Thursday, May 23, 2019
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Charles E. Young Research Library, Presentation Room (11348)
This event is open to the media, but photography and video recording will be prohibited.
Tiananmen Protest 30 Years On
-- film screening and panel discussion
In spring 1989, millions of Chinese citizens took on to street across the country in a months long pro-democracy movement, the center of which was Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Military crackdown on June 3-4 brought the peaceful demonstration to a bloody end, killing hundreds, if not thousands, ordinary citizens. A few months later, the Berlin Wall fell. World history turned to a new page.
What happened in Beijing that year? What is its historical significance, 30 years on? This event brings audience a chronological-based documentary, edited out of footages from 1989, followed by panel discussion with Tiananmen survivors and scholars to explore the many questions the Tiananmen protests and the Beijing massacre have left unanswered in our recent history.
Screening: Unofficial Record: Tiananmen 1989
Director: LIU Shixian
Length: 60 min
Warning: Scenes of bloodshed violence at beginning and ending parts.
Mr. LIU Shixian, a veteran activist from the Democracy Wall (1979) in Beijing, taught himself footage editing in his retirement and combed through huge amount of archive footages stored by a Hong Kong pro-democracy organization, spending years on the project. The result is this chronological documentary of the 1989 people's revolt in Beijing. This is for academic research and exchange only. No commercial release is allowed; no social media reposting is permitted.
Panelists:
Ms. CHENG Zhen, a college student in 1989, Ms. Cheng became a leader of the hunger-striking group occupying Tiananmen Square in mid May. She appears in the students dialogue with then Premier, Li Peng, in the Great Hall of People; and she was among the last group of students leaving the square in early June 4th. Her image in both occasions appears in today's documentary. She now resides in east Los Angeles.
Mr. Terril Jones spent 30+ years as a foreign and business correspondent and editor for Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, Forbes magazine and The Associated Press. His assignments included 18 years overseas in Beijing, Paris and Tokyo covering politics, business, bilateral and regional relations, and all manner of domestic issues. He has had reporting assignments in South Korea, Taiwan, north Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Western Sahara), west Africa (Ivory Coast, Liberia) and around western Europe. He reported from Beijing for AP in 1989.
WANG Chaohua was one of the 21 Most-wanted students by the Chinese government after the Beijing massacre in June 1989. She subsequently earned her Ph.D. from UCLA, majoring in modern Chinese literature and culture. She has been Adjunct Assistant Professor in Dept ALC at UCLA and an independent scholar, writing and publishing in both English and Chinese on modern China's politics, intellectual history and literature.
Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies