Every year since 1989, tens of thousands of protesters have organized a candlelight vigil in Victoria Park, an oasis of green ringed with towering apartment and office blocks in Hong Kong’s bustling commercial district Causeway Bay.

On the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre every year, the park fills with tens of thousands of demonstrators, their faces illuminated by flickering candles. At its center, surrounded by funeral wreaths, stand replicas of the Goddess of Democracy and the Monument to the People’s Heroes, the column standing in the middle of Tiananmen Square where the students in 1989 made their last stand as the People’s Liberation Army tanks closed in. 

Members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement in China and Hong Kong’s pan-democrat politicians give speeches and lead the crowd in patriotic songs from the Tiananmen era.

The Communist Party of China has always been very conscious of the connection between history and power. To that end, the suppression of pro-democracy protesters by the People’s Liberation Armys in Beijing on June 4, 1989 — the events history has come to refer to as the Tiananmen Massacre — have been very carefully edited out of China’s official narrative.