The Tiananmen Incident: The 30th Anniversary Is Nearing

[Cedoria]

RIP Chinese democracy, you had a chance.

Had.

The West failed to bail Sun Yat-sen in his hour of need -- and the United States snatched victory from Chiang Kai-shek's hands.

Really, really bad timing.

Chiang Kai-Shek defeated himself. Even the American Generals sent to help him after WWII wrapped up were staggered at the sheer stupidity of his regime, particularly the scale of its corruption and theft.

A brainless rabbit could've crushed the Nationalists at that point, they had no chance against the PLA, with or without American aid.

[Cedoria]

China was always a superpower.

But that's mostly because they were always the biggest nation by population, from Xia, to Mao, to Now.

There was just the occasional bump in the road from the Mongols and Europeans

People seem to love to hate on America as the superpower for our activities. I have to wonder what those same people will be saying if China takes our place. I wonder if they'll even be speaking at all if that happens. China doesn't have the same hangups about pesky things like "freedom of speech" and "rights to life and liberty" that we do, as clearly demonstrated in Tiananmen.

Neither do you, they're just more honest about it then you are.

And yes, for the record, I would, and do frequently, say the same about China. Not that it's relevant. The problem is superpowerdom in general, the US gets the flack because it IS the superpower of the day.

[Cedoria]

By whom?

The current Chinese gov't regards those folks as hero's.

I'm well aware of that, but if the commie government were to fall, those totalitarian leaders should be immediately executed.

Most of those who ordered the massacre have already been dead for some years now.

[Uxupox]

The West failed to bail Sun Yat-sen in his hour of need -- and the United States snatched victory from Chiang Kai-shek's hands.

Really, really bad timing.

Chiang Kai-Shek defeated himself. Even the American Generals sent to help him after WWII wrapped up were staggered at the sheer stupidity of his regime, particularly the scale of its corruption and theft.

A brainless rabbit could've crushed the Nationalists at that point, they had no chance against the PLA, with or without American aid.

that's a damn over-grossed simplification.

[Conserative Morality]

Neither do you, they're just more honest about it then you are.

And yes, for the record, I would, and do frequently, say the same about China. Not that it's relevant. The problem is superpowerdom in general, the US gets the flack because it IS the superpower of the day.

When was the last time we sent in tanks to crush democracy at home?

[LiberNovusAmericae]

I'm well aware of that, but if the commie government were to fall, those totalitarian leaders should be immediately executed.

Most of those who ordered the massacre have already been dead for some years now.

Some are still alive, and if they're still alive, they deserve execution.

[Jakker]

On the other, the protestors were objectively in the wrong and I entirely approve of the act of having them all shot as dirty hippies.

You took things a bit too far. *** Warned for Trolling/Advocating Death ***

[Kowani]

“In the interest of law and order.”

You know what else happened legally? Slavery, Apartheid, the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, blah blah blah. Legality is a matter of power, not necessarily justice.

[Crazybloxian Empire]

On the other, the protestors were objectively in the wrong and I entirely approve of the act of having them all shot as dirty hippies.

You took things a bit too far. “Warned for Trolling/Advocating Death”

This place is not a place to advocate death. Advocate something else, like human rights, etc. The moderator clearly said that so you should follow the moderator instructions.

Well hopefully we can bring the soldiers to justice..... if we can have an army swoop into China, get the soldiers, and err, bring em’ to justice!

[The Batorys]

Chiang Kai-Shek defeated himself. Even the American Generals sent to help him after WWII wrapped up were staggered at the sheer stupidity of his regime, particularly the scale of its corruption and theft.

A brainless rabbit could've crushed the Nationalists at that point, they had no chance against the PLA, with or without American aid.

that's a damn over-grossed simplification.

Not really.

Chiang Kai-Shek was incredibly incompetent and corrupt.

[Crazybloxian Empire]

Neither do you, they're just more honest about it then you are.

And yes, for the record, I would, and do frequently, say the same about China. Not that it's relevant. The problem is superpowerdom in general, the US gets the flack because it IS the superpower of the day.

When was the last time we sent in tanks to crush democracy at home?

Yesterday in an alternative universe?

[Bombadil]

The chances of anyone involved being brought to 'justice' is extremely unlikely. As others have noted it's hardly taught in China and it's not really considered particularly important, especially as it was some 30 years ago.

Even if it were taught, I'm not sure how many people in China would be too outraged by it all. In general there's a fear of civil disorder given China's long history of, essentially, peasant uprisings, famines and etc. Most Chinese welcome a degree of civil order, rising prosperity and a degree of peace.

[Salus Maior]

Tbh I think more or less that the Powers That Be find it more convenient to turn a blind eye to and forget that Tiananmen ever happened.

So I don't think it'll ever come up in any real capacity ever again.

[Salus Maior]

The West failed to bail Sun Yat-sen in his hour of need -- and the United States snatched victory from Chiang Kai-shek's hands.

Really, really bad timing.

Chiang Kai-Shek defeated himself. Even the American Generals sent to help him after WWII wrapped up were staggered at the sheer stupidity of his regime, particularly the scale of its corruption and theft.

A brainless rabbit could've crushed the Nationalists at that point, they had no chance against the PLA, with or without American aid.

*Taiwan exists*

[Infected Mushroom]

it was an attempt to enforce martial law (which had been declared for days) so it is an enforcement of law and order

the protestors were ordered to disperse, those who did not do so knew the risks

Enforcement of law and order =/= running over unarmed civilians with military hardware.

And no, they didn't know the risks. Interviews with the students shows that they were unaware that the tanks were going to start running over them.

they were told to disperse or there would be consequences; there were soldiers in plain sight and martial law had been publicly declared

really, the students shouldn't act so stupid in interviews: "oh we were surrounded by tanks and told to disperse but we didn't reasonably expect the tanks to open fire or do anything to us if we stood our ground"

sounds to me like they were lying or misrepresenting the truth in the interviews, maybe they didn't expect the tanks to run them over specifically, but they should at least have expected them to open fire if they refused to obey

[Infected Mushroom]

martial law had been declared

hence the deployment of tanks is legal and in line with that

Deployment, maybe.

Killing tens of civilians by running them over? Fuck no

the number of protestors killed is highly disputed

according to google:

"In what became known in the West as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, troops with automatic rifles and tanks fired at the demonstrators trying to block the military's advance towards Tiananmen Square. The number of civilian deaths has been estimated variously from 180 to 10,454."

Please don't make numbers up. "Tens of thousands of civilians" sounds like you're saying 20,000 and up.

In reality, the number is probably much lower than western media traditionally assumes.

Also, take a look at what it says.

The troops opened fire... when the protestors "tried to block the military's advance"... oh the protestors are not so innocent now eh?

[Infected Mushroom]

It was carried out in the interests of law and order.

As such, I don't object to it.

Whether the protestors knew it or not, they were really pawns of the American Empire.

China could have fallen apart like the Soviet Union, but the authorities did what was necessary to keep it together.

1. Indiscriminate killing of peaceful protesters is not "in the interests of law and order" (in fact Chinese law nominally protects freedom of expression) - it was done in the interests of keeping the Chinese Communist Party in power.

2. The protesters in Tiananmen Square were not part of some Illuminati bullshit as you claimed - they were normal homegrown democracy movements. Are you going to claim that the Arab Spring was part of an American master plan?

the most official version of why the troops opened fire is that the protestors tried to stop their advance into Tiennamen Square

the protestors may or may not be pawns of the American empire at the time of the protests (meaning the CIA may or may not have been involved) but their actions definitely benefited foreigners more than the Chinese. Also, AFTER many escaped to the West they certainly started to mouth off a highly misleading narrative in line with their convenient new masters who paid them tons of benefits.

Hence people are getting these distorted versions of how up to 20,000-30,000 people were killed and how the government opened fire before they met any resistance.

If the protestors "won," China would likely have become 3+ countries just like the Soviet Union. This is something the Americans would love. So in my view the protestors were either naively benefitting foreign interests, or actively working for them.

[Infected Mushroom]

You took things a bit too far. “Warned for Trolling/Advocating Death”

This place is not a place to advocate death. Advocate something else, like human rights, etc. The moderator clearly said that so you should follow the moderator instructions.

Well hopefully we can bring the soldiers to justice..... if we can have an army swoop into China, get the soldiers, and err, bring em’ to justice!

There is no need to "bring justice" to the soldiers. They were enforcing martial law.

Do you see the Chinese government prosecuting them? No? Then who has the right to?

This isn't some World War II repeat.

[Internationalist Bastard]

Deployment, maybe.

Killing tens of civilians by running them over? Fuck no

the number of protestors killed is highly disputed

according to google:

"In what became known in the West as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, troops with automatic rifles and tanks fired at the demonstrators trying to block the military's advance towards Tiananmen Square. The number of civilian deaths has been estimated variously from 180 to 10,454."

Please don't make numbers up. "Tens of thousands of civilians" sounds like you're saying 20,000 and up.

In reality, the number is probably much lower than western media traditionally assumes.

Also, take a look at what it says.

The troops opened fire... when the protestors "tried to block the military's advance"... oh the protestors are not so innocent now eh?

There’s so many layers of wrong here that I’m just going to say that firing automatic fire into people blocking a road is literally the worst way to stop a protest

[Infected Mushroom]

the number of protestors killed is highly disputed

according to google:

"In what became known in the West as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, troops with automatic rifles and tanks fired at the demonstrators trying to block the military's advance towards Tiananmen Square. The number of civilian deaths has been estimated variously from 180 to 10,454."

Please don't make numbers up. "Tens of thousands of civilians" sounds like you're saying 20,000 and up.

In reality, the number is probably much lower than western media traditionally assumes.

Also, take a look at what it says.

The troops opened fire... when the protestors "tried to block the military's advance"... oh the protestors are not so innocent now eh?

There’s so many layers of wrong here that I’m just going to say that firing automatic fire into people blocking a road is literally the worst way to stop a protest

did the protests not stop after?

I'd say its more effective than what the French or Americans do, those protests last forever

[Internationalist Bastard]

There’s so many layers of wrong here that I’m just going to say that firing automatic fire into people blocking a road is literally the worst way to stop a protest

did the protests not stop after?

I'd say its more effective than what the French or Americans do, those protests last forever

It’s less the method and more of the control the government has
America responded to protestors by killing them and it became a huge national conversation that’s still mentioned to this day and taught in school
China killed the protesters than went to extreme measures to keep it from being talked about at all, destroying newspapers, arresting people who reported it, even banning the memoirs of the General Secretary at the time.
The suppression didn’t work because they killed them, it worked because they crushed all hope of its crushing being spread

[Infected Mushroom]

did the protests not stop after?

I'd say its more effective than what the French or Americans do, those protests last forever

It’s less the method and more of the control the government has
America responded to protestors by killing them and it became a huge national conversation that’s still mentioned to this day and taught in school
China killed the protesters than went to extreme measures to keep it from being talked about at all, destroying newspapers, arresting people who reported it, even banning the memoirs of the General Secretary at the time.
The suppression didn’t work because they killed them, it worked because they crushed all hope of its crushing being spread

ok

[Earth and its colonies]

This is what communism is. And socialism is just a stepping stone to communism.

[Dahon]

"But didn't the ends justify the means, even more efficiently? Say what you will about the bloodthirstiness of the Chinese leadership then, but people are dead and China has built a hegemon on their treasonous bones. Who wouldn't be happy?"

But real talk.

At some point people will have to concede that the gap between a democrat who'll use bloodshed as a last resort to end all last resorts and an authoritarian who seeks only to maintain his grip on power, the less people around to nag him the better... it's unbridgeable.

Either you take as a premise that authoritarianism should be fêted and not pilloried at some point, or you wholly condemn it and dedicate yourself to uprooting it, root, trunk, and branch, whenever it threatens to grow.

[The Batorys]

the number of protestors killed is highly disputed

according to google:

"In what became known in the West as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, troops with automatic rifles and tanks fired at the demonstrators trying to block the military's advance towards Tiananmen Square. The number of civilian deaths has been estimated variously from 180 to 10,454."

Please don't make numbers up. "Tens of thousands of civilians" sounds like you're saying 20,000 and up.

In reality, the number is probably much lower than western media traditionally assumes.

Also, take a look at what it says.

The troops opened fire... when the protestors "tried to block the military's advance"... oh the protestors are not so innocent now eh?

There’s so many layers of wrong here that I’m just going to say that firing automatic fire into people blocking a road is literally the worst way to stop a protest

It's Infected Mushroom. What do you expect?