A massive police presence ringed China’s Tiananmen Square today, the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy activists, as the government continued an overwhelming drive to muzzle dissent and block commemorations.

Fifteen years after the bloodshed, the exiled student leaders of China’s 1989 pro-democracy protests are settled abroad as academics and entrepreneurs. But they nurture one wish above all – to come home to a new system.

Vice President Hu Jintao was appointed as leader of China’s Communist Party today, handing him the country’s most powerful position and making him a certain bet to replace Jiang Zemin as president next year.