I WAS in Beijing on June 4th 1989, when the People's Liberation Army stormed into the city to end student-led demonstrations. They used tanks and automatic weapons and left many dead. And I have lived here ever since. Like most foreign reporters, in the years that followed I marked each June 4th anniversary with a story about how people remembered the bloody denouement that ended those weeks of tumult, mass protest and high political drama; about how, in subtle ways, they sought to commemorate those events publicly; and about how, in not-so-subtle ways, the government sought to stop them. In 1996, I started thinking that observance of the June 4th anniversary story was no longer obligatory. It was a remark made by a student I interviewed at Beijing University, one of the key incubators of the 1989 protest movement, that changed my mind. “We have other things to worry about. I need to concentrate on my studies and think about where I will be seven years from now, not about what happened seven years ago,” she said. Since that time, the approach and passage of the anniversary has generally been less fraught and less tense. Round-number anniversaries in 1999 and 2009 attracted more attention, and the event has always been commemorated with vigils in Hong Kong. And of course a relentless core group of mainland activists has persisted in their underdog's campaign for remembrance, accountability and redress. Foremost among these are the Tiananmen Mothers, a group of relatives of those who were injured or killed in the 1989 crackdown. But to a surprising degree, the official campaign to shove 1989 down the memory hole has succeeded. Through their near-monopoly control of the media and educational materials, and their intimidation and suppression of those who would challenge the official version of events, authorities have made the story fade, faster than its advancing years would seem to allow. So far as I have gauged it, I've found the forced forgetfulness to be distressing.

With this year's anniversary however comes evidence that the ministers of propaganda have not succeeded in making “6-4” disappear entirely. Though it has not been one of those attention-getting round-numbered ones, the 23rd anniversary has seen an uptick in June 4th-related news and remembrance. The Hong Kong vigil attracted scores of thousands, and smaller-scale attempts to commemorate the killings were mounted (and quickly broken up) in cities on the mainland.

For days leading up to the anniversary, internet-speeds slowed as filtering and monitoring were stepped up. The police presence was heavy not only in Tiananmen square itself, but also farther afield. I passed through two police checkpoints on Sunday, while driving back to Beijing from neighbouring Tianjin. I also saw police nervously standing guard by a crowd that had gathered around some street musicians on Monday—some 15km away from Tiananmen.

In one especially bizarre episode, yesterday officials blocked internet searches on the term “Shanghai Composite Index”. As it happened, China's leading stock exchange had reported a drop of 64.89 points for the day. The odd correlation of those digits, to June 4th, 1989 (ie “6/4/89”) surely marks a wild coincidence, if not an instance of extremely clever caper. Those who think it was mischief point out that the index was reported to have opened for the day at 2346.98, an improbable-seeming combination of all the day's most sensitive digits.

In a more solemn development, in late May the Tiananmen Mothers announced that one of its members, a 73-year-old man named Ya Weilin, had hanged himself in an underground car park. He died in despair over the lack of redress for death of his 22-year-old son, Ya Aiguo, who was shot in 1989. According to the group, the elder Mr Ya was a retired government employee in good health who “ended his life in such a resolute way to protest the government's brutality.”

And on June 1st one of the key officials who had been in power during the events of 1989 went public with a drastic rewrite of the story. Chen Xitong was mayor of Beijing at the time and, as much as anyone, became the public face of the official argument: that the protests were the result of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy orchestrated by a few foreign-backed “black hands”; and the government's response was correct and unavoidable.

Mr Chen was removed from power in 1995 in a spectacular corruption scandal, having nothing to do with Tiananmen in 1989. In a new book published in Hong Kong he says that June 4th was a tragedy that could have and should have been avoided. While he acknowledges that it was handled improperly, he says that he had little to do with the decision-making. Less than one month after the violence, he had been the one to read aloud the government's report. In these newly published interviews he insists that every word of that statement—indeed every mark of punctuation—was written by others, and that he had no choice but to read it.

The explanation for this year's somewhat tetchier-than-usual observance of the June 4th anniversary may well be connected to the sort of elite-level political discord that is on display in Mr Chen's interviews. He now appears to confirm what had seemed obvious at the time: that the turbulence on the streets of Beijing was tied to turbulence in the corridors of power. Events, Mr Chen said, “stemmed from the internal struggle at the top level and led to a tragedy nobody wanted to see.”

As for today, Mr Chen points to continued divisions within the highest leadership over the history of 1989. His account is of course highly self-serving and impossible to verify. Even so, intimations of this sort must be especially unwelcome to his colleagues now. China is poised for its once-a-decade leadership transition later this year, and the boat has already been rocked by the spectacular fall from grace of Bo Xilai. Mr Bo had been a top contender for a spot in the new leadership but now finds himself in political and legal limbo, with a wife accused of murder and a senior deputy suspected of having made a desperate, treasonous dash to an American consulate.

Further infighting over the history of Tiananmen would seem to be the last thing party leaders want to grapple with. But if Mr Chen is to be believed, they shall have to sooner or later. It “is only a matter of time” before the government declassifies information about 1989, and provides a clearer account of the roles played by different leaders, he predicts. “Unfair and unjust things will be readdressed one day,” in his words.

(Picture credit: AFP)