IN Tiananmen Square yesterday evening I could still hear in my mind the sound I will always associate with the high point of the 1989 student democracy protests - the wail of sirens as ambulances carried away fainting hunger strikers through corridors of densely-packed people.
At 8.30 p.m. there was nothing to indicate that at precisely this time eight years ago troops were firing into crowds in streets around the square, and the air was filled with the scream of sirens as people fell dead and injured in a brutal crackdown which has coloured our perceptions of China's leadership to this day.
A few people flew kites in the darkness. Country people took photographs where monuments were lit up. Local couples strolled by, some in their late 20s and who must have been around on that terrible night.
All was peaceful and orderly. The red neon clock on the edge of the vast expanse signalled 28 days to the return of Hong Kong.
Only the western press was aware that a few voices have been raised inside China in recent days calling for a reassessment of what Beijing labelled "counter-revolutionary turmoil".
Shea Liangqing (35), who served four years for his role in the protests, said yesterday in Anhui province that he wrote to the National Peoples Congress this week demanding a reassessment of June 4th. "It could bring me trouble but I don't care," the former prosecutor said.
The wives of two jailed Shanghai democracy activists, Yao Zhenxian (43), and Yao Zhenxiang (47), also sent parliament a petition calling for the release of the two men, saying they had been driven "beyond the limits of forbearance" by their ill-treatment at the hands of police. The brothers were sentenced to three years in 1996 for illegally leaving China and distributing pornographic material.
Tonight's huge annual candle-lit vigil in Hong Kong's Victoria Park to remember the victims of June 4th will be particularly poignant as the last before China assumes sovereignty over the territory. Demonstrators will erect a "Pillar of Shame", a statue of twisted bodies symbolising oppression.
Hong Kong's chief-executive designate, Mr Tung Chee-hwa, said future lawful demonstrations would be allowed but people should put the "baggage" of June 4th behind them.
Though this is the first anniversary of Tiananmen since the death of Deng Xiaoping, who gave the order to end the protests, there are few signs of any in the Beijing leadership assuming that they have more freedom of action in dealing with the legacy of the most serious challenge to communist rule since 1949. Asked if there was a reassessment going on, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mr Shea Guofeng told a regular briefing of correspondents yesterday that the verdict had already been given in the courts.
Amnesty International yesterday called on China to take the chance afforded by the passing of Deng Xiaoping in February to reconsider the crackdown. The human rights group accused China of continuing to harass bereaved relatives and dissidents.
Diplomats in Beijing are puzzled by the court decision. The dissidents are not well known, and the ruling does not seem to have been aimed at international opinion. But one Asian envoy said it was a straw in the wind, and could indicate internal debate.
The mood in China is determined less by political debate than by the prevailing money-making ethos. The only prospect of unrest comes from workers losing their jobs in bankrupt state enterprises. But they have no organisation. Potential leaders face prison. On May 30th a court in Shenzhen jailed two labour activists for 3 1/2 years each for conspiring to subvert the government.