History is the best textbook’ is one of the favourite phrases of China’s President Xi Jinping, yet only one version of history is acceptable in today's China. Since 2012, the ruling Communist party has made radical efforts to tighten its control over history, even bringing lawsuits against those seen guilty of ‘historical nihilism’.

The streets around Tiananmen Square were not the only place that experienced a bloody suppression in 1989, and since that time efforts to control historical memory have become more apparent. The state has made clear their desire to rewrite history, and within China they've been successful.

Louisa Lim is a Senior Lecturer of Audio-Visual Journalism at the University of Melbourne, and an award-winning journalist who reported from China for a decade for the NPR and BBC. She is the author of The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited (Oxford University Press) and co-host of the Little Red Podcast.