Here's an uncomfortable truth confronting Chinese President Xi Jinping: It's 2014, but the pro-democracy, pro-rights sentiments that manifested across China as demonstrations in 1989 are still alive and well.

For 25 years, the Chinese government has tried to expunge the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen massacre from history to deny people inside the country any knowledge of the event. And as the second largest economy in the world, Olympic host, and U.N. Security Council member, Beijing has also maintained to the outside world that June 4 is "much ado about nothing" and a "strictly internal affair."

Beijing's strategy of suppression has proved successful in some quarters. Many in China have generally focused on getting ahead economically while staying away from politics. But in other quarters, the strategy has produced the opposite outcome, fueling domestic demands for accountability and ongoing attention to China's abysmal human rights record.