the ever-increasing centralisation of power and decisions, reminds me more and more of those times.

Not that PN governments were much better in that regard. The only difference is that now it’s blatant, in your face and will soon become an accepted norm when it certainly shouldn't be, and not just because we promised a different kind of politics.

We each vote alone with our individual mind, one at a time and not as a population en masse. As long as there are no ideological divides, or monumental national issues that threaten our way of life, as there were in 1987 when the first Maltese popular movement was created,  come next general election people will vote on how good their state of wellbeing is and how likely the person/party they are voting for can guarantee it.

The main political parties will not be fighting electoral campaigns on grand issues any more. The massive movement which will be much bigger in four years will sway according to credibility of the individuals and leaders making up the respective political parties. Joseph Muscat built his current movement by enticing respected and credible individuals to his fold who in turn used their trust factor built over years of professional or community life to convince people to at least give the new leader a chance.

This obvious but important observation should guide the new PN Leader towards his starting point, because start afresh he must , and before he even contemplates on starting afresh, he has to clean sweep any one in his ranks whose mere face puts into question any credibility the New PN is set to build. 

Meanwhile as I watch closely the further metamorphosis of the Gigantic Labour movement into the real peoples' powerhouse, it will be interesting to watch how many credible, strong willed Maltese and Gozitans will be brave enough to go back to their fold of origin at a time when the Nationalist Party is at its lowest ebb and the Labour Movement seems totally unassailable.

I did that for my Labour Party in 2004 when PN was at its strongest, and Labour was on its knees but had accepted full EU membership as its foreign policy. At that time my little insignificant move was simply observed and almost derided. It was taboo to state that political parties evolve and that they shift left or right and that I had become more comfortable in an MLP dead set to renew itself in the proper direction rather than in an all powerful party in government which for all its economic and other glories was closing in on itself and starting to treat people like dubbien.

In any case, one thing is certain....