HONG KONG: Thousands of Hong Kongers took part in a candlelight vigil Sunday for victims of the Chinese government’s 1989 brutal military crackdown on protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, while Taiwan’s leader called on Beijing to face up to the history, which is taboo on the mainland.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said in posts on Facebook and Twitter that 28 years ago, the actions of students and citizens who challenged the political system in China “inspired a generation.”
She appealed to Beijing to “face up to June 4 with an open mind” and said Taiwan was willing to share its experiences of transitioning to democracy in the late 1980s to ease the pains of such a transition in the mainland.
“For democracy: Some are early, others are late, but we will all get there in the end,” she wrote on Twitter.
Hundreds if not thousands of unarmed protesters and onlookers were killed late on June 3 and the early hours of June 4, 1989, after China’s communist leaders ordered the military to retake Tiananmen Square from the student-led demonstrators.
Commemoration of the Tiananmen events, whether public or private, remains taboo in mainland China, where many are only dimly aware of what happened. But it’s openly discussed in the self-governing island of Taiwan and in Hong Kong, a special Chinese region with much autonomy and legally entrenched freedom of speech and other civil rights unseen on the mainland.
The annual evening vigil in Hong Kong, which regularly draws tens of thousands, is the only large-scale commemoration on Chinese territory of the bloodshed almost three decades ago.
“I don’t want this part of history to become blurred,” said office worker Emily Yu, 42, who was attending the gathering in Victoria Park. “It was really a massacre of people. Those young people came out and did all they could for freedom and democracy but didn’t achieve it.”
In her posts, Taiwanese President Tsai also called on Beijing to let a pro-democracy activist from Taiwan who was detained in March on the mainland “come home.”
Lee Ming-che, detained on suspicion of conducting activities harming China’s national security, has previously conducted online lectures on Taiwan’s democratization and managed a fund for families of political prisoners in China.
Relations between Beijing and Taiwan have been near an all-time low since Tsai, whose Democratic Progressive Party has advocated for Taiwan’s formal independence, took over as president a year ago. Since then, Beijing has cut off contacts with Taiwan’s government and discouraged mainlanders from visiting the island as tourists.
The authoritarian Communist Party rulers in Beijing insist that Taiwan and the Chinese mainland are part of a single Chinese nation and have vowed to take control of the island by force if necessary.
Hong Kong marks 28 years since bloody Tiananmen crackdown
Hong Kong marks 28 years since bloody Tiananmen crackdown
Hungary says it will block a key EU loan to Ukraine until Russian oil shipments resume
- Szijjártó said: “As long as Ukraine blocks the resumption of oil supplies to Hungary, Hungary will block European Union decisions that are important and favorable for Ukraine”
- Hungary’s decision to block the key funding came two days after it suspended diesel shipments
BUDAPEST: Hungary will block a planned 90-billion-euro ($106-billion) European Union loan to Ukraine until the flow of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline resumes, Hungary’s foreign minister said.
Russian oil shipments to Hungary and Slovakia have been interrupted since Jan. 27 after what Ukrainian officials said was a Russian drone attack damaged the Druzhba pipeline, which carries Russian crude across Ukrainian territory and into Central Europe.
Hungary and Slovakia, which have both received a temporary exemption from an EU policy prohibiting imports of Russian oil, have accused Ukraine — without providing evidence — of deliberately holding up supplies. Both countries ceased shipping diesel to Ukraine this week over the interruption in oil flows .
In a video posted on social media Friday evening, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó accused Ukraine of “blackmailing” Hungary by failing to restart shipments. He said his government would block a massive interest-free loan the EU approved in December to help Kyiv to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years.
“We will not give in to this blackmail. We do not support Ukraine’s war, we will not pay for it,” Szijjártó said. “As long as Ukraine blocks the resumption of oil supplies to Hungary, Hungary will block European Union decisions that are important and favorable for Ukraine.”
Hungary’s decision to block the key funding came two days after it suspended diesel shipments to its embattled neighbor and only days before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Nearly every country in Europe has significantly reduced or entirely ceased Russian energy imports since Moscow launched its war in Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Yet Hungary and Slovakia — both EU and NATO members — have maintained and even increased supplies of Russian oil and gas.
Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has long argued Russian fossil fuels are indispensable for its economy and that switching to energy sourced from elsewhere would cause an immediate economic collapse — an argument some experts dispute.
Widely seen as the Kremlin’s biggest advocate in the EU, Orbán has vigorously opposed the bloc’s efforts to sanction Moscow over its invasion, and blasted attempts to hit Russia’s energy revenues that help finance the war. His government has frequently threatened to veto EU efforts to assist Ukraine.
On Saturday, Slovakia’s populist Prime minister Robert Fico said his country will stop providing emergency electricity supplies to Ukraine if oil is not flowing through the Druzhba by Monday. Orbán’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, said earlier this week that Hungary, too, was exploring the possibility of cutting off its electricity supplies to Ukraine.
Not all of the EU’s 27 countries agreed to take part in the 90-billion-euro loan package for Kyiv. Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic opposed the plan, but a deal was reached in which they did not block the loan and were promised protection from any financial fallout.
