The US and Chinese governments both issued statements Tuesday reflecting on how China has changed since the 1989 student protests in Tiananmen Square.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released a statement honoring the protesters and criticizing the current Chinese government. Pompeo praised the protesters and the democratic reforms they called for while simultaneously railing against current human rights abuses. He specifically called out the Chinese detentions of the Uighur minority as well as the government’s continuous refusal to acknowledge the missing or dead from the 1989 protests. Pompeo ended his statement by calling for an end to Chinese human rights abuses, acknowledgment of the Tiananmen Square victims, and an end to arbitrary detentions by the state.

The Chinese government released remarks through the spokesperson at their US Embassy responding directly to the criticisms level by Pompeo. The government highlighted economic and social progress the country has made as well as its human rights record internationally. The government described China as “socialism with Chinese characteristics … supported by the whole population.” The Chinese further accused the US of bias claiming the US was patronizing and bullying the Chinese people.

The Tiananmen Square protests involved, at their height, over a million people protesting at Tiananmen Square in Beijing and some 400 other cities. The protests called for an end to corruption, the right to assemble, and freedom of the press among other reforms. The protests were brutally ended when the military sent tanks into Tiananmen Square leading to the infamous “Tank Man Incident”. The protests are still considered a dangerous subject in China and are being actively censored out of Chinese media to this day.