Tiananmen sculpture row a ‘litmus test for HE autonomy’

A sculpture on the campus of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) in memory of the Tiananmen Square Massacre of students in Beijing, China, on 4 June 1989 remains standing this week despite a deadline passing for its removal.

The delay is apparently due to legal issues, but the furore caused by the university’s attempt to ‘censor’ the artwork and have it removed has raised questions about the institution’s autonomy and reputation for freedom.

The towering sculpture that has stood on campus since 1997 was ordered to be removed by 13 October via a letter from a United States-based law firm Mayer Brown acting on behalf of the university’s administration.

The eight-metre tall work of art known as the ‘Pillar of Shame’ depicts 50 intertwined bodies of democracy protesters and has ‘The Tiananmen Massacre’,’June 4th 1989’ and ‘The old cannot kill the young forever’ engraved into the base.

On 4 June 1989, military tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square in Beijing after weeks of student protests, leaving hundreds dead. However, the events of 1989 have been a taboo topic in mainland China, which has never revealed the death toll.

The deadline passed without the sculpture being removed from the campus. A statement from HKU’s administration on 13 October close to the deadline time said: “We are still seeking legal advice and working with related parties to handle the matter in a legal and reasonable manner.”

John Burns, honorary professor at HKU and former dean of HKU’s faculty of social sciences from 2011 to 2017, said in a commentary published on 9 October: “The presence of the artwork on the HKU campus symbolises the university’s autonomy. It reminds us that civil society, of which HKU is a part, is free to come to its own conclusions about June 4, 1989.”

He said the university “should be aware that removing the statue is a political act which would symbolise a loss of autonomy for HKU and carry a high risk”.

“HKU without the Pillar of Shame telegraphs to students and staff, alumni, and the rest of Hong Kong, China, and the world, that the university does not value its relative autonomy. Removing the statue risks damaging the university’s reputation as a place where critical inquiry is welcome.”

An HKU academic speaking on condition of anonymity said the fact that the statue was not removed this week was unlikely to be a reprieve and that the sculpture would eventually be forced off the campus.

“From a symbol of Tiananmen and repression it has become a symbol of repression and declining university autonomy in Hong Kong,” he said, referring to political pressure put on the university by pro-Beijing groups.

HKU informs Alliance

HKU management informed the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China via a US-based legal firm on 7 October that it had until Wednesday 5pm to remove the artwork or else it would be deemed abandoned. The university said the move was based on its “assessment of legal risks” in the light of the alliance’s dissolution.

The alliance, which had existed since 1989 when it first held a fundraising concert for students then marching in Beijing and has since 1989 organised an annual candlelit vigil in Hong Kong in memory of the 4 June massacre, announced after an emergency general meeting on 25 September that it would disband.

The national security department of the Hong Kong police arrested seven members of the alliance on 8 and 9 September who were suspected of violating “relevant offences under the Hong Kong national security law”, the police said in a statement on 9 September.

The alliance as an organisation and its three top leaders, Lee Cheuk-yan, Albert Ho and Chow Hang-tung, have been charged with “incitement to subversion”. The group denies it is a threat to national security.

National security police have frozen the alliance’s assets including the June 4th Museum in Hong Kong with artefacts and photographs from the 1989 movement in Beijing.

In a statement on 8 October, HKU’s administration said the sculpture belonged to an external organisation that had announced it was disbanding, and management had asked it to remove the piece.

The university has said it will regularly revise the use of facilities on the campus.

Richard Tsoi Yiu-cheong, former vice chairman of the alliance, and Elizabeth Tang, who are in charge of liquidating the group’s assets, said they received the letter on 7 October asking the group to the remove sculpture from the university premises.

‘Attempt to erase memory’ of Tiananmen

Tsoi, who was also a former vice-chair of Hong Kong’s now defunct Democratic Party, said he “strongly opposed” any plans to remove the statue, which would be seen as an attempt to erase the memory of the massacre.

“Many of the Hong Kong people treat the Pillar of Shame as a symbol or image about June 4,” Tsoi told the online newspaper Hong Kong Free Press. “Any removal of the Pillar of Shame will definitely give the impression that the university authorities are trying to erase all the ideas and also the image [of] June 4 in Hong Kong.”

But complicating matters, the artwork’s Danish sculptor Jens Galschiøt claims ownership of the statue, saying it was on permanent loan to the alliance. Galschiøt said he has contacted lawyers in Hong Kong and will consider taking action if the sculpture is damaged.

“It will take a long time to move the sculpture,” Galschiøt said in a statement on 9 October.

“It is an extremely valuable piece of art, which after 24 years probably is a bit frail. Therefore, there is a great possibility that the work of art will suffer irreparable damage if handled by any others than experts in handling art.” He added that HKU “risks incurring a claim of compensation”.

Jerome Cohen, professor emeritus at New York University School of Law and an expert on China law, said via Twitter on 13 October that the sculptor could seek a court suspension of the implementation of the university’s demand, “so the courts too will be brought into the arena”.

“Also noteworthy is the intimidation evidenced by the muted student and faculty reaction to removal of the statue,” Cohen said. “No one wants to join the many already in jail for speaking out against the new oppression.”

In the past year HKU has removed pro-democracy displays around the campus and forced its student union to shut down. Four of its students were arrested and charged with “advocating terrorism” under the national security law.

Resonance in Hong Kong

The Beijing students’ call for democracy in 1989 had strong resonance in Hong Kong, where people protested in large numbers in the streets against the military’s action, and donated substantial sums to support the students in Beijing which helped them flee.

Much of the money raised was managed by the alliance, an umbrella organisation of representatives of 212 local labour, religious, political and community-based groups that have kept the memory of the massacre alive through annual vigils.

Police banned the 4 June candlelight vigil this year and in 2020, citing public health concerns related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Louisa Lim, senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne in Australia, and author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia, a book on Beijing’s attempts to expunge the memory of the 1989 killings within China, said the moves to shut down Tiananmen memorials, such as the vigil, signalled Beijing’s keenness to expand the veil of silence surrounding 4 June 1989 to Hong Kong.

The Pillar of Shame “plays its own role in that political calendar, forming a central role in campus memorial activities”, she noted in an opinion article this week. She was referring to an annual ritual by students to wash the statue.

“In requesting the removal of the Pillar of Shame, Hong Kong University is bowing down to the post-National Security Law reality and signalling that it will sacrifice its century-old tradition of academic freedom and critical inquiry in the interests of self-preservation,” according to Lim.

“The acquiescence of HKU in urging the removal of the Pillar of Shame signals its submission, not just to the rewriting of history, but to the reorienting of its educational purpose in this new era of national security,” she added.

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam, who is the chancellor of the city’s public universities, had said she would not interfere in the matter.

University World News Asia Editor Yojana Sharma contributed to this article.