Authorities blanketed central Beijing with heavy security Wednesday on the 25th anniversary of the bloody military suppression of pro-democracy protests centered on Tiananmen Square, pre-empting any attempts to publicly commemorate one of the darkest chapters in recent Chinese history.
Scores of police and paramilitary troops patrolled the vast plaza in the city's heart and surrounding streets, stopping vehicles and demanding identification from passers-by. Reporters were told to leave the area following the daily crack-of-dawn flag-raising ceremony and there were no signs of demonstrations or any type of public commemoration.
Dozens of activists, dissidents and other critics have already been detained by police, held under house arrest or sent out of the city.
China allows no public discussion of the events of June 3-4, 1989, when soldiers backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers fought their way into the heart of the city, killing hundreds of unarmed protesters and onlookers. The government has never issued a complete, formal accounting of the crackdown or the number of casualties.
Authorities allowed relatives of some of those killed in the crackdown to visit their loved one's graves, but they had to go quietly and under police escort, according to Zhang Xianling, a member of a group that campaigns for the crackdown's victims.
"Even though 25 years is a very long time, as a relative, as a mother, it feels like this happened just yesterday," said Zhang, whose son, Wang Nan, was 19 years-old when he was killed in the suppression.
"The wound is still very deep. And though we might now shed fewer tears than in the past, our conviction is even stronger," Zhang said. "We must keep struggling until the end. We must pursue justice for our loved ones."
Beijing's official verdict is that the student-led protests aimed to topple the ruling Communist Party and plunge China into chaos. Protest leaders said they were seeking broader democracy and freedom, along with an end to corruption and favoritism within the party.
Although virtually wiped from the official record on the Chinese mainland, the Tiananmen protests remain a totem for political expression and Western-style civil liberties in Hong Kong, the former British colony which retained its own liberal social and legal systems after reverting to Chinese rule 17 years ago.
Every year the city holds a candlelight vigil to commemorate the victims that's attended by tens of thousands, with numbers rising in recent years. Organizers said they were expecting about 150,000 people to attend Wednesday night's rally in a downtown park.
Along with concerns about political unrest, China has recently been shaken by violence blamed on separatists from the far northwestern region of Xinjiang, adding to the increased security measures.