Comment by justicezyx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by justicezyx | Hacker News Reader

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Funny that before 64, China is moving to opening up economically and politically, and after that only economically. And later a lot of the original leaders revealed they are clueless in how to demand proper political reform at the original movement (partly showing as these people become nobody gradually, and partly as their words and deeds gradually descend to those of celebrity or businessmen).

In the end are 64 leaders and the political powers behind it actually missed the opportunity to creat the New Democratic super power that still would today challenge us, but politically close to us as well?

I think so. china is vastly big and diverse. Things moving fast. Before 1949 China is a mix of capitalism, feudalism, foreign colonist, etc, the economy is agriculture centered.

1949 to 1970s, China did a lot of things to reform the nation to be a unified nation in all aspects. Politically, militarily, culture, education, economically, etc.

On ward Mao died, Deng took a very diplomatic and politically mature move to turn the economy to capitalism heavy. I.e., he claim that the way you do business has nothing to do with your political system. That’s of course a facade, or even a lie.

Then comes 64, they apparently heavily influenced by Ussa, and demanded similar changes. The Chinese people are not ready for that, the incumbent powers (both those just took power and want a more western democratic, and those diehard anti west ) don’t want that. And they promptly and skillfully shut it down.

China’s road to reform suddenly took a nose dive, from politically and economically moving the same direction, to politically heavy guarded towards anti western democracy.

Just like the guy coming to a big Corp and try to instate use strategic shift, by being passionate and fast acting, that person destroys the minimal confidence and trust people had with the new system.

Sure, 64 is well intended, but is it a positive event? No, sorry.

>1949 to 1970s, China did a lot of things to reform the nation to be a unified nation in all aspects

To me these years seem to be the darkest.

Early - 1949->51 saw the apex of the first wave of landlord killing, possibly 30M were killed.

Then, in the late 50's and early 60's we have The Great Leap forward plan, and the consequential three years of famine.

Estimates have been made that gauge The Great Leap Forward as having killed 18M to 56M chinese people : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

To round things off five years later The Cultural Revolution kicks off, you can visit university campus's in China today where you can still see where red guard factions fought each other in grenade battles. Maybe 10M Chinese died.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution

Deng was really trying to get food round the country; the development of farmers markets was a way to do this - black cat, yellow cat - it distributes food.

I cannot comment much, I do not have much data to support or disapprove.

Partly a good comment. 64 was not "heavily influenced" by the USA. It was way more complex with a large set of different reasons. Fang Lizhi and his experience in the US and influence of students was one factor, but it was also the nepotism and corruption, disparity fueled by the reforms, economic difficulties and inflation, devaluation of liberal arts subjects and many (individual) reasons more.

People needed to vent and the party did not handle it well. It was the party's own fault that the situation deescalated and led to the shocking events in June 89.

Lets be sensible and understand there is no fault that is purely one side faulted... Especially in hugely complicated matter like politics...

Edit: Please down vote this to death... The purest democracy will help people get it...

Aside from the party that mulched protestors with tanks and apcs then washed the remains down the sewers.

I'm sorry but how can anyone discuss with a straight face that perhaps people were moving too fast for a system to catch up. . . Which resulted in the above, then proceed to talk as if that government or system could develop from there. You don't get to come back from that.

Hmm, let’s see. On one side we have protestors asking for political reform. On the other side we have authoritarian thugs who would lose power under such reform, and who ultimately used said power to murder hundreds or thousands on the other side.

But sure, “there is no fault that is purely one side faulted”. All sins are given equivalent weight. Who are we to decide which side was wrong here? Let’s just all forget about it and move on.

I feel comfortable with blaming the people who ordered tanks to run over thousands of unarmed protesters, personally.

This is also not that simple. The soldiers were all young boys, 18, 19, 20. They were scared and not prepared. The crowed radicalised in the weeks before the eruption. Misinformation was spread on both sides. The orders given to the young boys were unclear: clean Tiananmen, but no blood. Further, they were very bad equipped: live ammunition. The forces have evaluated later the situation and invested in rubber bullets and other "strike breaking" weapons.

It was just a disaster and a sad moment in history. No winners, only losers.

Meaning of "64" according to Wikipedia:

> alternative names have sprung up to describe the events on the Internet, such as May 35th, VIIV (Roman numerals for 6 and 4) and Eight Squared (i.e. 8^2=64).

The 6th month, the 4th day. You can ask a Chinese person what the events if the 6th month and 4th day were.

The economy was collapsing, navy was using war ships to smuggle sedans in.

https://theinitium.com/article/20190531-opinion-economyprobl...

> And later a lot of the original leaders revealed they are clueless in how to demand proper political reform at the original movement

So as many other political movements around the world. A spark comes first, then maybe fire.

However, spark is just spark. Protesters of 6.4 was demanding something big, too big to be realistic. So they failed, paid high price for it.

To eat an elephant, you have to chop it into pieces first, then eat it piece by piece. Trying to eat an elephant in one sitting will probably kill the eater.

BTW: China is still opening up politically, it's slow but still opening. 20 years ago you wouldn't even imagine to be able sue the government for whatever they did, today however it's fairly common in some cases.

Economy I think is the main factor that force China to be more open. It's open up or die situation, I don't think even CCP had too many choice.

> China is still opening up politically

Not true. The control was tighter and tighter, day by day after 2008.

Which control?

What been tightened up is censorship. However, censorship is not completely equals to control.

I know what you meant. You want all the rights in the constitution, so did I. But get things cooked require time. The current situation is, if you trying to get that a rush, then you will be cracked down and set everything back. Somebody tried that 30 years ago already and failed.

During the few decades of my life, what I've experienced is that the government move themselves more and more into a service role. The goal has been changed from gaining political dominance to generating profit. And they are more willing to act according to laws rather than just make some random new rules.

And all that is because we're now relying on an economy that depends on openness. Which, is hard to change as long as economical development is still the top one goal. And it will be, otherwise everything will fell apart.

So, unlike you, I'm pretty optimistic about the future. Few shady things and setbacks won't change that.

BTW: Here is something what you can do now:

1. Don't join them.

2. If you do join them, don't forget, one of the original goal of CCP is to bring democracy to China. So try do that from time to time as an inside job will you?

Of course, I personally like to keep things simple, I don't join them.

There was an opening for the 2008 olympics, then a clamp back, maybe we will see another attempt for the 2022 Olympics.

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