Prosperity, repression mark China 30 years after Tiananmen

FILE - In this June 10, 1989 file photo, People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops stand guard with tanks in front of Tiananmen Square after crushing the students pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing. Thirty years since the Tiananmen Square protests, China's economy has catapulted up the world rankings, yet political repression is harsher than ever. (AP Photo/Sadayuki Mikami, File)

FILE - In this May 28, 1989 file photo, students rest in the litter of Tiananmen Square in Beijing, as their strike for government reform enters its third week. Thirty years since the Tiananmen Square protests, China's economy has catapulted up the world rankings, yet political repression is harsher than ever. (AP Photo/Jeff Widener, File)

BEIJING – Thirty years since the Tiananmen Square protests, China's economy has catapulted up the world rankings, yet political repression is harsher than ever.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims are held in re-education camps without charge, student activists face relentless harassment and leaders in the beleaguered dissident community have been locked up or simply vanished.

It's a far cry from the hopes of the idealistic student demonstrators, and a level of control far beyond what many imagined possible, even after the army's bloody crushing of the protests on the night of June 3-4, 1989.

Critics say the Tiananmen crackdown set the ruling Communist Party on its present course of ruthless suppression, summary incarceration and the frequent use of violence against opponents in the name of "stability maintenance."

Antisemitism Exposed