Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that at some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music

when it's out of ice cream.

Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds.

Thank you, James.

In the Beijing spring of 1989,

the protesters in Tiananmen Square didn't just talk, they sang.

The words of Chinese rock star Tzuy Jin's hit song,

Nothing to My Name,

an anthem for a generation that hoped for profound political and social change. I've asked you without end, when will you go with me?

But you always laughed at me for having nothing to my name.

But exactly a quarter century ago, on the 4th of June 1989,

the cavernous square at the centre of China's capital lay silent,

hemmed in by tanks,

and in the avenues further out, dead bodies.

The events of that day have hung over China ever since.

The country is now the world's second biggest economy, but even today, there's practically no mention of the events of June 1989 in China itself.

Tonight on free thinking, we'll look back at those demonstrations that transfix the world,

as well as events on the same day that started a different sort of revolution in Poland.

And we'll ask, is it time for China and the West to move on from Tiananmen?

And with me here tonight is Craig Calhoun. Today he's director of the London School of Economics, but in 1989 he was a graduate student in Beijing. Jonathan Merski was also there as China correspondent of The Observer.

Louisa Lim spent a decade reporting from China for the BBC and NPR and joins us down the line from Washington. Her new book, The People's Republic of Amnesia, revisits many of the

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