BEIJING - Unless you’ve been married in a large church or have appeared live on a stage in front of hundreds or thousands of people, it’s hard to describe what countless pairs of eyes suddenly trained on your every move actually feels like. If you would have headed down to Tiananmen Square on this particular day, however, you would have a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about.  

I hadn’t planned to mark this June 4th in Beijing in any particular way. But work ended early, and my subway trip home takes me directly under Tiananmen Square. At a time when the younger generation in China has little or no idea what happened in the capital 20 years ago, and the older generations just want to forget about it, I decided a stop at the infamous landmark was in order.   

Like many Westerners, I have read some books and articles and have seen plenty of TV news coverage from that day in 1989. After arriving in China over four years ago, I even got my hands on some photographs that were taken, at great risk, by a witness to that tragic event. Today, however, was my first direct attempt at on-the-ground contact with this iconic public place on such a sensitive day.

I did my best to look like a tourist in my own city: backpack, shorts, sunglasses and a bottle of water. For added effect, I intermittently swung my head back and forth and hung my lower jaw half open to make the attempt at a tourist impersonation more convincing.

As I ascended from Tiananmen West station, the first thing I expected to see was an immense amount of security – and I wasn’t disappointed. Amid the thinner-than-usual crowds were the usual contingent of local police and slow marching PLA soldiers. On any given day in Tiananmen, you will also see a healthy smattering of plain clothes security personnel. Today there were legions of them. Aside from the standard issue dress shirt and slacks, they weren’t even trying to blend in. If the rather large CPC pins they were each wearing wasn’t a give away, then the rather girlish summer umbrellas each of them was carrying certainly was. Altogether, the number of security personnel easily matched the number of tourists. As I strolled eastward, I glanced back to see if I was being followed. I don’t think I was. It wouldn’t have mattered though, since each plain clothes cop was stationed about ten feet away from the next one. Their penetrating, suspicious-of-anything eyes followed every step I took. 

Just past the looming portrait of Mao, I stopped for a moment and surveyed the area to the south. I remembered that famous photo of the man in front of a line of tanks, taken just meters away from where I was standing. The photo has become an indelible symbol of what the iron grip of China’s communist party is capable of. I recalled a recent interview in the Wall Street Journal with Bao Tong, who, in 1989, was the top aide to General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. Zhao would later be purged from the party for his more lenient policy of dealing with the students. Like many such political dissidents, the 76-year old Bao remains under house arrest to this day. Of course as a Westerner, beyond the first-hand accounts I have read and some graphic photos I’ve seen, it is difficult for me to comprehend what really took place in the square that night. 

That’s probably just fine for the Communist Party of China. An event that Westerners like me might find difficult to comprehend is probably more like some old folktale for hundreds of millions of young Chinese. In numerous conversations I’ve had with 20- and 30-something Chinese over the past few years, the "counter-revolutionary riot", as the authorities like to call it, barely registers. Bao calls it the result of a methodical and monumental effort to keep it from the minds of younger generations - that, and plenty of “economic leverage”. Bao believes that the Chinese government has used economic leverage to keep the Chinese of today thinking about their own futures, and not about the dubious moments of their government’s past. Call it a colossal form of national bribery. 

The Tiananmen massacre was 20 years ago, but Bao says it is still here. He says there are “little Tiananmens” across the country every day. Ongoing corruption and heavy-handed police-style suppression and intimidation keep the common people on a short leash, he argues. In the end, Bao says an official reassessment of the Tiananmen “incident” is the only way China can remain stable and move forward with its credibility intact. 

On this day in Tiananmen, however, an official reassessment seems a long way off. The government largely has its coveted, albeit precarious, hold on stability and growing numbers of Chinese feel like they are moving forward, economically at least. 

As I approached the entrance to Tiananmen East station, the only public display of grief I saw was a young lady crouched on the sidewalk next to a lamppost. She had her face cupped in her hand, but instead of remembering the hundreds – possibly thousands – of students and workers who were indiscriminately gunned down here 20 years ago, I suspect she was simply trying to cope with a mild case of heatstroke.  

Twenty years after an event here that shook the world, everything at Tiananmen Square seems pretty quiet and under control. Just the way the government wants it.