Story highlights Memorial for the Tiananmen Square massacre held in Hong Kong every year

On July 1, the city will mark 20 years of Chinese rule

Hong Kong (CNN) As hundreds of thousands of Chinese students took to Tiananmen Square in central Beijing, Lee Cheuk-yan felt exhilarated.

It was May 1989, and he was one of a handful of pro-democracy politicians in Hong Kong, then a UK colony still eight years away from Chinese rule.

"Young people in China were demanding democracy," he said this week. "We felt that if they made it, it meant Hong Kong would not have to live under an authoritarian regime."

When the tanks rolled in, they crushed the hopes of the student movement and its supporters in Hong Kong.

But the June 4 massacre -- in which hundreds of peaceful demonstrators were killed -- had an indelible effect on Hong Kong. "In the past we were something of an economic city, but after 1989 we became a political city," Lee said.

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