On Tuesday, the Southern Metropolis Daily published this picture. It was part of a cartoon meant for International Children’s Day. But what most saw was the resemblance to another photo—the photo of the “Tank Man” taken on June 4, 1989.

21 years later, this photo remains an iconic symbol of the Chinese Communist Party's brutal military crackdown on democracy activists in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

In contrast, the drawing in the Southern Metropolis Daily was quickly taken down from its website.

Zhang Kaichen is a former Chinese propaganda official who defected to the United States last year. He says the removal of the Southern Metropolis drawing is part of the Chinese regime’s 21-year policy of banning public discussion of the Tiananmen incident.

[Zhang Kaichen, Former Liaoning Propaganda Official]
“Whenever June 4th comes up, the central propaganda department, or provincial department, will definitely send through notices, or telephone directions, that there needs to be strict control during this period, and that we need to actively monitor and tell various media outlets that nothing on this subject can be published. This is an explicit rule.”

Tang Baiqiao was a student leader from Hunan province during the 1989 democracy movement. After the Tiananmen bloodshed, he was arrested and sentenced on so-called “counter-revolutionary” charges. He fled to the U.S. in 1992 and got political asylum. Tang believes the Chinese regime wants to keep a closed lid on the subject because it cannot admit to the Chinese public that what it did was wrong.

[Tang Baiqiao, Student Leader in 1989 Democracy Movement]
“Former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s daughter said her father regretted what happened afterwards. But messages like this can only be said to Westerners, and it cannot be said inside China. Why? Because the entire population would ask, ‘Why do you not redress June 4? If even if your own people believe it was wrong, why can’t you redress it through proper channels…If the student activists were right, do you need to apologize, or compensate families of the victims; mourn the victims; or investigate the truth of this piece of history, punish the perpetrators…’ Because the CCP dares not take this series of actions, it dares not admit it was wrong.”

At least hundreds were killed in the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989. Families of those who died have been demanding an investigation into what happened, because the Chinese regime has not acknowledged the large number of deaths.

Every year, in the days leading up to the June 4 anniversary, Tiananmen Square is placed under heavy police watch. Domestic dissidents are monitored but no official mention is made of the 1989 Tiananmen bloodshed. The Chinese regime may want the public to forget about the incident, but it still plagues the minds of those in power.

Karen Chang, NTD News, New York.