By Jill Drew
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 12, 2008; A01

BEIJING, Aug. 11 -- The Tiananmen Square that Liu Xiaobo knows is not the same one Olympics fans are seeing on television.

With a jubilant, 55-foot-high "Beijing 2008" sign revolving at its center and 1 million newly placed potted flowers, the square this week and next is the scene of graceful dance and sports performances most mornings, a fairyland of colored-light displays each night.

Liu's Tiananmen harks back to June 4, 1989, when the Chinese government deployed troops and tanks to crush pro-democracy demonstrations, killing hundreds, if not thousands, of people in the square and nearby streets.

Though he lives in Beijing, Liu has not returned to the square since that night. It is still too painful.

"It is very hard to change the image of Tiananmen in people's hearts, just by adding green plants, flowers and statues," said Liu, 53, an adviser to the student demonstrators nearly 20 years ago.

But a reinvention of Tiananmen is precisely what the Chinese government is seeking. And of all the public image campaigns it is pushing during the Games -- the green China, the modern China, the harmonious China -- the carefully manicured presentation of a new Tiananmen is the boldest, and perhaps trickiest, of all.

"The theme is 'The whole world happily greets the great events of the Olympics, reform and opening up to create a harmonious period,' " Qiang Jian, the deputy chief of the Beijing office in charge of beautifying the square for the Olympics, told reporters the week before the Games opened.

To preserve its approved picture, the government has limited live broadcasts from the square to certain hours of the day and banned live interviews. Officials also tried to require foreign journalists to register before working at Tiananmen, though that plan seemed to fizzle when many reporters simply ignored the notice.

Police and paramilitary officers patrolling the square are careful to use plainclothes officials and neighborhood volunteers to tussle with the few protesters who have succeeded in staging small demonstrations in recent days, to be sure no photos are taken of those in uniform using force.

The Chinese public knows very well not to mention the events of June 1989. "It is not discussable," said Liu, who knows because he spent nearly five years in prison and labor camps for refusing to remain silent.

The forced amnesia is perpetuated in Chinese schools, where the lessons of the Tiananmen massacre are not taught in history class. If it is mentioned at all, students are instructed that some soldiers lost their lives putting down an unruly anti-government mob.

Instead, students are taught to think of Tiananmen in terms of the founding of the People's Republic of China, which Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong announced in 1949 as he stood atop Tiananmen Gate. The generation of students graduating college these days grew up singing a song with the words: "I love Tiananmen in Beijing, the sun rises from Tiananmen, great leader Chairman Mao guides us to go forward."

The contrast between what Chinese tourists and foreign tourists say about Tiananmen is stark.

"Tiananmen represents the whole China. It symbolizes world peace," Yang Lei, a 21-year-old chef from northern Jilin province, said as he wandered through the flower displays last week. "For those who haven't seen China, they will see this and feel China is great."

"It's a place all people dream to come to," said Wang Yan, 37, smiling as she held a blue umbrella to protect her mother from the sun. "It holds the highest place in Chinese people's hearts."

Niki Sterrit, a 21-year-old from Cork, Ireland, said the Chinese students she taught in an English-language program in central Henan province this summer made similar comments when she asked them about the square. "They didn't know anything about what happened here," Sterrit said on her first visit to Beijing this past weekend. "Obviously, it was the first thing I thought about, that this was where the massacre occurred. I got here and just felt, wow, wow, it's all about the Olympics. There's nothing here about history."

Mike Ridley, a tourist from Sydney, surveyed the square and said: "I see the revolution of 1989. Though they've sterilized everything, everybody knows about it."

Liu agreed. "Although the government always tries to do so, they cannot hide the facts," he said. "My generation still remembers very clearly, though most won't say so publicly."

Internet searches about Tiananmen are blocked in China, but Liu said the younger generation is still learning about the massacre online, using proxy servers to get around government restrictions.

Wang Dan, one of the 1989 student leaders, said he is angry about the years the government has spent covering up the massacre. He spent seven years in Chinese prisons for his role in the protests, before being exiled to the United States, where he campaigns for human rights and democracy.

"If people do not understand their history, they will become shallow, rootless," he said. "When a country is emerging, like China, the passion of nationalism will head in a direction that's more and more aggressive. Only if people understand history -- especially the bad memories of history -- will the nation become more modest."

Wang said he supports China's hosting the Olympic Games. "I think a civil society is emerging in China, and I think the international community should engage with that society," he said.

Neither Wang nor Liu, however, sees any hope that the Chinese government will open a dialogue on Tiananmen any time soon. "The government lacks the confidence," Wang said. "It's very clear a crime was committed against the people. They're afraid of being blamed."

Ding Zilin, the mother of one of those killed at Tiananmen, has documented the deaths of 189 people in the June 4 crackdown, which she and others believe is a fraction of the actual death toll. Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, estimates that about 130 prisoners are still being held for their roles in the 1989 protests. Liu said he knows of eight people serving life sentences.

"I never felt I sacrificed very much," Liu said. "I am always trying to find justice for the people who died. Sometimes that means I am detained in a small prison. Sometimes I live in a bigger prison, which is the society of current China."

Fang Zheng lives his life in a wheelchair, a double amputee whose legs were crushed by a tank as he tried to escape that night. It wasn't just the tank treads that changed his life; it was also the "cleanup campaign" launched by his university that required each participant in the protest to write a personal account.

"I wrote about the tank rolling over me," Fang said. "The school leaders asked me not to write about that. They wanted me to change it to a car accident or something. I didn't agree. I wanted to be responsible for the truth."

After a lengthy physical rehabilitation, Fang trained as a discus and javelin thrower. He won two gold medals in an all-China competition in 1992. When he applied to compete in an international event to be held in Beijing in 1994, the Chinese Disabled Persons' Federation made him promise not to discuss his injury with other athletes or foreign journalists. He also had to promise not to contact any friends in Beijing, since they might have been with him in Tiananmen.

Fang agreed to all the conditions, but the government excluded him anyway. "I never gave up my sports dream, but in 1994, my dream was broken," said Fang, now 41.

"The government wants to convey a message to show the world a prosperous and emerging China," Fang said. "It's not wrong. But the prosperity cannot hide some problems."

Researchers Liu Songjie, Zhang Jie and Crissie Ding contributed to this report.