President Joe Biden’s State Department issued a neutered version of its annual Tiananmen Square massacre remembrance message over the weekend ahead of meetings with top Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials in Beijing.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement Saturday marking the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, lauding the strength of the protesters who were slaughtered and promising to continue fighting for human rights in China and elsewhere. In 2022, however, the administration issued a lengthier, more forceful statement that bashed the CCP for current human rights abuses.
Blinken dropped all of the references linking the Tiananmen Square massacre to modern day CCP oppression in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet in this year’s statement https://t.co/UAIQ8AQCJj
— Jerry Dunleavy 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) June 5, 2023
The 2021 statement included similar language, including direct references to abuses in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang, where the CCP is imprisoning as many as one million Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps.
“Today, the struggle for democracy and freedom continues to echo in Hong Kong, where the annual vigil to commemorate the massacre in Tiananmen Square was banned by the PRC and Hong Kong authorities in an attempt to suppress the memories of that day,” the 2021 statement read. “We will continue to speak out and promote accountability for PRC atrocities and human rights abuses, including those in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet.”
This year’s statement makes no mention of Hong Kong, Xinjiang or Tibet and instead makes a single vague reference to fighting for human rights in China. “The United States will continue advocating for people’s human rights and fundamental freedoms in China and around the world,” the statement concluded. (RELATED: Watch Chinese Fighter Jet Buzz American Spy Plane Above South China Sea)
The statement was issued within 48 hours of Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink and National Security Council Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs Sarah Beran meeting with CCP officials in Beijing on Monday.
The two were joined by Biden’s ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, for meetings with high-level CCP policy officials, although the State Department did not provide much detail on what those meetings covered. The State Department’s statement simply said the diplomats “made clear that the United States would compete vigorously and stand up for U.S. interests and values.”