‘Not an Isolated Incident’

Twenty years after her teenage son's death in Tiananmen Square, Ding Zilin waits for an apology she says will never come.

By Melinda Liu | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jun 2, 2009 | Updated: 6:51  p.m. ET Jun 2, 2009

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  • Posted By: crusaderz @ 06/05/2009 12:15:06 AM

    It's an inconvenient truth that the political state of China, with such a big population, has to be under dictatorship of the Communist Party, and they are going in the right direction.
    If peace and prosperity is being championed, why not?
    We can't really please everyone, can't we? Not to say people in millions.

  • Posted By: david wang @ 06/04/2009 3:41:52 AM

    I am one of the post 80s in China , when I was young at my 7 years old, I saw the incident in the television, I stil have some vague memory of that, at that time I had a neighbour who was a middle school student, he said to me "it will come back in ten years". But now our country seems quite peaceful, even thriving and prosperous, but whether this perosperity can last long ? I am not quite optmitic,of course I don't expect the tragedy happy again , what I only hope is that when we --- the post 80s----become the Helmsman of my beloved country, The ship wii sailed toward the bright in our hand , as our generation have been deeply effected by the Democratic ideas from abroad, I strongly believe that --China, in our hand will be more open, more confidence, and more democratic

  • Posted By: nudle @ 06/03/2009 4:22:14 PM

    Putting government action aside, this is a mother who ENCOURAGED her underage son to go out joining protesters/rioters, FULLY AWARE that the Marshall law was issued that night. When she is busying putting herself on the high moral ground and blaming the government for everything, has she ever take a second to feel the guilty too?

    • Posted By: Dalebssr @ 06/03/2009 5:04:23 PM

      Really? I thought the idea of protesting was to confront injustice or to at least make your voice heard. What kind of life is there if the government tells you or this chinese kid that "You think like we do or tonight you die". The idea of romantisizing this kid's death is sickening but what's worse is blaming a parent for something someone else did to their kid. Locking down a part of town over a difference in policital thought would be insane in America but it happened in china. These idealists wanted something more and met an unfortunate fate similiar to the millions of other chinese dissidents before them. Their government could have handled it much differently but they didn't, this dead kid's mom could have made him stay home that night or just been another happy communist but wasn't, and we can try to assign guilt on her all we want but it won't stick.

      • Posted By: nudle @ 06/03/2009 7:01:52 PM

        • Posted By: pug_ster @ 06/03/2009 9:10:22 PM

          You would think this kind of stuff would never happen here in this country. Our Nation's Veterans and their kids were killed in an peaceful protest in this nation's capital. Just google 'bonus army' and you'll find out.

  • Posted By: DanBal @ 06/03/2009 8:51:51 PM

    Ding Zilin is a very brave woman, and she highlights the cynicism of the Obama administration, for which human rights apparently count for little. I miss Jimmy Carter, who, while he sold out Taiwan, at least made defending human rights an important part of U.S. foreign policy. Barack and Hillary could learn something.

  • Posted By: GingerTrampus @ 06/03/2009 3:40:19 PM

    Maybe if more of our youth read more in the news around the world instead of the crap out there in the book stores like the latest vampire flicks and harry potter, when they reached adulthood they wouldn't be so damn eager to jump on the "hold hand and hug and everything will be alright" band wagon. They would have a better understanding of the REAL WORLD they live in and not live in their fantasy world the older generation has created for them. If they REALLY understood that the freedom they take completely for granted was earned with literal blood, sweat, death, and tears then maybe we could do more about the rest of the world around us. As it stand now, the majority of the youth in this country feels as though the freedom they have is "owed" to them and to hell with everyone else in this world. They just turn the news channel and go back to living in their "perfect lil world". Maybe if stories like this were actually put out there for the youth to read, we could do more to change the world with the next generation coming up.
    What if.....

    • Posted By: markmier @ 06/03/2009 6:22:11 PM

      Some things never change:

      "Our youth now loves luxuries. They have bad manners, contempt for authority. They show disrespect for elders and they love to chatter instead of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants, of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up their food, and tyrannize their teachers."
      -- Socrates

  • Posted By: steve real @ 06/02/2009 10:19:37 PM

    The Communist Party of China doesn???t want the truth.
    They can???t handle the truth.
    Free speech is way more powerful then anything Mao???s ???Little Red Book???
    could ever achieve in modern China.
    The poor Chinese are being muffled and stifled by their own government.
    The Communist Chinese just can???t handle the truth,
    because they are so ashamed of the 3000 people they murdered that day on June 4, 1989 in Tiananmen Square.
    Let freedom ring!
    Long live the Goddess of Democracy!

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