Today, June 4th, marks the 25th anniversary of the deadly confrontation that took place between Chinese pro-democracy protestors and the People’s Liberation Army in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Living here in mainland China, you wouldn’t know the day is of any historical significance. The government censors are always quick to wield their control over the media. So, it hasn’t been surprising that our television has gone silent and black for minutes at a time during the last week at any mention of Tiananmen Square by the BBC (the sole channel we get).

The censors are equally diligent in their patrol of the internet: no references can be found to “the Tiananmen incident” online. Vaguely associated words like liù (6) and sì (4) have been wiped off the face of the Chinese wide web. In recent days, too, Google has been blocked. For those without a VPN (the majority of Chinese…