Tiananmen Square

Flanked to the east and west by stern 1950s Soviet-style buildings and ringed by white perimeter fences that channel the hoi polloi towards periodic security checks and bag searches, the world’s largest public square (440,000 sq metres) is a vast desert of paving stones at the heart of Běijīng. The square is also a poignant epitaph to China’s hapless democracy movement, which got a drubbing from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in June 1989.

The designated points of access and occasional security checks immediately suggest that this is no Trafalgar Square. Unlike London’s famous plaza, Tiananmen Square is cut off somehow from the city – it is obsessively monitored to quickly suffocate any signs of dissent, beggars and vagrants are kept at bay, and a tangible mood of restraint and discipline reigns. In some ways the square symbolises the China of today. Which means the square is hardly a relaxing place, but there’s more than enough space to stretch a leg and the view can be simply breathtaking, especially on a clear, blue day and at nightfall when the square is illuminated.

Height restrictions mean that surrounding buildings are all low, allowing largely uninterrupted views of the dome of the sky (unlike Shànghǎi’s People’s Square). Kites flit through the sky, children stamp around on the paving slabs and Chinese out-of-towners huddle together for the obligatory photo opportunity with the great helmsman’s portrait. On National Day (1 October), Tiananmen Square is simply packed. Tiananmen Square as we see it today is a modern creation and there is precious little sense of history. During Ming and Qing times part of the Imperial City Wall (Huáng Chéng) called the Thousand Foot Corridor (Qiānbù Láng) poked deep into the space today occupied by the square, enclosing a section of the imperial domain. The wall took a ‘T’ shape, emerging from the two huge, now absent, gates that rose up south of the Gate of Heavenly Peace – Chang’an Zuo Gate and Chang’an You Gate – before running south to the vanished Daming Gate (Dàmíng Mén). Called Daqing Gate during the Qing dynasty and Zhonghua Gate during the Republic, the Daming Gate had three watchtowers and upturned eaves and was guarded by a pair of stone lions. It was pulled down after 1949, a fate similarly reserved for Chang’an Zuo Gate and Chang’an You Gate. East and west of the Thousand Foot Corridor stood official departments and temples, including the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of Revenue, Honglu Temple and Taichang Temple. Mao conceived the square to project the enormity of the Communist Party, so it’s all a bit Kim Il Sung–ish. During the Cultural Revolution, the chairman, wearing a Red Guard armband, reviewed parades of up to a million people here.

The ‘Tiananmen Incident’ is the term given to the near riot in the square that accompanied the death of Premier Zhou Enlai in 1976. Another million people jammed the square to pay their last respects to Mao in September that year. In 1989 army tanks and soldiers forced pro-democracy demonstrators out of the square. Although it seems likely that no one was actually killed within the square itself, hundreds, possibly thousands, were slaughtered outside the square. During the 10th anniversary of the 1989 demonstrations, the square was shut for renovations. Despite being a public place, the square remains more in the hands of the government than the people; it is monitored by closed-circuit TV cameras, and plain-clothes police can move faster than the Shànghǎi maglev if anyone strips down to a ‘Free Tibet’ T-shirt. Like historic Běijīng, the square is laid out on a north–south axis. Threading through Front Gate to the south, the square’s meridian line is straddled by the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, cuts through the Gate of Heavenly Peace (Tiānānmén) – the gate that lends its name to the square – to the north, and cleaves through the Forbidden City. In the square, one stands in the symbolic centre of the Chinese universe. The rectangular arrangement, flanked by halls to both east and west, to some extent echoes the layout of the Forbidden City. As such, the square employs a conventional plan that pays obeisance to traditional Chinese culture, but its ornaments and buildings are largely Soviet-inspired. West of the Great Hall of the People, the National Grand Theatre – with its controversial styling and out-of-place looks – resembles something from another solar system.

If you get up early you can watch the flag-raising ceremony at sunrise, performed by a troop of PLA soldiers drilled to march at precisely 108 paces per minute, 75cm per pace. The soldiers emerge through the Gate of Heavenly Peace to goosestep faultlessly across Chang’an Jie as all traffic is halted. The same ceremony in reverse is performed at sunset. Ask at your hotel for flag-raising/-lowering times so you can get there early, as crowds can be quite intense. Unless you want a map you’ll have to sidestep determined map sellers and their confederates – the incessant learners of English – and just say no to the ‘poor’ art students press ganging tourists to view their exhibitions; fending them off can be draining. Avoid invitations to tea houses, unless you want to pay in excess of US$400 dollars for the experience. Bicycles cannot be ridden across Tiananmen Square, but you can walk your bike. Traffic is one way for north–south avenues on either side of the square.