Meeting takes place to mark the 31st anniversary of the bloody events of June 4, 1989 at Tiananmen Square in Beijing
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with survivors of the Tiananmen Massacre on Tuesday – two days before the 31-year anniversary of the bloody events of June 4, 1989 and one day after the US president, Donald Trump, having promised to use military force to suppress protests across the country against the death of blacks at the hands of the police.
Pompeo met with activists at the Tiananmen protest – Wang Dan, Su Xiaokang, Liane Lee and Henry Li – at a closed meeting at the State Department headquarters in Washington.
A group of journalists supports the pro-Democracy protest in Tiananmen Square, Peking, China May 17, 1989. REUTERS/Carl Ho PICTURE TAKEN MAY 17, 1989 HIGHEST QUALITY AVAILABLE BEIJING, CHINA – MAY 21: Pro-democracy demonstrators surround a truck filled of People’s Liberation Army (PLO) soldiers 20 May 1989 in Beijing on their way to Tiananmen Square 20 May 1989 after the Martial Law was proclaimed in Beijing 20 May. 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. (Photo credit should read CATHERINE HENRIETTE/AFP/Getty Images) ca. June 3-4, 1989, Beijing, China — In the middle of the night between June 3rd and June 4th, as the Chinese army using tanks and foot soliders, moved the some two million Chinese students from Tiananmen Square, the students refused to go home and massed some hundred meters in front of the troops both groups stretching across the many lanes of Changan Avenue just off of the square. Every several minutes, the Chinese Army would mow into to the front row of students with their machine guns- the front row would fall, students from behind would collect their bodies and race to the rear, and then another volley of maching gun fire would start all over again, this went on until the early hours of the morning, at which point the students, faced the reality that their movement was over for that day in history. — Image by © David Turnley/Corbis FILE PHOTO: A man stands in front of a convoy of tanks in the Avenue of Eternal Peace in Beijing, China, June 5, 1989. REUTERS/Arthur Tsang/File Photo PLEASE SEARCH “FROM THE FILES – 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF TIANANMEN SQUARE PROTESTSÓ FOR ALL PICTURES. – RC17D5CAD620 Soldiers and Demonstrators at Tiananmen Square (Photo by David Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)