Dozens of Chinese and Chinese American pro-democracy activists who live in Northern California gathered at Portsmouth Square in San Francisco’s Chinatown on May 25 to commemorate the victims of the Tiananmen Square Massacre by cleaning the Goddess of Democracy statue.

The statue was erected on June 4, 1994, five years after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) violently attacked the 1989 student movement in Tiananmen Square. For over three decades, Portsmouth Square has served as a gathering place for people from around the world to honor those who died in the massacre.

Among those who participated in this year’s statue-cleaning event was renowned exiled democracy advocate Fang Zheng, who gave an interview to The Epoch Times in front of the statue. Fang lost both legs when he was run over by a CCP tank during the June 4 massacre.

Now a board member of the Chinese Democracy Education Foundation, Fang said, “The time has come—the most favorable moment—for dismantling CCP rule.”

After years of the COVID-19 pandemic and the White Paper Movement, he said, China is now rife with hidden unrest and the regime is in deep crisis. Fang urged overseas pro-democracy advocates to take this opportunity to help bring democracy to China.

The White Paper Movement—also known as the “A4 Revolution”—was a wave of spontaneous, large-scale protests that erupted across China in late 2022. Sparked by public outrage over the government’s zero-COVID policies and a deadly fire in Urumqi, protesters in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu held up blank sheets of white paper as a symbol of censorship and voicelessness under the regime. Some demonstrators also called for political reforms and the resignation of CCP leader Xi Jinping.

Zhou Fengsuo, president of Humanitarian China and a former student leader in the 1989 movement, also spoke with The Epoch Times. He said that the U.S. had previously hoped to reform the CCP through economic and technological exchanges, but this approach has proven ineffective.

Zhou expressed hope that the Trump administration, in future trade negotiations with Beijing, will recognize the true nature of the CCP and not be misled by Chinese officials.

“Many young people in China today still have no idea what happened during the June 4 Tiananmen massacre,” she said.

The Goddess of Democracy statue at Portsmouth Square is modeled after the original sculpture made of foam and papier-mâché that was erected by protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The original statue stood about 33 feet tall and was created by student artists. It was transported to Tiananmen Square in pieces, and assembly was completed in the early hours of May 30, 1989. It stood directly facing the portrait of former CCP leader Mao Zedong.

On the morning of June 4, 1989, as the Chinese military drove protesters out of the square, the statue was toppled and destroyed by CCP troops.

Today, replicas of the Goddess of Democracy statue can be found in the United States, Canada, Taiwan, and elsewhere. The replica in San Francisco’s Portsmouth Square is made of bronze and stands 10 feet tall.