Coming up to the 15th anniversary of the massacres in Tiananmen Square, any expression of sympathy for the demonstrating students and workers remains taboo in China's state-controlled media.(The Week)(Brief Article)

* Coming up to the 15th anniversary of the massacres in Tiananmen Square, any expression of sympathy for the demonstrating students and workers remains taboo in China's state-controlled media. The official line is that the whole movement was a "counter-revolutionary rebellion," and that the brutal suppression of it was necessary to maintain "stability," without which the subsequent increase in general prosperity could not have happened. Now one brave voice has challenged this orthodoxy. In an open letter to China's leaders, retired military physician Jiang Yanyong has urged them to reappraise the 1989 events as a patriotic ...