By Hong Soon-do, Beijing correspondent, AsiaToday - June 4 marks the 27th anniversary of the 1989 military crackdown on student-led democracy protests on Tiananmen Square. The massacre is a well-known even in the Western world. Then it is natural for China to hold events to honor victims, although being a country under the rule of the Communist Party. All the more so because there had been such movements among anti-Communist figures and students few years ago.

A lone demonstrator stands down a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square in1989./ Source: AsiaToday

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However, such trend has almost disappeared these days according to Western sources in Beijing on Monday. Every year in the weeks leading up to June 4, there used to be gatherings to mark the event. Not anymore. It's no longer easy to find Chinese police waging a clampdown on those who try to mark the anniversary of the Tiananmen protests as before.

Moreover, there are many young Chinese who don't know anything about the Tiananmen protests. Very few of them would pay attention to the incident. This is why it doesn't seem strange to see very few anti-China protests held by Hong Kong's pro-democracy advocates and exiled dissidents.

Well, there are reasons for this. Most of all, the Chinese government has tried to expunge the incident from history for 27 years. Besides it has to do with the fact that many young Chinese people don't pay much attention to political issues.

Tiananmen Square/ Source: search engine Baidu

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But the biggest reason lies in the fact that many Chinese people don't have much trouble living in China today. They live in a socialist country in name only, where they don't experience any discomfort unless they get too interested in political issues. Besides, China is one of the fewest promised lands in the world where there are plenty of chances of becoming rich overnight. Perhaps it's a wiser thought for them to eye on Renmibi rather than Tiananmen incident. This trend is likely to continue in the future. We could say that it's only a matter of time before the Tiananmen incident memories fade away completely in China.