Several hundred couples were dancing the foxtrot on the Avenue of Eternal Peace in Beijing last night, stepping out elegantly along the wide footpath near Fuxingmen Bridge, as they do most spring evenings, to the strains of recorded saxophone music.
There was no sign that here, just after nightfall ten years ago, huge crowds of angry people were coming under automatic fire as troops crashed through barricades of burning buses as they fought their way to Tiananmen Square a mile away.
The people were stunned at the ferocity of the People's Liberation Army soldiers, whose orders were to eject student pro-democracy demonstrators who had occupied the square for nearly two months.
Many who died on these pavements had refused to run, not believing the soldiers were firing live ammunition. The deep gouges left by the tanks on the roadway have long since been buried under fresh asphalt, and neon-lit glass shopping malls and office blocks have replaced old apartment buildings and lanes where so many died.
Last night's seemingly carefree dancing did not mean that people had forgotten, said a bystander, who recalled soldiers firing at apartment windows. But we remember the dead only in our hearts now, he said. Few wanted to talk to foreigners but a friend said, with a nervous laugh, "the government should have found a peaceful way to end it all". Where the avenue skirted Tiananmen Square, all was also quiet as night fell - except for the subdued sound of construction work under arc lights behind the high steel fence which has sealed off Tiananmen Square for months.
In past years, a few lone figures unfurled banners or scattered leaflets at the martyrs' memorial in the centre of the vast square on June 4th to commemorate the hundreds who died, but it is now hidden behind plastic sheeting, and the steel curtain makes pedestrian access impossible.
Chinese authorities have taken every step to ensure that nothing untoward happens today. Police rounded up five dissidents in Beijing and seven in the eastern city of Hangzhou on Wednesday, and three more in a park in Hangzhou yesterday as they tried to commemorate the dead, bringing to almost 100 the number of activists known to have been detained in the last month, according to a Hong Kong-based human rights group. At least 34 are still in custody, the Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said.
Police in the ancient city of Xi'an rejected a request by dissidents to hold a candlelight vigil today, the centre said. In Beijing people thought likely to display grief in public for the victims - a highly political act in today's China - have been encouraged by public security officials to leave town.
Mr Chen Ziming, one of two intellectuals jailed for some years as one of the "black hands" behind the 1989 demonstrations left Beijing this week for an undisclosed destination, his mother said.
Up to last night the only protest action taken against the authorities has come in the form of a legal petition from a group of 105 victims' relatives, demanding a criminal investigation and the prosecution of those they hold responsible, including the former premier, Mr Li Peng. The authorities have largely left the parents of victims alone, though the most outspoken, retired Prof Ding Zelin, is under virtual house arrest in Beijing University.
None of their activities have been mentioned in the officially-controlled media. A government spokesman defended the use of force this week as timely and appropriate and accused the Western media of highlighting the anniversary "to carry out anti-China propaganda".
A small number of people in and out of China are scheming and staging activities aimed at overthrowing the Chinese government and undermining social order, he said. "These activities are opposed by the majority and are doomed to failure."
The only Chinese city where the Tiananmen crackdown will be commemorated is Hong Kong. There the freedoms enjoyed before the 1997 handover remain largely intact. Huge signs around the city yesterday invited people to join a candlelight vigil this evening to mourn the victims.
Mr Lee Cheuk-yan, spokesman for the Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, said it was especially important for Hong Kong to remember the event publicly because mainland dissidents were silenced.
"We want to remind our compatriots on the mainland about the need for the continued struggle for democracy," he said.
Last year, the first under Chinese rule, several thousand turned out in Victoria Park for a commemoration vigil.