As you already know if you’ve seen a major Western newspaper, today is the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident. Not that you would know it from any Chinese newspaper. As reported elsewhere, Tiananmen Square is closed today, and the perimeter is surrounded by plainclothes cops. I had to wonder — would I find any evidence of the government’s paranoia in Changsha?
The cops were not well-positioned for a photograph.
The day dawned bright and sunny in Changsha for the second day in a row, a rarity at any time of the year. I’ve been waiting for a chance to get a decent picture of the hilariously large statue of Mao Zedong that greets to HuDa students as they go to and from class. This seemed like as good a day as I was likely to get, so I brought my camera along on my morning errands. As I approached the square, I noticed a small police van parked on the sidewalk, where I’ve never seen one before. Right across the street from Mao was an even bigger van emblazoned with “POLICE” (in English, curiously enough). And sitting along a fence to the Great Helmsman’s right were a half-dozen uniformed police. I wasn’t sure whether or not to call it a coincidence. But my hunch was confirmed when I passed the square again 5 hours later. The cops hadn’t moved an inch.
Student groups sometimes gather on the steps in front of Mao’s statue, and on a couple of occasions, I’ve even seen them holding a sign or two. It is as close to Huda comes to a protest zone, a la the plaza outside Woodbridge Hall at Yale. But the police were letting everyone know that there would be no gatherings there today.
Update: I’m also fairly sure there were poorly-disguised cops listening to conversations at English Corner this evening.
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