The Events of Tiananmen Square Will Not Be Forgotten.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), who serves as Co-Chairman of the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional-Executive Commission on China and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee that oversees human rights and democracy, issued the following statement on the 30th anniversary of the Chinese government and Communist Party’s violent crackdown against student-led protestors in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989:

“We remember the Tiananmen Square massacre —not simply as an historical event, but as a present and poignant reminder that when the Chinese people are free to assemble, to speak, and to act, they call for freedom, democracy, and political reforms. Thirty years after the tragic events of Tiananmen Square, the free world is faced with an increasingly aggressive Chinese Communist government that is more repressive domestically, ignoring international norms, and is exporting its authoritarian model globally. As we honor those who died at Tiananmen and those whose lives were irrevocably altered by that day’s events, we recommit ourselves to exposing and pushing back against the Chinese government’s egregious and systematic human rights abuses and increasingly sophisticated surveillance regime, including in Xinjiang where China has detained over one million Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim minorities to so-called ‘political re-education camps.’ To do anything less dishonors the spirit of Tiananmen.”