Zhang Hao first heard about China's 1989 student democracy movement when he was in high school. But now that he is a university student himself he is eager to declare that his views are worlds apart from the generation who gathered in Tiananmen Square to demand democracy.

At 25 the second-year graduate student at Beijing Sports University is worried about his future, but he believes the Communist party is taking China in the right direction. “Our generation thinks that ours is a government which helps us raise our heads and grow up,” he says.

“We are not like them,” Mr Zhang declares of the students who grabbed the world's attention in 1989. “I can understand that they wanted to pursue freedom and democracy, but I think they were partly misled. They knew nothing.”