"Give me one of these."

He pointed to the small pile of twenty-dollar bills I had just laid out on the table along with everything else from my pockets. I had already been searched, questioned and harassed for about two hours by various officials in various uniforms carrying various firearms....

The twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests and violent crackdown in China provides an important opportunity to reflect on the pervasive consequences of government repression and the crucial, countervailing need for government accountability.

I happened to be traveling in China during May and June of 1989. So those events...