Tiananmen Square: What happened in the protests of 1989?
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
I wonder what would have happened to China at that time had the Government fallen? Civil war, many smaller states...? They have no history of democracy
Considering the task at hand, pretty smart. Just burn them so not much remains. Weeks, months and years later, no evidence at all.
This was one means by which the official bodycount was understated.
from the /u/aleyan:
> The figure was given in a secret diplomatic cable from then British ambassador to China, Alan Donald. > Mr Donald's telegram is from 5 June, and he says his source was someone who "was passing on information given him by a close friend who is currently a member of the State Council".
Here we have a telegram by a guy (British Ambassador) who heard from a guy (unknown) who heard from a guy (unknown State Council) facts about the events of the day prior (massacre was on June 4th). Where did the unknown State Council official get his estimates from; were those official or just something he heard and repeated (and when did he get them)? Initial estimates of disasters are often quite wrong; here they were produced in game of telephone in a day or less; and they are not collaborated by any evidence we have now.
I rank the quality of new evidence as low. Rumors repeated in old official telegrams are still rumors. I expected BBC to have reported more critically. Alan Donald is still alive; BBC could have asked him if he received any updates to that first number that he trusted more.
I also have to fault BBC for it's phrasing around Donald's source. At first reading it sounded like Donald's source is an unnamed member of the State Council who is a close friend of the Ambassador. After reading BBC's sentence a carefully however; it sounds like the Donald's source is a person who is a friend of an unnamed member of the State Council. This ambiguous sentence is deceptive.
EDIT: I see vote count moving up and down on this comment making me think it is controversial. If you disagree with my doubts on the veracity of this story, write a comment. Maybe I missed something.
With the dearth of physical evidence, an objective conclusion will likely remain out of reach. Something definitely happened, and something bad. But to the extent of grinding up the bodies of 10,000 civilians into meat patties and hosing them down the drain bad? It is likely that we will never know the answer to that.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/22/nuclear-watchd...
I disagree. These events are still within living memory, so most of the actual people who were tasked with suppressing the protests and cleaning up afterwards can still theoretically be interviewed. Given the scale and brutality, at least some of them likely feel shame for participating and would testify honestly help clear their consciences (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/world/asia/china-tiananme...). Many others may have hidden diaries or other records (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/world/asia/tiananmen-squa...). These events also happened in a dense urban area, so there were many uninvolved witnesses. If the political situation allowed all these accounts to be collected and cross-checked, I think we'd know these answers.
> STUDENTS UNDERSTOOD THEY WERE GIVEN ONE HOUR TO LEAVE SQUARE BUT AFTER FIVE MINUTES APCS ATTACKED. STUDENTS LINKED ARMS BUT WERE MOWN DOWN INCLUDING SOLDIERS. APCS THEN RAN OVER BODIES TIME AND TIME AGAIN TO MAKE QUOTE PIE UNQUOTE AND REMAINS COLLECTED BY BULLDOZER. REMAINS INCINERATED AND THEN HOSED DOWN DRAINS.
Wow, I've never read this before. I have a really high tolerance for this type of stuff but his was still shocking.
Particularly how they brought in a mostly illiterate military unit from a rural area, blocked them from hearing news for 10 days, and told them it'd be filmed as part of a TV show. They also shot ambulances trying to help in addition to other soldiers from other units(? it's not clear what SMR troops means, possible a local police force).
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/UK_cable_on_Tiananmen_Square_...
Edit: SMR seems to be Shenyang's military regiments who initially went in unarmed to try to scare the students. Shortly after that failed they were immediately followed up by the armed attacking forces (27th unit from Shanxi, the rural area mentioned above). The Shanxi shot and ran over any "straggler" Shenyang units who were near the protestors. "27 ARMY USED BECAUSE MOST RELIABLE AND OBEDIENT. SOME CONSIDERED OTHER ARMIES WOULD ATTACK 27 ARMY BUT THEY HAD NO AMMUNITION"
I think SMR actually means "Shenyang Military Region":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_Military_Region
Geographically, its southern border is not too far from Beijing.
According to Wikipedia Shanxi province was part of the Beijing Military Region, and is also not to far from Beijing itself:
The person providing the information is a bit trickier. Chinese politics have always had a bunch of different factions fighting for influence (despite how Western media portrays it as some Orientalist absolute monarchy). Whoever provided the information was likely trying to undermine some faction or another. Perhaps someone from Foreign Affairs trying to undermine some PLA-affiliated faction or another. That'd be trickier to analyze.
This is contradicted by most accounts.
From wikipedia:
"At 4 am, the lights on the Square suddenly turned off, and the government's loudspeaker announced: "Clearance of the Square begins now. We agree with the students' request to clear the Square."[124] The students sang The Internationale and braced for a last stand.[125] Hou returned and informed student leaders of his agreement with the troops. At 4:30 am, the lights relit and the troops began to advance on the Monument from all sides. At about 4:32 am, Hou Dejian took the student's loudspeaker and recounted his meeting with the military. Many students, who learned of the talks for the first time, reacted angrily and accused him of cowardice.[126]
The soldiers initially stopped about 10 meters from the students. The first row of troops took aim with machine guns in the prone position. Behind them soldiers squatted and stood with assault rifles. Mixed among them were anti-riot police with clubs. Further back were tanks and APCs.[126] Feng Congde took to the loudspeaker and explained that there was no time left to hold a meeting. Instead, a voice vote would decide the collective action of the group. Although the vote's results were inconclusive, Feng said the "gos" had prevailed.[127] Within a few minutes, at about 4:35 am, a squad of soldiers in camouflaged uniform charged up the Monument and shot out the students' loudspeaker.[127][126] Other troops beat and kicked dozens of students at the Monument, seizing and smashing their cameras and recording equipment. An officer with a loudspeaker called out "you better leave or this won't end well."[126]
Some of the students and professors persuaded others still sitting on the lower tiers of the Monument to get up and leave, while soldiers beat them with clubs and gunbutts and prodded them with bayonets. Witnesses heard bursts of gunfire.[126] At about 5:10 am, the students began to leave the Monument. They linked hands and marched through a corridor to the southeast,[115][126] though some departed through the north.[126] Those who refused to leave were beaten by soldiers and ordered to join the departing procession. Having removed the students from the square, soldiers were ordered to relinquish their ammunition, after which they were allowed a short reprieve from 7 am to 9 am.[128] The soldiers were then ordered to clear the square of all debris left over from the student occupation. The debris was either piled and burnt on the square, or placed in large plastic bags that were airlifted away by military helicopters.[129][130] After the cleanup, the troops stationed at The Great Hall of the People remained confined within for the next nine days. During this time, the soldiers were left to sleep on the floors and fed a single packet of instant noodles split between three men daily. Officers apparently suffered no such deprivation, and were served regular meals apart from their troops."
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests
IIRC, that discrepancy is accounted for if most of the bloodshed actually occurred near but outside of the square, which is reflected in the same Wikipedia article:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests...:
> The earliest casualties occurred as far west as Wukesong....Several minutes later, when the convoy eventually encountered a substantial blockade somewhere east of the 3rd Ring Road, they opened automatic rifle fire directly at protesters....
> At about 10:30 pm, the advance of the army was briefly halted at Muxidi, about 5 km west of the Square, where articulated trolleybuses were placed across a bridge and set on fire. Crowds of residents from nearby apartment blocks tried to surround the military convoy and halt its advance. The 38th Army again opened fire, inflicting heavy casualties....As the battle continued eastward the firing became indiscriminate, with "random, stray patterns" killing both protesters and uninvolved bystanders....Soldiers raked the apartment buildings with gunfire, and some people inside or on their balconies were shot. The 38th Army also used armored personnel carriers (APCs) to ram through the buses. They continued to fight off demonstrators, who hastily erected barricades and tried to form human chains. As the army advanced, fatalities were recorded all along Chang'an Avenue. By far the largest number occurred in the two-mile stretch of road running from Muxidi to Xidan...
> To the south, paratroopers of the 15th Airborne Corps also used live ammunition, and civilian deaths were recorded at Hufangqiao, Zhushikou, Tianqiao, and Qianmen.[116]
> The killings infuriated city residents, some of whom attacked soldiers with sticks, rocks and molotov cocktails, setting fire to military vehicles.
Imagine if Occupy Wall Street was 100,000 strong and had occupied Times Square, and the city of New York was trying to negotiate with them to meet their demands.
There we a huge number of people involved on both the PLA and protestor sides. There are some reports which claim thousands of people killed and gruesomely disposed of; those people must have had relatives. We (outsiders and history in general) have very little idea what happened, and a single photo which escaped the censorship.
If the gunpoint forgetting is maintained for the lifetimes of the surviving participants, we may never know what happened.
Of course, even in incidents which are hugely documented, there is scope for denialists and propagandists to sneak in misinformation.
Edit: well, looks like there's lots more. I've been misled myself by how prevalent the Tank Man photo is compared to all the other footage!
...what? We have more than a single photo of the Tiananmen Square incident! While in the article, have some archival BBC footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA4iKSeijZI
Discussion on reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/bw8x9b/a_look_at_th...
It seems there's quite significant documentation, even documentaries with video of the event. Perhaps more is coming to light because it's the 30 year anniversary.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/world/asia/tiananmen-squa...
We don’t have “very little idea what happened”.
Contemporary BBC news report: https://youtu.be/kMKvxJ-Js3A
It's only forgetting if you use the GDPR-compliant definition of the word that connotes force.
This is erasure. This is Orwell's memory hole in action. We know exactly what happened, and have plenty of evidence. But there is also a powerful government that would like us to think we're uncertain, unsure, lacking evidence or proof.
We don’t know exactly. We don’t, specifically because of the erasure that you mentioned.
We argue with each other over the details of how people were killed and how bodies were disposed of. We’ll question the reliability of UK cable sources. In our never-ending quest for truth we’ll point out that the propaganda was likely coming from both sides.
That’s the point of it, eh? Ensure that the perpetrators, the dead, and those who fear for the lives of their families are mute. Let those who care do the work of ruining any truthful narrative. Present a very consistent narrative of your own.
It’s already gone from HN homepage, despite being posted 4 hours ago and having 230 points. (I know the algorithm is more complex than just time & points so I’m not blaming the mods.)
I mean the US likes to forget it had concentration camps for the Japanese after Pearl Harbor.
I don’t think this is a fair comparison. some people are ignorant of this, or don’t want to know about it, but there isn’t any active state-sponsored campaign to suppress this. My own experience is that I was at an openly advertised exhibition in San Diego 20 years ago on this very topic and there wasn’t even a scintilla of fear that it could be the subject of any kind of censorship.
An odd comparison to make. It’s taught in public school and there are memorials to this at several locations including the national mall in Washington DC, and at least some of the locations are marked as national historic sites.
At least in my school, it was taught as unequivocally wrong and one of the biggest mistakes the US government ever made. The focus was on how painful it was for the families and how much they lost. And this was in a rural, conservative community.
It's literally a camp where you "concentrate" some minority group in a small area to make them easier to deal with; that's exactly what was done to the Japanese. The fact that the concentration camps in Germany were worse (because they enslaved and killed mass numbers of them) doesn't make the one in the US any less a concentration camp.
The idea that the label is inappropriate comes entirely from going beyond accepting the term’s ludicrously euphemistic use for Nazi extermination camps, but to preferring that use exclusively, which is about like saying it's inappropriate to use the term “shower” for washing chambers with overhead water sprayers because the term was euphemistically used for Nazi extermination chambers.
No, it doesn't. Not only is it part of public school curriculum in most (all?) states, it's actively cited by major party politicians as a historical reference in policy debates, usually negatively but at least as recently as the Bush II era occasionally positively by figures on the Right in defense of War on Terror policies.
And let me tell you - you won't hear two words about them in your high school social studies class.
Oh, I suppose these are great reasons to not expose high school students to it.
- Ways that administrations have built the case for foreign wars (Bush & Iraq War 2, Bay of Tonkin)
- Ways that police have been misused against citizens (labor struggles in early 20th century, FBI vs civil rights movement)
Both Waco and Ruby Ridge were both addressed (not in particular depth) in the book for the 11th grade US History class I subbed for ~19 years ago.
I think we can both agree, regardless, that we should be working towards improving our countries and that starts be being honest and calling out the bad thinks our countries do so as to have a hope of not repeating the same mistakes.
Yeah - my wife was mentioning such camps near here in Phoenix to one of her coworkers who's younger and they'd never been taught about them at school (here in Arizona!):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gila_River_War_Relocation_Cent...
https://saltriverstories.org/items/show/338
I think we have our own version of "forgetting" going on, but we call it "no child left behind" and "common core" and things like that. By this I mean it (and tons of other history and other topics) seem to fall by the wayside in favor of "higher scores on standardized testing" - not because of any concerted government effort or anything like that...
Note:
My wife knows about it because she loves Arizona history, in part because she went to school with and is a friend of our state historian's son (or grandson? can't remember), so she's heard lots of this state's history from "tales around the campfire", so to speak.
EDIT: Rethought my response; it seemed a bit trite or something. Wanted to clarify it.
Which is kind of sad, in that there are plenty of government-driven forgettings we have here. E.g. COINTELPRO. Even the history of slavery is subject to government-sponsored campaigns of mnemonological displacement (e.g. the Civil War was about states rights, not slavery!)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/opinion/tiananmen-square-...
Indeed, the book "The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited" [1] was mentioned recently on NPR's "Morning Edition" in the context of the anniversary of Tianenmen Square.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People%27s_Republic_of_Amn...
Each time their CEO's get up to preach about human rights they need to be challenged on their activities in China. China to them is a profit center and nothing more.
Thats a politician's job.
Thats a politician's job. And what you want, if you do want to change how china operates internally, is to strong arm them economically or with the military.
And thats what if you do want china to change their domestic policy you need to back things like Trumps Trade War, and also be ready for a military dispute.
They said "not only turn a deaf ear to", you turn it into "make amends for". The absurdity in your reading is there because you put it there.
F500 CEOs outsource pollution to China.
> I’m in Laos, a close ally of China, & whenever I “Like” a post on @instagram related to Tiananmen Square it comes up with a message saying “Action Blocked”. When I switch on my VPN it allow me to “Like” the images. I wonder if China provides internet infrastructure to Laos.
In Vietnam about 5 years ago, you could only use Facebook on your phone. It's hard for me to imagine the dictatorships of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam welcoming Facebook and allowing the population to freely criticize the government.
Anecdotally, in China, the younger generations can’t get answers from the older generations who lived through these times because it’s verboten to speak of them. It leads to an (academically interesting) censorship feedback loop.
From my perspective it’s hard to know what you don’t know if the Powers-That-Be want to keep it a secret.
For example, here in the U.S. I assume we’re reasonably censorship-free, but by no means am I confident we have access to everything (excluding governmental information requiring clearances).
I do recognize our various media outlets play a major role in determining what the narrative is and which stories/reports/messages are raised to the level of societal recognition. I know people who consider this to be an indirect form of censorship.
Chinese speak very freely about all topics in private and with people they know.
HN is not blocked in China. Interesting. What is the sentiment when access to a popular website is removed? Does everyone just VPN, or forget about it?
Really? I was under the impression that had quite a few, and even thousands that are paid by the government to post: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party.
Her experiences may be uncommon and is only a single data point.
Some people are more skirmish than others. In every country, there are people who won't discuss politics, for fear of "getting in trouble", even more so in a place like China.
But that doesn't mean the average citizen wont discuss them with friends/family/etc.
It sounds like that's not always the case:
https://www.inkstonenews.com/politics/tiananmen-crackdown-aw...
> Mark was intrigued by the seemingly unlikely scene, in which his now civil servant father chanted slogans against the government. But before he could probe him for more information, his mother had called an end to the discussion: “Stop talking about this.”
> ....Anecdotes of talented people punished for taking part in the protests are part of the Tiananmen story that witnesses have been passing on. The underlying message is: stay away or you will end up like that.
You need someone to make the call between truth and lies. That person then has all the power.
Once the mechanism is there, the power will be likely get abused.
Also, who decides what's lie? Is providing partial truth a lie? It's all about perspective.
to hide a truth
Partly this was done so as to be readable on the old Ceefax and other mediums. But also so that it would be understandable by a wide audience.
> this article does seem especially simplistic and would probably be easy to run through some translation software compared to some articles.
Though, in this case, that's probably not necessary for the main non-English audience for this article. The BBC has a Chinese-language website (https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp).
Unfortunately they discontinued their Mandarin shortwave service (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-12864041), which is still probably the best technology to bypass censorship.
Reminds me of the stories a coworker told me about growing up in Romania under Ceaușescu. A neighbor would disappear and a new family would be living in their house the next day.
Nobody ever said anything. Just acted like they had always lived there.
The same way Britain colonized India, but they made it whole too.
I remember there was a youtube video with better quality, but I cannot find it any more.
The article is about a massacre, lots of other threads debated the existence and scale of atrocities in the massacre, and this specific thread just seemed to mention similar atrocities?
Specifically, if they had removed the "evil" and "bloody" metaphor, and phrased it like "Considering the supply chain and trade interactions between the US and China, it's worth considering the significant differences in human rights. For instance, the black market organ schemes of the 1990s and the Uighur concentration camps where millions of ethnic minorities are currently interned." <-- That seems like the exact same content which is completely relevant to conversations here?
(I'm an American with no Chinese connections or vested interest in the conversation, but I'm just curious how it specifically crossed a line, especially given the recent HN conversations about political discussions. I know it's a fine line but for this particular topic, it sparked my interest. Thanks in advance for your consideration.)
Here's something I've learned by studying HN voting data: people's reactions to such posts are determined entirely by which side of a topic they're on—nothing else. Such posts exist not because of curiosity where we might grow or learn, but purely for repetition in which an existing feeling gets confirmed. The feeling might be pleasure (finally someone telling the truth about this important matter!) or pain (yet another asshole propagating lies!) but it's the same mechanism either way, no doubt with some hard core biochemistry behind it. If we want to have a site where curiosity can flourish, which is the point of Hacker News, we have to moderate that in every way we can.
I have to laugh at recent news reports of students being hassled in China. The students are trying to organize revolutionary unions and want a return to communism and Maoism. It is obvious the same Western newspapers tut-tuting the Maoist students being hassled would be fulminating if they took power and started moving back to the Maoist principles that they are espousing.