STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
China celebrated its National Day this week, marking 75 years since Chairman Mao proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic.
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MAO ZEDONG: (Speaking Mandarin).
INSKEEP: We're hearing a speech he gave at Tiananmen, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, in Beijing. Mao's 1949 speech is just one of the pivotal events that took place there. In 1989, soldiers violently removed protesters from Tiananmen Square. China has changed a lot over the years, and Tiananmen Square has reflected that change. NPR's John Ruwitch tried to visit.
JOHN RUWITCH, BYLINE: Going on to Tiananmen Square used to be pretty easy.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #1: We are now arriving at Tiananmen Dong.
RUWITCH: These days, not so much. I tried this summer.
There was an ID check to get off of the subway, and now there's an ID check to walk down the sidewalk after coming out of the subway. This one required an appointment at least one day in advance.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #2: (Speaking in Mandarin).
RUWITCH: After two more checks, police turned me away. Foreign reporters, they said, are not allowed on the square without special permission. Tiananmen was built in the 15th century. The square at its feet started gathering modern political significance with student-led protests in 1919. The Communist Party would celebrate those protests and the square...
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UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing in non-English language).
RUWITCH: ...Which it expanded into the world's biggest. Yu Shuishan is a professor at Northeastern University.
YU SHUISHAN: That all happened in the 1950s, basically to prepare for 1959, which is the 10th anniversary.
RUWITCH: The 10th anniversary of Mao's proclamation. He says the party had a model in mind.
YU: Basically, copying the Moscow.
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RUWITCH: They wanted it to be like Red Square. During the Cultural Revolution, there were mass rallies in Tiananmen Square. And that's where China holds military parades, including, five years ago, for the 70th anniversary.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting in non-English language).
RUWITCH: The protest tradition continued, too, in the late '70s and '80s.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Spread out in front of me is the most amazing sit-in in history.
RUWITCH: This is NPR coverage from the spring of 1989.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Students have turned this entire square into their own city.
RUWITCH: And then...
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: Armored columns of troops smashed their way through barricades and entered Tiananmen Square.
RUWITCH: After the crackdown, security was dialed up. There were occasional demonstrations through the '90s and early 2000s, but most were small and smothered quickly by police. Then, in 2013, there was another turning point.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: Extremists, who authorities say were linked to an Islamist separatist movement, drove an SUV through the crowd at the top of the square, leaving several people dead. Metal detectors and X-ray machines went in. Finally, early on in the pandemic, the authorities added the online booking system. On a side street, I meet Mr. Liu. He's 69 and has lived near the square his whole life. He would only tell me his surname, though, because he was worried about speaking frankly to a foreign journalist.
LIU: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: In the past, he says, you could do anything in Tiananmen Square.
LIU: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: Today, you can't. Elizabeth Perry is a professor at Harvard University. She says the tight security reflects the insecurities of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has purged rivals and presided over a weak economy.
ELIZABETH PERRY: Not that the party ever welcomed popular protest, but could certainly live with it. But I think that that sense has now disappeared.
RUWITCH: I was still interested in going onto the square, so I asked the government for permission. About a week later, my request was granted.
We finally made it to Tiananmen Square. We're standing in front of the Mao picture on the north end of the square.
UNIDENTIFIED TOURIST: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: I posed for a snapshot with some tourists.
UNIDENTIFIED TOURIST: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: But we didn't talk. I was accompanied by a government minder and a police officer, and I'd been told that interviews were off limits.
John Ruwitch, NPR News, Beijing.
(SOUNDBITE OF DRXNK'S "BY THE SEA") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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