Thirty years ago I was living in Oxford. My then-husband and I befriended some Chinese students who were studying at the university. During the early parts of 1989 a movement had started in China. Worried about the economy and one party state, students did – what was previously unheard of in Communist China – they started to protest.

For weeks groups of students came together on Tiananmen Square and gradually the protest grew. It was estimated that eventually up to one million young people congregated on the square, calling for democracy, press freedom, freedom of speech as well as greater government accountability.

By in early May 1989, a number of students embarked on a hunger strike. This in turn sparked protests across many cities in – and outside of China. The world became captivated with the media reports as the protests spread to over 400 cities…