Don't Look Back

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Learning to navigate Beijing's frenzied roads, new drivers are often advised that if they don't want to crash, they shouldn't use their rearview mirror. If everyone else is watching the road ahead, the logic goes, then not only is it pointless to focus on what's behind you, it's also dangerous. In the 15 years since their bloody suppression of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, China's leaders have worked hard to ensure that their people think about politics in much the same way as Beijingers drive. Memories of the massacre, which Beijing euphemistically refers to as an "incident," are dangerous to the legitimacy of the regime, so acts of remembrance are forbidden. Last week, to ensure that the June 4 anniversary of the crackdown passed quietly, police kept the streets clear of those who insist on using their rearview mirrors: dissidents, former student activists and mothers of Tiananmen victims were all placed under surveillance.

But among the usual suspects rounded up by Beijing authorities was Dr. Jiang Yanyong, the retired surgeon who blew the whistle on the government's cover-up of the 2003 SARS outbreak. Earlier this spring, Jiang penned a letter to China's leaders, urging them to reconsider their unrepentant stance on the massacre and describing his own haunting memories of the mangled bodies brought to his hospital that night. The disappearance last Wednesday of Jiang and his wife, Hua Zhongwei, appears to be the strongest reaction yet to his criticisms of the government, and underscores Beijing's continued determination to discourage discussions of Tiananmen.

Last Friday night, TIME has learned, Jiang's children received a note from their mother, saying she and her husband were safe. But she couldn't say when they would be coming home. When they do, Jiang will have a new June 4 incident to remember. His captors, no doubt, hope he will keep these memories to himself.