Former Chinese government spokesman Yuan Mu, the man who told the world no one was killed in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, has died, an online obituary search showed, while official media has remained mostly silent.
A former Communist propaganda official, Yuan defended the Chinese government after soldiers of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) fired on unarmed pro-democracy protestors in 1989.
Reports of Yuan's death have been unusually muted in China's official media. The Paper, a state-linked newspaper, last week put up an article with a memorial service notice but quickly removed it.
An article on the state-run China News Service said Yuan died on December 13 in Beijing. He was 90.
This is in contrast to the recent death of Ismail Amat, a former vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, whose passing was widely reported in state media, including a front page obituary in party mouthpiece the People's Daily.
Official images had showed Chinese leader Xi Jinping attending the memorial and offering condolences to Amat's wife, but this was was conspicuously absent in Yuan's case.
Yuan was born in 1928 in Xinghua city in eastern Jiangsu province.
He rose to become a director of the State Council Research Office and also served as spokesman of the State Council, China's cabinet.
On June 4, 1989, after student protestors had staged a peaceful seven week sit-in to demand democratic reforms, the Communist Party sent tanks and PLA soldiers in to quell the protest.
Yuan had then said no one died on the square but later admitted that 300 soldiers and citizens died around the square with some 7,000 injured, a far lower number than many independent estimates.
The government has since refused to talk about the number of people who may have been killed, and mentions of the incident are censored on the Chinese internet.
Yuan's death comes at a sensitive time, with 2019 marking the 30th anniversary of the bloody crackdown.
Tens of thousands gather annually in semi-autonomous Hong Kong to commemorate the event but any mention of the pro-democracy demonstrations remains strictly censored.
Yuan's name has also been censored on the Twitter-like Weibo -- a search on the platform showed results could not be displayed "according to the relevant laws, regulations and policies".
But a search on an online obituary website turned up an entry for Yuan where visitors can pay to burn virtual incense or leave computerised flowers.
A former journalist, the conservative Yuan wrote several articles in his retirement complaining of laxness in the leadership, which he said led to corruption and bourgeois liberalisation.
In 1998, Yuan denied reports of his own death after several newspapers in Hong Kong reported that he had committed suicide.
"I'm not such a fool (to commit suicide). I will not do such a move in my life," the Hong Kong-based Beijing-backed Ta Kung Pao had quoted Yuan as saying.
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