Former People's Liberation Army officer Xiaoming Li, whose unit was deployed to Beijing in 1989 to help suppress the Tiananmen Square protests, says he never fired a shot but remains deeply burdened with guilt over his role in the operation. He came to Australia in 2000 and is believed to be the first Chinese soldier to publicly confront the Communist Party’s crackdown when he first shared his story back in 2002.

In response to the 4th June 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, Australian pastor Bill Crews opened his church as a registration centre after then-Prime Minister Bob Hawke offered to let Chinese students remain in Australia for their safety. He continued to support the pro-democracy cause, erecting a statue of the Goddess of Democracy in his church and holding annual memorials. “Freedom is like the wind — it comes and it goes,” Bill said. “There’s always somebody, always another dictator, wanting to take away your freedom. The only way we can stand up to it is to remember what’s been done in the past, stand up to it, and not accept it again.”

Around 42,000 Chinese students were eventually granted permanent visas under Hawke’s policy.

For SBS Chinese.