The United States has added its voice to international calls for China's communist-led government to give a full public accounting of those who were killed, detained or went missing during the violent suppression of peaceful demonstrations in and around Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.To get more china social news, you can visit shine news official website.

In a bold statement from Washington to mark the 29th anniversary of a bloody crackdown that left hundreds - some say thousands - dead, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Chinese authorities to release "those who have been jailed for striving to keep the memory of Tiananmen Square alive; and to end the continued harassment of demonstration participants and their families."

University students place flowers on the 'Pillar of Shame' statue, a memorial for those injured and killed in the Tiananmen crackdown, at the University of Hong Kong, June 4, 2018.

To this day, open discussion of the topic remains forbidden in China and the families of those who lost loved ones continue to face oppression. Chinese authorities have labeled the protests a counter-revolutionary rebellion and repeatedly argued that a clear conclusion of the events was reached long ago.

In an annual statement on the tragedy, the group Tiananmen Mothers urged President Xi Jinping in an open letter to "re-evaluate the June 4th massacre" and called for an end to their harassment.

'Each year when we would commemorate our loved ones, we are all monitored, put under surveillance, or forced to travel" to places outside of China's capital, the letter said. The advocacy group Human Rights in China released the open letter from the Tiananmen Mothers ahead of the anniversary.

'No one from the successive governments over the past 29 years has ever asked after us, and not one word of apology has been spoken from anyone, as if the massacre that shocked the world never happened,' the letter said.

FILE - A woman reacts during a candlelight vigil to mark the 28th anniversary of the crackdown of the pro-democracy movement at Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, at Victoria Park in Hong Kong, China June 4, 2017.

In his statement, Pompeo also said that on the anniversary "we remember the tragic loss of innocent lives," adding that as Liu Xiaobo wrote in his 2010 Nobel Peace Prize speech, "the ghosts of June 4th have not yet been laid to rest."

FILE - Liu Xia, wife of deceased Chinese Nobel Peace Prize-winning dissident Liu Xiaobo and other relatives attend his sea burial off the coast of Dalian, China, in this photo released by Shenyang Municipal Information Office July 15, 2017.

Liu was unable to receive his Nobel prize in person in 2010 and died in custody last year. The dissident writer played an influential role in the Tiananmen protests and was serving an 11-year sentence for inciting subversion of state power when he passed.

At a regular press briefing on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China had lodged "stern representations" with the United States over the statement on Tiananmen.