WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 05: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a press conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on May 05, 2026 in Washington, DC. With White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt away on maternity leave, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio took questions on the ongoing hostilities with Iran. (Credit: Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Thirty-seven years after Chinese troops crushed the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square, the United States used the anniversary to remind the world of what happened — and to press Beijing for trying to bury it. Ahead of June 4, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a press statement honoring the 1989 demonstrators as people who had gathered to exercise their natural rights and demand democratic reform. Addressing China's long campaign of erasure, he declared: "No amount of censorship can erase the past."
The words carried added weight given the messenger. Rubio had been sanctioned by China during his time in the Senate over his criticism of its human rights record. Beijing did not let the statement pass quietly: a foreign ministry spokesman called the remarks an "attack" and lodged a protest.
The exchange is a reminder of why a single date still carries so much weight — and why China works so hard each year to keep it quiet.
What happened in 1989
In the spring of 1989, Beijing's Tiananmen Square became the center of a vast pro-democracy movement. It began in April, when students gathered to mourn Hu Yaobang, a reform-minded Communist Party leader, and their grief grew into a nationwide call for democracy, free speech, and a free press. After Hu's funeral on April 22, more than 100,000 students filled the square. By mid-May, hunger strikers and ordinary citizens had swelled the crowds into the hundreds of thousands.
TOPSHOT - Taken care by others, an unidentified foreign journalist (2nd-r) is carried out from the clash site between the army and students 04 June 1989 near Tiananmen Square. On the night of 03 and 04 June 1989, Tiananmen Square sheltered the last pro-democracy supporters. In a show of force, China leaders vented their fury and frustration on student dissidents and their pro-democracy supporters. Several hundred people have been killed and thousands wounded when soldiers moved on Tiananmen Square during a violent military crackdown ending six weeks of student demonstrations, known as the Beijing Spring movement. According to Amnesty International, five years after the crushing of the Chinese pro-democracy movement, "thousands" of prisoners remained in jail. (Photo by TOMMY CHENG / AFP) (Credit: Photo by TOMMY CHENG/AFP via Getty Images)TOPSHOT - Beijing residents inspect the interior of one of over 20 armoured personnel carrier burnt by demonstrators to prevent the troops from moving into Tiananmen Square 04 June 1989. On the night of 03 and 04 June 1989, Tiananmen Square sheltered the last pro-democracy supporters. A series of pro-democracy protests was sparked by the April 15 death of former communist party leader Hu Yaobang. In a show of force, China leaders vented their fury and frustration on student dissidents and their pro-democracy supporters. Several hundred people have been killed and thousands wounded when soldiers moved on Tiananmen Square during a violent military crackdown ending six weeks of student demonstrations, known as the Beijing Spring movement. According to Amnesty International, five years after the crushing of the Chinese pro-democracy movement, "thousands" of prisoners remained in jail. AFP PHOTO MANUEL CENETA (Credit: Photo by MANUEL CENETA/AFP via Getty Images)
Party leaders split between negotiation and force, and the hardliners prevailed, declaring martial law in the last weeks of May. On the night of June 3 into June 4, troops and tanks moved into central Beijing and fired on unarmed civilians. China has never released an official toll, but estimates range from several hundred to thousands killed.
What it symbolized
The movement was a coalition, but a few demands ran through all of it: an honest press, the freedom to criticize without fear, and an end to official corruption. Its symbols outlived it. Art students erected a ten-meter "Goddess of Democracy" statue that many compared to the Statue of Liberty. And one image came to stand for everything — "Tank Man," the lone figure who stepped in front of a column of tanks. He was never identified, yet his quiet defiance became one of history's most recognizable photographs. The students who filled the square — most in their late teens and twenties — treated free expression not as a luxury but as a birthright.
BEIJING, CHINA - MAY 25: Waving banners, high school students march in Beijing streets near Tiananmen Square 25 May 1989 during a rally to support the pro-democracy protest against the Chinese government. The April-June 1989 movement was crushed by Chinese troops in June when army tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square 04 June. (Credit: CATHERINE HENRIETTE/AFP via Getty Images)
A spirit that still inspires
That same spirit later took root in Hong Kong, for three decades the one place on Chinese soil where June 4 could be openly mourned. Vigils in Victoria Park drew roughly 180,000 people at their 2019 peak before being banned from 2020 onward under a sweeping National Security Law. When the pro-democracy paper Apple Daily was forced to shut and its founder Jimmy Lai was imprisoned over a Tiananmen vigil, the world watched a press-freedom struggle play out in real time. Yet the candle was simply passed to other hands — to London, New York, Berlin, and Taipei.
Former activist Lui Yuk-lin (C) pays her respects near Victoria Park in the Causeway Bay district of Hong Kong on June 4, 2026, where people gathered annually on June 4 to mourn the victims of China's Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, a tradition now banned following a national security law imposed on the city in 2020. (Credit: Photo by Peter PARKS/AFP via Getty Images)
Why the date endures
That is what Rubio's statement, and Beijing's angry response, ultimately underscore. June 4 is a deliberate act of remembrance against a deliberate act of erasure. Every candle, statement, and article refuses to let the powerful decide what history may be told. The students of 1989 did not win the freedoms they sought, but they proved those freedoms are universal and stubborn — which is why, 37 years on, the cause is never truly lost. It is only waiting for its moment.
Students and local people gathered at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on May 14, 1989 after an over-night hunger strike as part of the mass pro-democracy protest against the Chinese government. Some demonstrators carry a banner reading "Liberty of Death". Over 5,000 students participated in the overnight hunger strike, the latest in a series of pro-democracy protests sparked by the April 15 death of former communist party leader Hu Yaobang. In a show of force, 04 June, China leaders vented their fury and frustration on student dissidents and their pro-democracy supporters. Several hundred people have been killed and thousands wounded when soldiers moved on Tiananmen Square during a violent military crackdown ending six weeks of student demonstrations, known as the Beijing Spring movement. (Credit: CATHERINE HENRIETTE/AFP via Getty Images)
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