I don’t understand why you think it’s important to insist that nothing happened precisely inside Tiananmen Square, but you are perfectly happy for a massacre to have occurred in, say, Changan Avenue.
Anyway, to respond to the original challenge rather than argue your questionable morals.
Because it’s what happened. It’s not a point of morals or anything else. The other poster is making a value argument that I don’t particularly agree with, but when it comes to the reality of what happened, they’re grounded. Go read the Wikipedia article.
A handful of protesters killing cops and soldiers does not justify indiscriminate murder, particularly when you consider it the government’s responsibility to make sure protesters never get to the point that they feel the need to employ violence to achieve their aims. I didn’t think I needed to spell that out.
The thing to keep in mind is there were a massive amount of people occupying the square. The key point is, the army did not massacre those people. They left after negotiations with the army. There was no gunning down the occupiers or crushing them with tanks. One person picked up in CIA/SIS Operation Yellowbird said that the tanks ran over tents with people sleeping inside them in the square, but that’s frankly dumb, nobody would be sleeping. The others that were actually there noted that it was a largely peaceful dispersal if you compare it to what happened before with the protesters fighting the PLA on the streets of Beijing and the soldiers indiscriminately opening fire on entire apartment blocks because someone threw a rock.
Frankly the best evidence of it is Yellowbird itself, which smuggled more than 400 people out of China, many of them the leaders of the protest themselves. If they had kettled in and slaughtered the occupants, that wouldn’t have been possible.
Nobody is happy that a massacre happened, there’s a huge difference between “10,000 unarmed protesters were murdered by tanks in cold blood because they wanted freedom, that’s how you know that China is a totalitarian police state that murders anyone who protests” and a more complex situation where ~300 protesters were killed after lynching a couple dozon cops and soldiers.
The Chinese government didn’t handle the situation correctly, even by their own evaluation, evidenced by the president of China resigning, and future protests being met with much more compromise, even in cases where the protesters were absolutely in the wrong, (such as anti-covid protesters or NIMBYs opposing the expansion of the shanghai maglev)
it’s only 300 people so it’s not a massacre argument
That’s not what I’m saying at all.
Combined with the above photos, this seems closer to the truth than the official 300 Chinese story.
The photo of students filling the square is from days before the massacre, the square had been evacuated peacefully, as evidenced by the Tank Man video showing the tanks leaving the empty square, with no piles of burning bodies and “tank pie” as the UK alleges.
300 people getting killed by cops due to the government’s failure to compromise and meet their demands is a tragedy, the fact that the protesters felt they needed to resort to violence to achieve their aims is a part of that.
You don’t need to make up shit about tanks murdering 30x more people and then liquefying their corpses.
I don’t understand why you think it’s important to insist that nothing happened precisely inside Tiananmen Square, but you are perfectly happy for a massacre to have occurred in, say, Changan Avenue.
Anyway, to respond to the original challenge rather than argue your questionable morals.
A tank set ablaze by protesters burns in Tiananmen Square on June 3.
A Chinese armored personnel carrier, with crushed bicycles stuck to its side, sits in Tiananmen Square on June 4.
Because it’s what happened. It’s not a point of morals or anything else. The other poster is making a value argument that I don’t particularly agree with, but when it comes to the reality of what happened, they’re grounded. Go read the Wikipedia article.
The other poster is trying to claim nothing bad happened inside Tiananmen Square itself, and it was the protestors that were the real aggressors.
This is bullshit.
The situation escalated because reserves from outside Beijing were drafted in, who had no friends or relatives protesting.
A handful of protesters killing cops and soldiers does not justify indiscriminate murder, particularly when you consider it the government’s responsibility to make sure protesters never get to the point that they feel the need to employ violence to achieve their aims. I didn’t think I needed to spell that out.
I agree with this statement, but it’s very different from the “defence of the Chinese narrative, westerners are wrong” ship you sailed in on.
The westerners ARE wrong though, like the story I and I’m sure many others, including OP learned is directly contradicted by the evidence.
The thing to keep in mind is there were a massive amount of people occupying the square. The key point is, the army did not massacre those people. They left after negotiations with the army. There was no gunning down the occupiers or crushing them with tanks. One person picked up in CIA/SIS Operation Yellowbird said that the tanks ran over tents with people sleeping inside them in the square, but that’s frankly dumb, nobody would be sleeping. The others that were actually there noted that it was a largely peaceful dispersal if you compare it to what happened before with the protesters fighting the PLA on the streets of Beijing and the soldiers indiscriminately opening fire on entire apartment blocks because someone threw a rock.
Frankly the best evidence of it is Yellowbird itself, which smuggled more than 400 people out of China, many of them the leaders of the protest themselves. If they had kettled in and slaughtered the occupants, that wouldn’t have been possible.
Nobody is happy that a massacre happened, there’s a huge difference between “10,000 unarmed protesters were murdered by tanks in cold blood because they wanted freedom, that’s how you know that China is a totalitarian police state that murders anyone who protests” and a more complex situation where ~300 protesters were killed after lynching a couple dozon cops and soldiers.
The Chinese government didn’t handle the situation correctly, even by their own evaluation, evidenced by the president of China resigning, and future protests being met with much more compromise, even in cases where the protesters were absolutely in the wrong, (such as anti-covid protesters or NIMBYs opposing the expansion of the shanghai maglev)
So we are now trying the, it’s only 300 people so it’s not a massacre argument. Seeing as you bring up the 10,000 number, let’s look at the source.
The Chinese army crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests killed at least 10,000 people, according to newly released UK documents.
Combined with the above photos, this seems closer to the truth than the official 300 Chinese story.
That’s not what I’m saying at all.
The photo of students filling the square is from days before the massacre, the square had been evacuated peacefully, as evidenced by the Tank Man video showing the tanks leaving the empty square, with no piles of burning bodies and “tank pie” as the UK alleges.
300 people getting killed by cops due to the government’s failure to compromise and meet their demands is a tragedy, the fact that the protesters felt they needed to resort to violence to achieve their aims is a part of that.
You don’t need to make up shit about tanks murdering 30x more people and then liquefying their corpses.
The million protesters were peaceful. The local Beijing army regiment were largely sympathetic to the protesters and were not aggressive.
many of the soldiers in the People’s Liberation Army did not follow the orders to enforce martial law that night. Some soldiers were emotionally conflicted and were hesitant to turn their weapons on the students. They believed that the PLA belonged to the people and that they were supposed to fight for them and not against them
I’m quoting from Wikipedia and British diplomatic cables. It’s you who is trying to whitewash history.
The British government’s public releases about China are not credible, even less so when they conflict with evidence.