The [uncropped version of Tank Man](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/dklwxp/full_size_version_of_the_tank_man_photograph_in/#lightbox) is definitely worth seeing if you haven't before. It changed how I pictured the whole moment.
(Picture linked is from [this archived post](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/dklwxp/full_size_version_of_the_tank_man_photograph_in/), which is the largest copy of the image a quick reverse-image search found.)
Edit: Fixed the link. It's a bigger picture now.
One of the most important things I took away from learning the details about Tienanmen was how the Chinese government when they initially sent in the troops, the troops refused to kill the students because it was the Beijing garrison, so these were their friends, their family, the sons and daughters of their relatives and weren't willing to kill them.
And so the Chinese government sent those troops home and brought in a bunch of rural troops, the stereotypical illiterate peasant conscripts, told them lies about how the student protests were trying to destroy their country and basically whipped them into a frothing rage, and THOSE were the troops who had no problems murdering 10,000 students, using tanks to mash their bodies into jam, lighting the resulting viscera on fire and then trying to wash it down the Beijing sewers.
I think about that sometimes whenever I hear something from Fox news or Brietbart or Infowars or wherever trying to frame everything as "REAL AMERICA versus the coastal elite"
It’s scary to think this happened again with the recent protests in Hongkong. They used a lot of police/military from the mainland for the exact same reason.
Nowadays they don't kill people out in the open like that. They learned that it's bad optics on the world PR stage. [So they just have blank white incinerator vans that pick you up, kill you and then incinerate your body.](https://youtu.be/MI8cOvGX_Nw)
Its standard authoritarian tactics. Propaganda is a hell of a drug, maga included. At the end of ww2 a lot of german troops would rather die or kill themselves than live post war. Deprograming took a long time. Look at russia sending untrained men into the meat-grinder, yet they go. We have had 40 years of Fox and Maga, a lot of those people are a lost generation. So far not the majority but its close. Remember it took national socialism 15-20 years to get going, the US is running a very dangerous propaganda experiment. Hope the kids dont buy into the crazy, thats all that will save the US.
There's an archive of a whole (and VERY NSFW) imgur album of Tiananmen pics [right over here](https://archive.ph/7Tdzh) including the picture you're referring to.
Thank you for this, so much good information here and things I never knew like that Goddess of Democracy statue, they built and erected it in the square?! That blew my mind, still in the middle of reading just had to mention that.
Reading through the account from the Brit is crazy, I didn't realise they also killed their own men who attempted to help people. At least that's what I'm gathering from the part about Army ambulances being shot up
Surprised that they actually included the images of the burning APCs and hanged/burned PLA soldier in this one, even though the text barely mentions the "pro-democracy protesters" fighting.
PLA and leadership are obviously still at fault for the escalation though.
I actually checked the album specifically to see if they were gonna show the burning APCs -- and they did. That's some mfing journalism right there. It took me years on the internet before I ever learned about the dead PLA and the violence that was going on prior to the 4th.
The local PLA were unwilling to fight the protesters because they largely agreed with them. The government had to bus in soldiers from rural areas that weren't the protesters' neighbors.
VERY NSFW is right... Sometimes I wonder if the global perspective toward and about war would change if everyone was forced to see images like this. For many, probably, but for those that send people and don't, themselves, actually fight, probably not.
> This all took place the day after the massacre.
You're telling me it was like the Purge movie. just 1 day of massacre and the next day its back to business.
Not fully back to business, but very limited violence, as the military had established control of most of the city by the 5th.
The entire massacre was basically the Army entering Beijing, working their way to the center, and then clearing the square. Most of the deaths actually occurred outside the square, in the process of the Army and tanks making their way through the streets. Once the square was cleared (partially non-violently, partially quite violently), the primary objective was achieved, the scale of violence by the military tamped down further protests, martial law was achieved, and only limited violence occurred the rest of the day.
Most post-June 4 protests in China occurred in other cities. Beijing was under martial law for about 6 months afterwards but most of the city was back to relative normalcy around June 7.
Wow, ive also never seen this video before.
Seeing him climb onto the tank and talking to the soldiers is even more impressive.
Im glad he was never identified and hope hes still alive.
Bit busy right now to source this but - i looked into this ages ago and came to understand that there's a reasonable chance he did survive and just disappeared. I'll look when I have time tho, maybe current thinking has changed.
I remember thinking at the time, there's a good chance he slipped into a crowd who helped him leave in the confusion.
Edit: I think it was frontline: the tank man that i watched (but not only that). They followed leads but couldn't really be sure who he was. At that time, technology wasn't what it is today and the massacre itself had just happened, with lots of gruesome deaths and disappearances that kinda couldn't be resolved. If even one or two of the people that escorted him to safety were on his side and gave authorities a bogus name, a low pixel dude in a white shirt really *is* hard to identify in beijing the day after the massacre. Could so easily turn into a reverse "I'm Spartacus" moment with minimal risk - I know I'd have done it if I were there lol "dave? nah i thought it was jim? could be wrong tho". No one was feeling particularly generous/helpful to the government at that time, as you can imagine.
ie. no proof either way, but very reasonable chance he just left.
> The uncropped version of Tank Man is definitely worth seeing if you haven't before.
It's actually a different picture taken at a slightly different time with a wider angle lens. I think the wide image is earlier as the tanks weren't as bunched up.
All those red spots on the road are the remains of victims that were ran/shot down, then had tanks run over them to turn them in to mush and the remains then hosed down into the gutters. Absolutely awful that the victims families had nothing left to bury/cremate.
**EDIT**: Seems like I'm being downvoted because....?
I'm not going to provide the links because it's pretty gnarly, but if you want to see pictures of it, scroll further down the thread and there's links to it all.
Visited the square several years back. Our guide (who was an American) said to not talk about it in public there. Not sure what would happen if you do, but I was a college student and wanted to make sure I got home in one piece.
I've seen video of people trying that, asking people about Tienanmen Square in 1989.
They got one of two answers:
"I have no idea what you're referring to, goodbye"
or
" Don't ask that question"
You'd likely be safe as a foreigner. They would not be for saying anything that made China look bad, if Uncle Policeman was nearby.
I've been told by my native born Chinese friends that there's always undercover policy police patrolling in those tourist areas, so be careful what you talk about.
I've asked Chinese born coworkers I'm friends with about it and they say, "I never learned anything about it" or "I saw something about it when I moved to the US, but it seems like it was just protests and not really a massacre..." Meaning they only saw pictures of the tanks and protests, but not the thousands of dead people.
Most people, particularly after a certain age, you ask will acknowledge they're aware that _something_ bad happened, but they're also aware that people get in trouble for poking around too much and - I mean, looking from their point of view, if you're some average schmo, do you want that trouble in your life?
The younger generation might get prickly. The system of getting people to immediately dismiss everything as a Western lie runs deep.
Imagine how many other massacres have been whitewashed from history because the government was powerful enough to censor everything, no visual evidence, no written accounts, all witnesses silenced for life and all children not taught about it.
This situation exists only because the rest of the world saw it and had photographic proof.
I'm glad we have the ability to question stuff in the US. We're no angels when it comes to dispersing protest, but it always gets documented, and talking about it openly isn't illegal at all.
The younger generation don't know. The older generation didn't look into it because they knew the rule - you saw nothing, move along.
Only those who did witness the event in person knew how bad it was.
>Meaning they only saw pictures of the tanks and protests, but not the thousands of dead people.
I've only ever seen photos of tanks and protests. Never of the dead. This is why censorship of that type of imagery is bad.
Only reason I know people died there is because the media mentions it every time it's brought up.
They wouldn't need to deny it, just never mention it and I'd be like "what massacre?"
It's just like with the 2020 protests, where the media doesn't like to talk about how the police repeatedly attacked peaceful protesters sparking the riots. But at least those videos are available and can be freely shared.
Videos where cops shoot bystanders are harder to share cause they're likely to get taken down due to policies against gore. But that just makes people ignorant of just how atrocious the brutality was.
I've got a tankie friend who has a degree in Sinology and insists that all Chinese people know what happened. No Chinese person I've spoken to about it has said they know what happened.
Edit to add: One of their favorite things to do is say that America and China are basically the same while complaining about how harshly America treats protesters.
One of the issues is that even if you know, you don't wanna tell anyone - Chinese nationals are notorious for snitching to their home country, for instance Purdue (which I attended) had a controversy a few years back where iirc (memory is fuzzy) a grad student got threatened by their family or the government because they said some anti-Chinese stuff... Don't underestimate how nationalistic they are.
EDIT: https://www.propublica.org/article/even-on-us-campuses-china-cracks-down-on-students-who-speak-out
> In a rush of adrenaline last year, the graduate student posted an open letter on a dissident website praising the heroism of the students killed in the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.
>
> The blowback, he said, was fast and frightening. His parents called from China, crying. Officers of the Ministry of State Security, the feared civilian spy agency, had warned them about his activism in the United States.
Oh I know, I worked at the crossroads of psychology and large language models at a major US University and there were a lot of Chinese nationals in the research labs that I frequented. Very few of them were ever comfortable talking about China, and the one time I did get to ask someone a couple questions in a more private setting they said that a lot of the students are from CCP families and either specifically placed to keep others in line or will go running to mom/dad and everyone will get in trouble if the wrong sorts of sentiments start getting displayed.
It's basically how North Korea keeps people from running away as well - sure you can run away, but we've got your family so if you know what's best for you... then you know what to do : )
Can't imagine growing up there and everyone being desperate to snitch, perhaps because of true nationalism, maybe also because they're eager to throw you under the bus for meager benefits. Coming from the same country whose citizens are eager to present stolen research for the same meager benefits.
I'm surprised the US is still soft against China at this point, though it's probably more because they're afraid of increasing tariffs + most politicians not giving a fuck about national security unless it's election time or it happens to make them money. You can basically assume that anything Chinese nationals touch will somehow get funneled back to the Chinese government, it's why at my job (semiconductors) Chinese nationals get extra restrictions on what they can access vs. normal visa holders.
> I worked at the crossroads of psychology and large language models at a major US University and there were a lot of Chinese nationals in the research labs that I frequented
You should watch for them, we had those here in Canada too and started finding out quite a few of them were spies stealing the research data
I talked to a girl who was en exchange student in China several years back. She said she originally included a paragraph on the massacre in a group paper, and the other students, horrified, took it out. But she told me produly she had reinserted it just before handing it in. She thought she had "taught them a bittle bit of democracy".
I mean, I get the sentiment. But she was completely oblivious that she might very well have ruined their whole careers and their families' opportunities... If you visit a dictatorship, go ahead and protest it, but do not fuck around with the destinies of those who have to live there.
Same thing with a Belarusian artist in my country who was on a cozy-chit-chat-kind-of talkshow. The host kept pressing him so make a statement on the regime, and he resisted and looked very uncomfortable. In the end the artist said "Stop asking me that. If I say anything on TV, my uncles and aunts and cousins will be arrested tomorrow." And with that, he effective had said something. That host did not understand the consequences of his questions.
How could they? They live in peace. How could they know what it is like to live under the barrel of a chambered gun?
In their free society, they can push back even against the national leader, if they were in the right, and they'd be supported. In those less than free countries... might makes right, and the common people don't have might, so they... don't have rights.
How could they? They are professional. They are required to have deep enough knowledge, so they at least dont cause harm and suffering to the guest. You cannot be an expert in every subject as a host, but you MUST be an expert in talking to people, or at the least - not a total ignorant moron that cares about controversy and clicks, not taking into account the aftermath of their questions.
A real journalist protects their sources, and shines a light on the info. Pushing like that is just so... disrespectful? There is no word that really gets the horror of it.
Lots of rumors. I heard the whole square is micced.
BTW it is _massive_ in real life. Really hard to convey the scale. It ain't a square, it is one seriously bigass rectangle.
square in the name isn't referring to the shape, it's a location, although typically "town squares" have four sides.
>Square
>noun
>2. an open, typically four-sided, area surrounded by buildings in a village, town, or city.
>"a market square"
I was approached by a Chinese exchange student while sitting on a bench outside the State Library of Victoria, reading. They struck up a conversation. My Norwegian introverted ass didn't know how to handle such a situation, but I did my best, and asked if they'd seen the Ai Weiwei exhibition that was currently at the Melbourne Arts Centre. They looked around furtively, almost panicked, and didn't want to talk about him at all. They mentioned that people might be listening anywhere, especially in a city like Melbourne with so many Chinese.
And then there's stuff like this:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-14/chinese-police-escorted-woman-from-australia-to-china/103840578
> You'd likely be safe as a foreigner.
Depends if they want to use your dumb ass as a bargaining chip to extort something out of your country.
Might be they throw you in a cell and torture you for two years in order to get a Huawei exec off.
I asked the same to our tour guide and she basically said that people know what happened but don’t know the full details of it and as the years pass it becomes less and less relevant.
Thanks - wasn't familiar with that term.
When I went to reply to you, I noticed I caught downvotes for asking that question - is this super common knowledge that I should have known or is there something that I'm missing?
No, I think what we're seeing here is an influx of people who really don't like that this is being discussed, along with a bunch of people who really want to discuss it, and both sides are kind of trigger happy about comments that don't instantly agree with their side.
It's not super common knowledge tho, no, unless you speak Mandarin or have dealt with a lot of Chinese people. I, myself, picked it up through context and the similarity to the term "Gwailo", which is the equivalent word in Cantonese, which I only know through Hong Kong Kung Fu movies, a guilty pleasure of mine.
Nah, don't tempt them. It's like those Canadian/American businessmen getting detained as revenge for Hua Wei executives getting held.
They throw you in jail for made up reasons and there's nothing your country will do other than write a sternly worded letter.
Spoke to a Chinese born American citizen during training.
He'd been here for like 4 years.
I asked him about it. He said he didn't know all the details and that's it's like bringing up racism in the workplace, you just don't talk about it. I didn't press him on it.
It is not like racism.
>It is not like racism.
It was just en example of something people are hesistant to bring up in public. He didn't mean it was exactly like racism in every aspect.
One of my colleagues was working there when it happened. The management came and told him to jump in a cab and raced him to the airport. He had no idea why until they were out of the country.
I worked in China for a few years. They have done a really good job wiping it from the memory of the people. It is almost as if it never happened. I remember the day I left was one of the happiest days of my life. The people are amazing but the government? They are dystopian as hell.
It is crazy to think that Chinese people in Mainland China have NEVER known democracy. They were just passed from one dictator to another, from their Qing Emperor to Mao, to Xi.
Also, if the CCP were to become democratic, the world would easily be propelled to unimaginable-levels of technological advancement. I wrote this a while ago and would love to share this with everyone.
----------
For the longest time I have been trying to best exemplify the terrible nature of the CCP. That was until I watched Netflix's adaptation of Liu Cixin's "The Three-Body Problem". If you have not seen it, I highly recommend you do.
The CCP are literally the Trisolarans.
There are so many striking similarities between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Trisolarans of that book. Exactly like the aliens in The Three-Body Problem, the CCP's presence casts a shadow over progress for the Chinese people. Time and again, when the Chinese populace has endeavored to advance, they have been met with obstruction by the CCP.
If the author didn't mean to, then I will. The CCP is a virus to the Chinese people. China and Chinese people are capable of incredible feats and capable of propelling humanity forwards on an unprecedented scientific level. If they were allowed to, with the CCP gone, could make scientific achievements only imagined in science fiction. But the CCP, like the Trisolarans can't have that. They don't believe in the people of China. And actively stunt their growth and progress, which is hurting all of humanity.
From the revolutionary movements that sought to end feudal China, only to be replaced by a regime arguably as oppressive as the Qing Dynasty, to the democratic aspirations of the 1980s, brutally quashed in Tiananmen Square, and the attempts to engage with the global community in the 1990s and 2000s, thwarted by the CCP's censorship and surveillance apparatus—the CCP has systematically impeded progress and kept its people in a state of repression and ignorance. The CCP's tactics have effectively stunted the growth of the Chinese population, ensuring they remain subdued and unaware of their potential. The areas that the CCP actively stunt Chinese progress are
* Technological and Scientific Progress
* Human Rights Violations
* Cultural Suppression
* Political Repression
* Technological Surveillance
* Environmental Degradation
* Cultural and Ethnic Persecution
* Restrictions on Academic Freedom
They also work to destroy Chineseness, to the point that they are unrecognizable from their past and have nothing to build on as an identity for the future:
* Cultural Heritage Sites: The CCP Have erased and destroyed valuable cultural Chinese heritage sites.
* Traditional Festivals: The CCP's suppression of traditional and religious festivals.
* Language and Writing: The promotion of simplified Chinese characters and restrictions on traditional calligraphy and language usage have eroded linguistic diversity and cultural identity.
* Religious Practices: The persecution of religious groups, including Buddhists, Taoists, and Falun Gong practitioners, has restricted religious freedoms and suppressed traditional spiritual beliefs and practices.
* Cultural Artifacts: The CCP's censorship and control over artistic expression have led to the alteration or removal of traditional Chinese artworks, literature, and music that do not align with party ideology.
* Traditional Clothing: The CCP's restrictions on traditional attire, such as qipao and hanfu, have contributed to the decline of traditional dress customs and identity.
Social Customs and Etiquette: The CCP's promotion of socialist values and mass mobilization campaigns have disrupted traditional social customs, etiquette, and family structures.
Just imagine how cool a free and unstifled population would be.
You can.
China could be as cool, advanced, and civilized as Taiwan, a Han-Chinese majority nation.
Taiwan, a historically Chinese society, where there is no such stifling force. Here, Chinese-speaking people are at the heart of humanities groundbreaking technological advancements like TSMC. Taiwanese people thrive unimpeded, enjoying greater happiness, a higher standard of living, and progress in human rights that outpaces many other nations.
The CCP are the enemy of both Chinese people and all of humanity.
Everytime I go home to Taiwan I get sad because I always thought it painted an image of what a unified China could have become in the 21st century, magnified by tenfold.
What if we didn't get the dictatorships of Mao and Chiang Kai-Shek coupled with the brutal civil war? What if we didn't wallow in Chiang's obsession of retaking the motherland while the mainland languished in Mao's insane policies?
If China as a whole could have moved on from WW2 at a similar trajectory as post-dictatorship Taiwan and post-Mao China, under a liberal government, that would have been a sight to behold.
Dude, if China was whole, democratic, and working with the West, we'd be the other half of NATO, basically. All the manpower, resources, and technology you could ask for.
Unfortunately not.
Democratic government does not mean West friendly. Hell, it doesn't even mean friendly. They could easily elect someone who wants to surpass the West, not join them.
Shoutout to the fact that there's a serious threat of the US getting a president again who is a known puppet of Putin and well any other dictator. Sometimes, democracy isn't such a good thing. I like the concept but reality is often disappointing.
TL;DR It would be more "competition" or "race" (think Cold War with less hostilities) and less "cooperation".
However, looking how the US government reacted to China getting "ahead" with electric cars (just "banned" them instead of competing), the democratic corporation heaven might not like the idea of competing with anyone.
Chinese here, it's not that they've done a great job wiping the event from memory. It's that people don't want to get in trouble, so they don't look into things that can get them into trouble. Imagine you work at Boeing now and you know some stuff...would you say anything? If you do might wana lock yourself up. They gonna get ya.
Went back for the first time in 17 years and wow have they really stepped it up. When I left China in 1998 there were practically no highways, I remember making the drive and literally not seeing any other cars back then. Now? The highspeed rail gets me to my moms hometown in 3 hours instead of over night.
Everything is done via wechat, no need for credit card just scan them or they scan you and off you go. GPS direction counts down the seconds until the light turns, blew my mind. Being on film 24/7 sucks but I'm not doing anything illegal, and all that camera equipment just means when I get home I can leave my electric scooter outside without locking it up and it'll still be there with my blanket and phone holder. Can't say that about north america. Ubers are incredibly safe because if they divert from the roads you've approved the cops will be notified within a couple minutes and you're always being recorded in the vehicle so a little girl can go home at night via taxi and feel safe. These drivers had to pass tests and purchase a vehicle to do this job, they're not gonna throw this life away for something stupid. Here, immigrants driving honda that don't speak english. No need for house keys because everything is fingerprint/facial rec including entry to apartment/condo buildings. Need to park? plate scanners automatically scan and will tell you if you need to pay, whip out wechat and done. Want to send a package? No need to go to UPS or drop it off whip out wechat select what kinda service you'd like and boom they're here to pick up the package then dropped it off to my aunt in less than 30 minutes.
So yeah, plenty of reasons to hate/question the Chinese but lets not pretend their society is technologically stagnant. We in the west are far behind as far as the life of the average citizen is concerned. I bought 20 gbs of data for the price of a mcdonalds big mac meal, how much would that cost in Canada? Is it because the cost to deliver that 20 gb of data is so high or because someone sittin in office is pocketing some money from say a telecom company operating with only a couple (litertally) competitors?
The first world is run by multinational conglomerates, stop thinking we're so much better. We're just a different breed of sheep on a different farm. At the end of the day our buttholes are as red and stretched as the chinese, just came from a different source.
I was there. Not in Beijing but in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. I know a number of our students went to the square. Not sure whatever happened to them. In the beginning it was amazingly hopeful. There were even marches in my town, something I never thought I'd see. Then June 4th came. Somebody told me that they had used tear gas on the crowd. When I got home, the BBC World Service and the Voice of America were off the air. The nightly TV English news disappeared. The TV focused on the deaths of the Chinese soldiers. After the massacre, the TV stations showed CCTV of the square. However, there was a gap between like 2 - 4:00 am. When it was light, they showed how the square had been abandoned and most of the tents removed or destroyed. As they panned through the wreckage I swear I saw a body wrapped up in a tarp.
An then the faxes started. Chinese speaking people all over the world started sending faxes (which could not be traced) to any fax number they could find. telling the truth about what had happened. There were faxes glued to trees and walls; anywhere they could post them. People were standing in the street reading them. That didn't last too long though as the police started sweeping through and removing them.
The "news" was constantly changing it's narrative. First it said that hundreds of protesters had been killed, then a few, then after a few days, only one. It wasn't until I got a frantic call from my parents who had been trying to reach me for four days, that I began to understand just how bad things were. It was only when I arrived back in America a few weeks later that I saw some of the these pictures and video of the PLA spread out in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace shooting into the encampment with machine guns.
Even though there were still a couple of weeks left in the semester, all the students left school and went home. The media was blaming it all on "foreign influence". I knew the police would be watching me and anyone who visited me. I realized that I was a danger to my friends and anyone else I interacted with so I decided it would be best if I left. Beijing and Shanghai were in chaos so I took a short flight to Hong Kong. I had no way home from there. I didn't qualify for US aid so I had to wait a week or so until my folks could arrange a ticket home.
No, no, apparently we have to accurately term it the "Slightly Outside Tiananmen Square Massacre" according to the tankies in here.
It's as hilarious as getting up in arms about CCP vs CPC. Just the most vapid talking points to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
That is not a picture of the massacre, that is a picture when gunshots were heard and people were on the ground to avoid getting shot.
The massacre took place at night.
The human paste mentioned above:
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/EfHg4h2qDY
More sites:
http://www.cnd.org/June4th/massacre.html
https://www.nzz.ch/english/nzz-publishes-long-hidden-photos-of-1989-tiananmen-square-protest-ld.1709973
The large archive of these photos was taken offline when China took over Hong Kong:
https://time.com/5571372/tiananmen-massacre-june-4-1989-china-censorship/
https://weiboscope.jmsc.hku.hk
Didn’t that civilian walk off?
Where is Chai Ling? I bet she’s somewhere celebrating her comrades death. Can’t get over where she actively cry for blood shed before escaping to the US with the help of the CIA
The half a lady laying in the gutter staring at the goo that used to be her lower half wipes out Tank Man’s survival.
Probably more than 585 people murdered. Maybe 6489.
They are truly horrible. A bit like the worst Abu-Ghraib torture photos, but with extra gore.
Here are some that were posted in this thread already, so I guess it's safe to post the same link: [https://imgur.com/a/tiananmen-square-k0Wei8P](https://imgur.com/a/tiananmen-square-k0Wei8P)
But the worst are not in there.
Imgur: pictures of dead bodies in a Chinese protest.
Also imgur: An advert for fucking Temu halfway through the album.
They knew what they were doing it.
>Probably more than 585 people murdered. Maybe 6489.
The objective now seems to downplay the event. The story now goes as they are now living in Canada and occasionally trolling wechat.
That's why you don't hear about it. No official response too.
As I recall, media coverage of the time in the US was pretty much “there was a protest and check out this guy standing in front of tanks!” Not much else beyond that.
This is because coverage by any foreign press was shut down. Pictures, film had to be transmitted covertly. On US news coverage, no pictures means no story. Just like we don't hear much about the brutal treatment of China's ethnic minorities. China is a corrupt Godless society, but we pretend we don't know this because they are important trade partners.
The tanks were actually leaving Tiananmen square. And the man that stood in front of the tank, if you watch the full video, he climbed on to the tank, then climbed down and then other civilians came and encouraged him to leave with them, which he did, and the tanks continued to leave in a column.
https://youtu.be/vSbx352cn8A?si=bVwkfB9zYgHru2ZU
~20 years ago, I had a tankie community college professor who tried to tell us that nobody died at Tiananmen Square and that the whole "massacre" angle was western media propaganda used to push anti-communist sentiment. He used that video of the Tank Man as his reasoning. Me being young and naive, I called him out on this in front of the whole class. "If it didn't happen, why are there all kinds of pictures of the dead and bullet holes in the concrete still there today?" My grades in that class tanked after that... I was lucky to pass with a C-.
The CCP is invested in pushing the tank man as a world wide icon and method to dilute search results.
Everybody knows the tankman and the history lesson can stop there. Few know about the gutters filled with bodies.
I'm 70/30 on OP being a sockpuppet (with [interests](https://old.reddit.com/r/flightradar24/comments/19e4ykk/usaf_rc135_south_west_of_taiwan/) in the area) to push a "_ScArY_" NSFW tagged post so to wave off any worries of post & comment manipulations on reddit that show how bloody and deadly it was.
Went to China some 7 years ago on the international student workshop program. None of the local students knew about this photo when we showed them the "Tank man". Thinking back, we might've been quite stupid waving that photo around.
It was only stupid in the sense that "Tank Man" defines the Western consciousness of the Tiananmen Square protests, not the Chinese one. Most Chinese people are aware of the violence and events associated with June 4th, especially those from urban areas. It is however a subject they tend avoid with foreigners because voicing a slightly different version of the events to the common Western narrative invites suspicion or doubt.
Quite notable fact that on the exactly same date (the 3rd/4th of June 1989), there was also the explosion of two trains near Ufa, USSR, after a gas leak nearby (about six hundred people were killed). Very tragic date in history.
I watched this live on TV with my roommate Tommy who was born in China and had family there. It was an amazingly deep, powerful and sad experience and I really could see how much this hit him. Here we were in Vancouver Canada thousands of miles away from all that and safe...
Hope followed by horror.
35 years ago....dang.
This event is why civil rights is important and worth fighting for. The government is supposed to exist to serve the people, not the other way around. Truth and freedom is always worth fighting for. There are still communist bootlickers that deny this event ever happened.
Always remember that The Former Guy, now convicted felon, PRAISED the Chinese Communist government for slaughtering peaceful protesters at Tiananmen Square.
https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/donald-trump-tianamen-square-putin-220610
Recalling the time that aspiring-dictator Trump praised a ruthless murderous dictator raises the question of "Which time?". Thank you for being specific.
I was there on the 20th. It’s interesting how everything has to remain somewhat the same. The entrances to the forbidden city don’t change, the grandstands for the Mao style parades don’t move. If you stand in a certain spot on the square and you remember a photo, hold these people in your mind, you can truly feel them. It was one of the most moving experiences in my travels.
It's that day of the year where right wingers come out and pretend that all mentions of the massacre have been removed or is illegal to post on us social media.
Seeing as this post is number one on /r/all and the tankies are getting ethnically consumed in here, I don't feel like there's anything tangible right now.
Well I mean, they actually have educated people operating their network. Russia's bullshit machine is run by racist incels who don't know how to actually communicate with human beings, and therefor can't actually sway anyone who isn't also a racist incel. Both however, are attempting to provoke chaos and kill innocent people by proxy.
> The Chinese stuff is that sweet spot of misinformation.
Yep look at the comment history of the people in this thread defending the CCP/trying to discredit the massacre and they will look like normal people with no links to China, but for some reason they want to act like the massacre is a hoax? lol This is the one topic they cannot manipulate and gaslight people about because it's too recent, well known and well documented, so they out themselves as soon as they do.
My parents survived the Tiananmen square massacre. They saw things you can't even imagine. I'm so grateful to have been born in America and to have never had to gone through what they went through.
Interesting video showing what the CCP is doing to prevent things from happening but it's just Streisand effect at work
https://youtube.com/shorts/MrBwwm4r3T4?si=hwryNOOtl_5FbS8b
I’m not too familiar china’s history, just really know the most about Tiananmen Square. But when everyone was protesting, did they do so knowing that there was a possibility that they could die? Or had the government not shown their true colors before this?
Is it just me or are the people in the last photo very clearly napping? Why is this marked NSFW?
EDIT: To all the downvoters: for once in your life please use your eyes and then use that visual information to come to a conclusion independent of what you are already told.
Things like this is what's wrong with media presentation. Let the person decide. Trigger warnings and NSFW (except for very obvious you will get fired stuff) makes people have preconceived notions.
You are presenting something that is basically just a reminder of a day. Nothing in your words or images are remotely concerning. So why NSFW? Now people think those are dead people.
See where it goes wrong?
The "social credit" thing isn't real, at least not in the sort of Black Mirror dystopian sense.
The censorship is real, though, and pretty shockingly effective. I bet you'll still meet international students who had no idea this was a thing.
It's 50/50, the 'social credit' is similar to that credit score use in most banking system worldwide, because China **is** a capitalism country with extra Authoritarianism on top. However said credit score is also affect by several other factors outside of money-related, and this is the part of many conspiracies around 'social credit': like 'thing you said online', or 'your public behaviour', or 'violating rules and laws', etc.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of that were true, but I also doubt *all* of that is true.
And since the world has been gently sucking on China's giant teat for those past 35 years, we're all indirectly complicit in allowing their government to get away with this massacre.
As a Chinese immigrant living in America, it's interesting to think about the Tiananmen square massacre when recently American university students were arrested for protesting against Israeli oppression against Palestinians. Of course, getting arrested is waaaaay better than being gunned down (or in the case of Kent State, much fewer students were killed), but having grown up in the US, I was taught that the difference between China and America is more than mere degrees on a scale. America is supposed to have some fundamental, categorical moral righteousness. Shouldn't America be celebrating these student protestors for championing human rights?
The situation was closer to a coup than a protest. The protests lasted a month and a half and there were as many as a million people at the peak. The army was brought in from the surrounding regions, there was widespread unrest across the city, people threw rocks at the soldiers and blocked streets with burning vehicles. There’s even reports that APCs were set on fire and destroyed, and maybe even fighting between PLA units - a US soldier in the country claims to have seen an APC with damage from an antitank weapon. I think the leaders figured it was time to put all the chips down. If the student movement continued, things could come completely off the rails, and they needed to have the army ready to put down an actual revolution.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre#Resistance_to_martial_law_orders
There aren't just reports of APCs set on fire. There are pictures. The scene in the outer parts of the city was a war zone as armed workers blockaded the path of the soldiers, allegedly joined by a handful of local police. The army suffered a bunch of casualties, including a couple dozen fatalities. The students in the square downtown were far more peaceful and actually declined to accept a machine gun that the workers salvaged from an APC and brought to them.
The [uncropped version of Tank Man](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/dklwxp/full_size_version_of_the_tank_man_photograph_in/#lightbox) is definitely worth seeing if you haven't before. It changed how I pictured the whole moment. (Picture linked is from [this archived post](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/dklwxp/full_size_version_of_the_tank_man_photograph_in/), which is the largest copy of the image a quick reverse-image search found.) Edit: Fixed the link. It's a bigger picture now.
[Imgur album detailing the protests from start to finish, found in the internet archives. VERY NSFW](https://archive.ph/7Tdzh)
I've seen a lot of hardcore shit on the internet but that image of the human body paste beneath the tank always punches me in the gut
The soldier whose brains are laying on the pavement next to his hair is the one I'm not gonna forget.
That’s for that comment, you saved me from clicking that link
That one was exceptionally rough. I stopped looking shortly after that.
eye opening and terrifying
One of the most important things I took away from learning the details about Tienanmen was how the Chinese government when they initially sent in the troops, the troops refused to kill the students because it was the Beijing garrison, so these were their friends, their family, the sons and daughters of their relatives and weren't willing to kill them. And so the Chinese government sent those troops home and brought in a bunch of rural troops, the stereotypical illiterate peasant conscripts, told them lies about how the student protests were trying to destroy their country and basically whipped them into a frothing rage, and THOSE were the troops who had no problems murdering 10,000 students, using tanks to mash their bodies into jam, lighting the resulting viscera on fire and then trying to wash it down the Beijing sewers. I think about that sometimes whenever I hear something from Fox news or Brietbart or Infowars or wherever trying to frame everything as "REAL AMERICA versus the coastal elite"
It’s scary to think this happened again with the recent protests in Hongkong. They used a lot of police/military from the mainland for the exact same reason.
Nowadays they don't kill people out in the open like that. They learned that it's bad optics on the world PR stage. [So they just have blank white incinerator vans that pick you up, kill you and then incinerate your body.](https://youtu.be/MI8cOvGX_Nw)
Its standard authoritarian tactics. Propaganda is a hell of a drug, maga included. At the end of ww2 a lot of german troops would rather die or kill themselves than live post war. Deprograming took a long time. Look at russia sending untrained men into the meat-grinder, yet they go. We have had 40 years of Fox and Maga, a lot of those people are a lost generation. So far not the majority but its close. Remember it took national socialism 15-20 years to get going, the US is running a very dangerous propaganda experiment. Hope the kids dont buy into the crazy, thats all that will save the US.
It's missing that one graphic image O remember, where there would be a person housing down whatever the remains were on the streets into the gutter.
There's an archive of a whole (and VERY NSFW) imgur album of Tiananmen pics [right over here](https://archive.ph/7Tdzh) including the picture you're referring to.
Thank you for this, so much good information here and things I never knew like that Goddess of Democracy statue, they built and erected it in the square?! That blew my mind, still in the middle of reading just had to mention that.
Reading through the account from the Brit is crazy, I didn't realise they also killed their own men who attempted to help people. At least that's what I'm gathering from the part about Army ambulances being shot up
Surprised that they actually included the images of the burning APCs and hanged/burned PLA soldier in this one, even though the text barely mentions the "pro-democracy protesters" fighting. PLA and leadership are obviously still at fault for the escalation though.
I actually checked the album specifically to see if they were gonna show the burning APCs -- and they did. That's some mfing journalism right there. It took me years on the internet before I ever learned about the dead PLA and the violence that was going on prior to the 4th.
The local PLA were unwilling to fight the protesters because they largely agreed with them. The government had to bus in soldiers from rural areas that weren't the protesters' neighbors.
VERY NSFW is right... Sometimes I wonder if the global perspective toward and about war would change if everyone was forced to see images like this. For many, probably, but for those that send people and don't, themselves, actually fight, probably not.
dude stared down a whole tank column. im surprised they were able to drive over his gigantic balls.
But they never drove over him. Just watch the whole video, he literally climbs on the tank and eventually people come over to tell him to move.
doesn't that ironically show a great deal of restraint lol
> doesn't that ironically show a great deal of restraint lol This all took place the day after the massacre.
> This all took place the day after the massacre. You're telling me it was like the Purge movie. just 1 day of massacre and the next day its back to business.
Not fully back to business, but very limited violence, as the military had established control of most of the city by the 5th. The entire massacre was basically the Army entering Beijing, working their way to the center, and then clearing the square. Most of the deaths actually occurred outside the square, in the process of the Army and tanks making their way through the streets. Once the square was cleared (partially non-violently, partially quite violently), the primary objective was achieved, the scale of violence by the military tamped down further protests, martial law was achieved, and only limited violence occurred the rest of the day. Most post-June 4 protests in China occurred in other cities. Beijing was under martial law for about 6 months afterwards but most of the city was back to relative normalcy around June 7.
Essentially, yeah.
I've had a whole life since I watched him do that, he gave that up to do what he did. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSbx352cn8A
Wow, ive also never seen this video before. Seeing him climb onto the tank and talking to the soldiers is even more impressive. Im glad he was never identified and hope hes still alive.
There is almost zero chance he's okay.
Bit busy right now to source this but - i looked into this ages ago and came to understand that there's a reasonable chance he did survive and just disappeared. I'll look when I have time tho, maybe current thinking has changed. I remember thinking at the time, there's a good chance he slipped into a crowd who helped him leave in the confusion. Edit: I think it was frontline: the tank man that i watched (but not only that). They followed leads but couldn't really be sure who he was. At that time, technology wasn't what it is today and the massacre itself had just happened, with lots of gruesome deaths and disappearances that kinda couldn't be resolved. If even one or two of the people that escorted him to safety were on his side and gave authorities a bogus name, a low pixel dude in a white shirt really *is* hard to identify in beijing the day after the massacre. Could so easily turn into a reverse "I'm Spartacus" moment with minimal risk - I know I'd have done it if I were there lol "dave? nah i thought it was jim? could be wrong tho". No one was feeling particularly generous/helpful to the government at that time, as you can imagine. ie. no proof either way, but very reasonable chance he just left.
He's gone. they never even gave up his body.
> The uncropped version of Tank Man is definitely worth seeing if you haven't before. It's actually a different picture taken at a slightly different time with a wider angle lens. I think the wide image is earlier as the tanks weren't as bunched up.
All those red spots on the road are the remains of victims that were ran/shot down, then had tanks run over them to turn them in to mush and the remains then hosed down into the gutters. Absolutely awful that the victims families had nothing left to bury/cremate. **EDIT**: Seems like I'm being downvoted because....? I'm not going to provide the links because it's pretty gnarly, but if you want to see pictures of it, scroll further down the thread and there's links to it all.
OR, as the Chinese refer to it "What now? I have to go. Don't follow me."
Visited the square several years back. Our guide (who was an American) said to not talk about it in public there. Not sure what would happen if you do, but I was a college student and wanted to make sure I got home in one piece.
I've seen video of people trying that, asking people about Tienanmen Square in 1989. They got one of two answers: "I have no idea what you're referring to, goodbye" or " Don't ask that question"
You'd likely be safe as a foreigner. They would not be for saying anything that made China look bad, if Uncle Policeman was nearby.
I've been told by my native born Chinese friends that there's always undercover policy police patrolling in those tourist areas, so be careful what you talk about.
I've asked Chinese born coworkers I'm friends with about it and they say, "I never learned anything about it" or "I saw something about it when I moved to the US, but it seems like it was just protests and not really a massacre..." Meaning they only saw pictures of the tanks and protests, but not the thousands of dead people.
Most people, particularly after a certain age, you ask will acknowledge they're aware that _something_ bad happened, but they're also aware that people get in trouble for poking around too much and - I mean, looking from their point of view, if you're some average schmo, do you want that trouble in your life? The younger generation might get prickly. The system of getting people to immediately dismiss everything as a Western lie runs deep.
Imagine how many other massacres have been whitewashed from history because the government was powerful enough to censor everything, no visual evidence, no written accounts, all witnesses silenced for life and all children not taught about it. This situation exists only because the rest of the world saw it and had photographic proof.
I'm glad we have the ability to question stuff in the US. We're no angels when it comes to dispersing protest, but it always gets documented, and talking about it openly isn't illegal at all.
Indeed!
The younger generation don't know. The older generation didn't look into it because they knew the rule - you saw nothing, move along. Only those who did witness the event in person knew how bad it was.
>Meaning they only saw pictures of the tanks and protests, but not the thousands of dead people. I've only ever seen photos of tanks and protests. Never of the dead. This is why censorship of that type of imagery is bad. Only reason I know people died there is because the media mentions it every time it's brought up. They wouldn't need to deny it, just never mention it and I'd be like "what massacre?" It's just like with the 2020 protests, where the media doesn't like to talk about how the police repeatedly attacked peaceful protesters sparking the riots. But at least those videos are available and can be freely shared. Videos where cops shoot bystanders are harder to share cause they're likely to get taken down due to policies against gore. But that just makes people ignorant of just how atrocious the brutality was.
I've got a tankie friend who has a degree in Sinology and insists that all Chinese people know what happened. No Chinese person I've spoken to about it has said they know what happened. Edit to add: One of their favorite things to do is say that America and China are basically the same while complaining about how harshly America treats protesters.
One of the issues is that even if you know, you don't wanna tell anyone - Chinese nationals are notorious for snitching to their home country, for instance Purdue (which I attended) had a controversy a few years back where iirc (memory is fuzzy) a grad student got threatened by their family or the government because they said some anti-Chinese stuff... Don't underestimate how nationalistic they are. EDIT: https://www.propublica.org/article/even-on-us-campuses-china-cracks-down-on-students-who-speak-out > In a rush of adrenaline last year, the graduate student posted an open letter on a dissident website praising the heroism of the students killed in the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. > > The blowback, he said, was fast and frightening. His parents called from China, crying. Officers of the Ministry of State Security, the feared civilian spy agency, had warned them about his activism in the United States.
Oh I know, I worked at the crossroads of psychology and large language models at a major US University and there were a lot of Chinese nationals in the research labs that I frequented. Very few of them were ever comfortable talking about China, and the one time I did get to ask someone a couple questions in a more private setting they said that a lot of the students are from CCP families and either specifically placed to keep others in line or will go running to mom/dad and everyone will get in trouble if the wrong sorts of sentiments start getting displayed.
It's basically how North Korea keeps people from running away as well - sure you can run away, but we've got your family so if you know what's best for you... then you know what to do : ) Can't imagine growing up there and everyone being desperate to snitch, perhaps because of true nationalism, maybe also because they're eager to throw you under the bus for meager benefits. Coming from the same country whose citizens are eager to present stolen research for the same meager benefits. I'm surprised the US is still soft against China at this point, though it's probably more because they're afraid of increasing tariffs + most politicians not giving a fuck about national security unless it's election time or it happens to make them money. You can basically assume that anything Chinese nationals touch will somehow get funneled back to the Chinese government, it's why at my job (semiconductors) Chinese nationals get extra restrictions on what they can access vs. normal visa holders.
> I worked at the crossroads of psychology and large language models at a major US University and there were a lot of Chinese nationals in the research labs that I frequented You should watch for them, we had those here in Canada too and started finding out quite a few of them were spies stealing the research data
https://vimeo.com/44078865 Many Chinese know. Not everyone, obviously.
I talked to a girl who was en exchange student in China several years back. She said she originally included a paragraph on the massacre in a group paper, and the other students, horrified, took it out. But she told me produly she had reinserted it just before handing it in. She thought she had "taught them a bittle bit of democracy". I mean, I get the sentiment. But she was completely oblivious that she might very well have ruined their whole careers and their families' opportunities... If you visit a dictatorship, go ahead and protest it, but do not fuck around with the destinies of those who have to live there. Same thing with a Belarusian artist in my country who was on a cozy-chit-chat-kind-of talkshow. The host kept pressing him so make a statement on the regime, and he resisted and looked very uncomfortable. In the end the artist said "Stop asking me that. If I say anything on TV, my uncles and aunts and cousins will be arrested tomorrow." And with that, he effective had said something. That host did not understand the consequences of his questions.
How could they? They live in peace. How could they know what it is like to live under the barrel of a chambered gun? In their free society, they can push back even against the national leader, if they were in the right, and they'd be supported. In those less than free countries... might makes right, and the common people don't have might, so they... don't have rights.
How could they? They are professional. They are required to have deep enough knowledge, so they at least dont cause harm and suffering to the guest. You cannot be an expert in every subject as a host, but you MUST be an expert in talking to people, or at the least - not a total ignorant moron that cares about controversy and clicks, not taking into account the aftermath of their questions.
A real journalist protects their sources, and shines a light on the info. Pushing like that is just so... disrespectful? There is no word that really gets the horror of it.
Lots of rumors. I heard the whole square is micced. BTW it is _massive_ in real life. Really hard to convey the scale. It ain't a square, it is one seriously bigass rectangle.
Tiananmen Rectangle Massacre doesn't have quite the same ring to it...
Tiananmen *Big-Ass* Rectangle Massacre
square in the name isn't referring to the shape, it's a location, although typically "town squares" have four sides. >Square >noun >2. an open, typically four-sided, area surrounded by buildings in a village, town, or city. >"a market square"
... There's a Haidilao restaurant in Vancouver that was found to be all micced up. You take that how you want.
I was approached by a Chinese exchange student while sitting on a bench outside the State Library of Victoria, reading. They struck up a conversation. My Norwegian introverted ass didn't know how to handle such a situation, but I did my best, and asked if they'd seen the Ai Weiwei exhibition that was currently at the Melbourne Arts Centre. They looked around furtively, almost panicked, and didn't want to talk about him at all. They mentioned that people might be listening anywhere, especially in a city like Melbourne with so many Chinese. And then there's stuff like this: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-14/chinese-police-escorted-woman-from-australia-to-china/103840578
Depends. I knew of a guy teaching English there and they deported him.
> You'd likely be safe as a foreigner. Depends if they want to use your dumb ass as a bargaining chip to extort something out of your country. Might be they throw you in a cell and torture you for two years in order to get a Huawei exec off.
This is it, international person you're fine. But locals absolutely do not want to vanish without a trace
I asked the same to our tour guide and she basically said that people know what happened but don’t know the full details of it and as the years pass it becomes less and less relevant.
Just as relevant today.
probably have a snitch or a minder in the area.
Arrested, thrown in jail, tortured and possibly never heard from again.
Not to a laowai, you’d be fine. Everyone would avoid you, at worst you get a night in the cells.
Whats the difference between a laowai and a gwailo?
Gwailo is Cantonese, or Hong Kong, and means white devil. It is like saying beaner. Laowai means foreigner, and is mandarin
Mandarin vs Cantonese
Not to a what?
"Foreigner" roughly. I believe it's a bit more rude than that, but I don't know the precise translation.
it just means Mr Foreigner in a more informal manner. like Mr Wong is Lao Wang,
Thanks - wasn't familiar with that term. When I went to reply to you, I noticed I caught downvotes for asking that question - is this super common knowledge that I should have known or is there something that I'm missing?
No, I think what we're seeing here is an influx of people who really don't like that this is being discussed, along with a bunch of people who really want to discuss it, and both sides are kind of trigger happy about comments that don't instantly agree with their side. It's not super common knowledge tho, no, unless you speak Mandarin or have dealt with a lot of Chinese people. I, myself, picked it up through context and the similarity to the term "Gwailo", which is the equivalent word in Cantonese, which I only know through Hong Kong Kung Fu movies, a guilty pleasure of mine.
Hah. I was going to ask the same question until I found yours.
Lao means old. Wai means away or foreign, other. So means old other person.
Nah, don't tempt them. It's like those Canadian/American businessmen getting detained as revenge for Hua Wei executives getting held. They throw you in jail for made up reasons and there's nothing your country will do other than write a sternly worded letter.
Spoke to a Chinese born American citizen during training. He'd been here for like 4 years. I asked him about it. He said he didn't know all the details and that's it's like bringing up racism in the workplace, you just don't talk about it. I didn't press him on it. It is not like racism.
I assume they just meant that it's a taboo, but yea, it's not like racism at all lmfao
>It is not like racism. It was just en example of something people are hesistant to bring up in public. He didn't mean it was exactly like racism in every aspect.
He’s not comparing it to racism bro. He’s just giving you an example of something you normally wouldn’t bring up.
I dunno I wouldn’t go up to a German colleague and say “hey let’s talk about the holocaust”
It'd be different if Germany was still under Nazi rule and had a state policy of actively censoring any and all information about the Holocaust.
Ok, it would be like going to a Palestinian colleague and going “hey, let’s talk about hamas”
Tien An Men Square, on this site in 1989, nothing happened.
It didn't happen in West Taiwan. ***Deal!*** FREE TIBET!* *with purchase of another Tibet of equal or greater value.
[The Simpsons made a good joke about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSimpsons/comments/27a36z/its_the_25th_anniversary_of_tiananmen_square/)
Or as the 50 Cent ~~Army~~ Party says on reddit, "stop spreading lies about China because you are ashamed of slavery"
35th anniversary of nothing to see here.
One of my colleagues was working there when it happened. The management came and told him to jump in a cab and raced him to the airport. He had no idea why until they were out of the country.
I worked in China for a few years. They have done a really good job wiping it from the memory of the people. It is almost as if it never happened. I remember the day I left was one of the happiest days of my life. The people are amazing but the government? They are dystopian as hell. It is crazy to think that Chinese people in Mainland China have NEVER known democracy. They were just passed from one dictator to another, from their Qing Emperor to Mao, to Xi. Also, if the CCP were to become democratic, the world would easily be propelled to unimaginable-levels of technological advancement. I wrote this a while ago and would love to share this with everyone. ---------- For the longest time I have been trying to best exemplify the terrible nature of the CCP. That was until I watched Netflix's adaptation of Liu Cixin's "The Three-Body Problem". If you have not seen it, I highly recommend you do. The CCP are literally the Trisolarans. There are so many striking similarities between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Trisolarans of that book. Exactly like the aliens in The Three-Body Problem, the CCP's presence casts a shadow over progress for the Chinese people. Time and again, when the Chinese populace has endeavored to advance, they have been met with obstruction by the CCP. If the author didn't mean to, then I will. The CCP is a virus to the Chinese people. China and Chinese people are capable of incredible feats and capable of propelling humanity forwards on an unprecedented scientific level. If they were allowed to, with the CCP gone, could make scientific achievements only imagined in science fiction. But the CCP, like the Trisolarans can't have that. They don't believe in the people of China. And actively stunt their growth and progress, which is hurting all of humanity. From the revolutionary movements that sought to end feudal China, only to be replaced by a regime arguably as oppressive as the Qing Dynasty, to the democratic aspirations of the 1980s, brutally quashed in Tiananmen Square, and the attempts to engage with the global community in the 1990s and 2000s, thwarted by the CCP's censorship and surveillance apparatus—the CCP has systematically impeded progress and kept its people in a state of repression and ignorance. The CCP's tactics have effectively stunted the growth of the Chinese population, ensuring they remain subdued and unaware of their potential. The areas that the CCP actively stunt Chinese progress are * Technological and Scientific Progress * Human Rights Violations * Cultural Suppression * Political Repression * Technological Surveillance * Environmental Degradation * Cultural and Ethnic Persecution * Restrictions on Academic Freedom They also work to destroy Chineseness, to the point that they are unrecognizable from their past and have nothing to build on as an identity for the future: * Cultural Heritage Sites: The CCP Have erased and destroyed valuable cultural Chinese heritage sites. * Traditional Festivals: The CCP's suppression of traditional and religious festivals. * Language and Writing: The promotion of simplified Chinese characters and restrictions on traditional calligraphy and language usage have eroded linguistic diversity and cultural identity. * Religious Practices: The persecution of religious groups, including Buddhists, Taoists, and Falun Gong practitioners, has restricted religious freedoms and suppressed traditional spiritual beliefs and practices. * Cultural Artifacts: The CCP's censorship and control over artistic expression have led to the alteration or removal of traditional Chinese artworks, literature, and music that do not align with party ideology. * Traditional Clothing: The CCP's restrictions on traditional attire, such as qipao and hanfu, have contributed to the decline of traditional dress customs and identity. Social Customs and Etiquette: The CCP's promotion of socialist values and mass mobilization campaigns have disrupted traditional social customs, etiquette, and family structures. Just imagine how cool a free and unstifled population would be. You can. China could be as cool, advanced, and civilized as Taiwan, a Han-Chinese majority nation. Taiwan, a historically Chinese society, where there is no such stifling force. Here, Chinese-speaking people are at the heart of humanities groundbreaking technological advancements like TSMC. Taiwanese people thrive unimpeded, enjoying greater happiness, a higher standard of living, and progress in human rights that outpaces many other nations. The CCP are the enemy of both Chinese people and all of humanity.
Everytime I go home to Taiwan I get sad because I always thought it painted an image of what a unified China could have become in the 21st century, magnified by tenfold. What if we didn't get the dictatorships of Mao and Chiang Kai-Shek coupled with the brutal civil war? What if we didn't wallow in Chiang's obsession of retaking the motherland while the mainland languished in Mao's insane policies? If China as a whole could have moved on from WW2 at a similar trajectory as post-dictatorship Taiwan and post-Mao China, under a liberal government, that would have been a sight to behold.
Dude, if China was whole, democratic, and working with the West, we'd be the other half of NATO, basically. All the manpower, resources, and technology you could ask for.
Unfortunately not. Democratic government does not mean West friendly. Hell, it doesn't even mean friendly. They could easily elect someone who wants to surpass the West, not join them. Shoutout to the fact that there's a serious threat of the US getting a president again who is a known puppet of Putin and well any other dictator. Sometimes, democracy isn't such a good thing. I like the concept but reality is often disappointing. TL;DR It would be more "competition" or "race" (think Cold War with less hostilities) and less "cooperation". However, looking how the US government reacted to China getting "ahead" with electric cars (just "banned" them instead of competing), the democratic corporation heaven might not like the idea of competing with anyone.
Chinese here, it's not that they've done a great job wiping the event from memory. It's that people don't want to get in trouble, so they don't look into things that can get them into trouble. Imagine you work at Boeing now and you know some stuff...would you say anything? If you do might wana lock yourself up. They gonna get ya. Went back for the first time in 17 years and wow have they really stepped it up. When I left China in 1998 there were practically no highways, I remember making the drive and literally not seeing any other cars back then. Now? The highspeed rail gets me to my moms hometown in 3 hours instead of over night. Everything is done via wechat, no need for credit card just scan them or they scan you and off you go. GPS direction counts down the seconds until the light turns, blew my mind. Being on film 24/7 sucks but I'm not doing anything illegal, and all that camera equipment just means when I get home I can leave my electric scooter outside without locking it up and it'll still be there with my blanket and phone holder. Can't say that about north america. Ubers are incredibly safe because if they divert from the roads you've approved the cops will be notified within a couple minutes and you're always being recorded in the vehicle so a little girl can go home at night via taxi and feel safe. These drivers had to pass tests and purchase a vehicle to do this job, they're not gonna throw this life away for something stupid. Here, immigrants driving honda that don't speak english. No need for house keys because everything is fingerprint/facial rec including entry to apartment/condo buildings. Need to park? plate scanners automatically scan and will tell you if you need to pay, whip out wechat and done. Want to send a package? No need to go to UPS or drop it off whip out wechat select what kinda service you'd like and boom they're here to pick up the package then dropped it off to my aunt in less than 30 minutes. So yeah, plenty of reasons to hate/question the Chinese but lets not pretend their society is technologically stagnant. We in the west are far behind as far as the life of the average citizen is concerned. I bought 20 gbs of data for the price of a mcdonalds big mac meal, how much would that cost in Canada? Is it because the cost to deliver that 20 gb of data is so high or because someone sittin in office is pocketing some money from say a telecom company operating with only a couple (litertally) competitors? The first world is run by multinational conglomerates, stop thinking we're so much better. We're just a different breed of sheep on a different farm. At the end of the day our buttholes are as red and stretched as the chinese, just came from a different source.
I was there. Not in Beijing but in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. I know a number of our students went to the square. Not sure whatever happened to them. In the beginning it was amazingly hopeful. There were even marches in my town, something I never thought I'd see. Then June 4th came. Somebody told me that they had used tear gas on the crowd. When I got home, the BBC World Service and the Voice of America were off the air. The nightly TV English news disappeared. The TV focused on the deaths of the Chinese soldiers. After the massacre, the TV stations showed CCTV of the square. However, there was a gap between like 2 - 4:00 am. When it was light, they showed how the square had been abandoned and most of the tents removed or destroyed. As they panned through the wreckage I swear I saw a body wrapped up in a tarp. An then the faxes started. Chinese speaking people all over the world started sending faxes (which could not be traced) to any fax number they could find. telling the truth about what had happened. There were faxes glued to trees and walls; anywhere they could post them. People were standing in the street reading them. That didn't last too long though as the police started sweeping through and removing them. The "news" was constantly changing it's narrative. First it said that hundreds of protesters had been killed, then a few, then after a few days, only one. It wasn't until I got a frantic call from my parents who had been trying to reach me for four days, that I began to understand just how bad things were. It was only when I arrived back in America a few weeks later that I saw some of the these pictures and video of the PLA spread out in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace shooting into the encampment with machine guns. Even though there were still a couple of weeks left in the semester, all the students left school and went home. The media was blaming it all on "foreign influence". I knew the police would be watching me and anyone who visited me. I realized that I was a danger to my friends and anyone else I interacted with so I decided it would be best if I left. Beijing and Shanghai were in chaos so I took a short flight to Hong Kong. I had no way home from there. I didn't qualify for US aid so I had to wait a week or so until my folks could arrange a ticket home.
[Massacre is right](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Frhjo96xvh3371.jpg)
youve gone and whacked the CCP bot hornets nest
The people in here appear to be bona fide tankies. They're doing it for free...
No, no, apparently we have to accurately term it the "Slightly Outside Tiananmen Square Massacre" according to the tankies in here. It's as hilarious as getting up in arms about CCP vs CPC. Just the most vapid talking points to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
That is not a picture of the massacre, that is a picture when gunshots were heard and people were on the ground to avoid getting shot. The massacre took place at night.
[удалено]
They literally hosed peoples' remains off the road afterward.
And there are some very graphic, bloody photos of it all. These should be seen as well
AP photographer from that time os massacre , Mark Avery, is redditor too: /u/averyphotog https://www.averyphotog.com/
I posted this 10 years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/s/DQQDM5tPR9
[удалено]
The human paste mentioned above: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/EfHg4h2qDY More sites: http://www.cnd.org/June4th/massacre.html https://www.nzz.ch/english/nzz-publishes-long-hidden-photos-of-1989-tiananmen-square-protest-ld.1709973 The large archive of these photos was taken offline when China took over Hong Kong: https://time.com/5571372/tiananmen-massacre-june-4-1989-china-censorship/ https://weiboscope.jmsc.hku.hk
It's very hard to find photos of the actual victims of the tiananmen massacre, the CCP has done overtime to censor as much as possible.
I was eight years old and I remember seeing that on the news. People literally splattered under the tracks.
Before the hosing, they used the tanks to turn the bodies into soup. You know, mortar and pastel, but with humans.
Just saw this picture posted in another comment. You cant even tell it was once a human: http://www.cnd.org/June4th/photos/mascr014.gif
Your link is broke.
Didn’t that civilian walk off? Where is Chai Ling? I bet she’s somewhere celebrating her comrades death. Can’t get over where she actively cry for blood shed before escaping to the US with the help of the CIA
That civilian did indeed walk away after several other folks protesting/bystanders convinced him to get out of the way.
The half a lady laying in the gutter staring at the goo that used to be her lower half wipes out Tank Man’s survival. Probably more than 585 people murdered. Maybe 6489.
Why do we only see tank man, if there are other "after" photos that can be reliably tied to the event?
They are truly horrible. A bit like the worst Abu-Ghraib torture photos, but with extra gore. Here are some that were posted in this thread already, so I guess it's safe to post the same link: [https://imgur.com/a/tiananmen-square-k0Wei8P](https://imgur.com/a/tiananmen-square-k0Wei8P) But the worst are not in there.
Imgur: pictures of dead bodies in a Chinese protest. Also imgur: An advert for fucking Temu halfway through the album. They knew what they were doing it.
>Probably more than 585 people murdered. Maybe 6489. The objective now seems to downplay the event. The story now goes as they are now living in Canada and occasionally trolling wechat. That's why you don't hear about it. No official response too.
Most people don't think that.
As I recall, media coverage of the time in the US was pretty much “there was a protest and check out this guy standing in front of tanks!” Not much else beyond that.
This is because coverage by any foreign press was shut down. Pictures, film had to be transmitted covertly. On US news coverage, no pictures means no story. Just like we don't hear much about the brutal treatment of China's ethnic minorities. China is a corrupt Godless society, but we pretend we don't know this because they are important trade partners.
Two more likely explanations are 1) censorship from China, and 2) censorship on American TV. Not that I'm disagreeing with you.
The US began censoring graphic news footage after the Vietnam War.
Trust me, there are people, and not few, that believe this didn't even happen at all, that it was all US propaganda.
Where are you meeting these people?
I've seen plenty of the comments on Reddit and YouTube prior to this post. I'm sure you could find similar denial if you sorted by controversial.
It's the same people who think the world is flat so you know, idiots.
Simple farmers. People of the land. You know...morons.
Nah it’s not people who think the world is flat - it’s Tankies
The tanks were actually leaving Tiananmen square. And the man that stood in front of the tank, if you watch the full video, he climbed on to the tank, then climbed down and then other civilians came and encouraged him to leave with them, which he did, and the tanks continued to leave in a column. https://youtu.be/vSbx352cn8A?si=bVwkfB9zYgHru2ZU
~20 years ago, I had a tankie community college professor who tried to tell us that nobody died at Tiananmen Square and that the whole "massacre" angle was western media propaganda used to push anti-communist sentiment. He used that video of the Tank Man as his reasoning. Me being young and naive, I called him out on this in front of the whole class. "If it didn't happen, why are there all kinds of pictures of the dead and bullet holes in the concrete still there today?" My grades in that class tanked after that... I was lucky to pass with a C-.
The CCP is invested in pushing the tank man as a world wide icon and method to dilute search results. Everybody knows the tankman and the history lesson can stop there. Few know about the gutters filled with bodies. I'm 70/30 on OP being a sockpuppet (with [interests](https://old.reddit.com/r/flightradar24/comments/19e4ykk/usaf_rc135_south_west_of_taiwan/) in the area) to push a "_ScArY_" NSFW tagged post so to wave off any worries of post & comment manipulations on reddit that show how bloody and deadly it was.
Went to China some 7 years ago on the international student workshop program. None of the local students knew about this photo when we showed them the "Tank man". Thinking back, we might've been quite stupid waving that photo around.
It was only stupid in the sense that "Tank Man" defines the Western consciousness of the Tiananmen Square protests, not the Chinese one. Most Chinese people are aware of the violence and events associated with June 4th, especially those from urban areas. It is however a subject they tend avoid with foreigners because voicing a slightly different version of the events to the common Western narrative invites suspicion or doubt.
Quite notable fact that on the exactly same date (the 3rd/4th of June 1989), there was also the explosion of two trains near Ufa, USSR, after a gas leak nearby (about six hundred people were killed). Very tragic date in history.
I was born on June 4 1999 , 10 years after that. Ya it's a very tragic date in history.
I was born 11 years and 22 days after that date...
Fuck the CCP.
One of those “I remember where I was” moments.
I was being born. Does that count?
Happy birthday!
Happy fucking birthday mother fucker!
I watched this live on TV with my roommate Tommy who was born in China and had family there. It was an amazingly deep, powerful and sad experience and I really could see how much this hit him. Here we were in Vancouver Canada thousands of miles away from all that and safe... Hope followed by horror. 35 years ago....dang.
This event is why civil rights is important and worth fighting for. The government is supposed to exist to serve the people, not the other way around. Truth and freedom is always worth fighting for. There are still communist bootlickers that deny this event ever happened.
Always remember that The Former Guy, now convicted felon, PRAISED the Chinese Communist government for slaughtering peaceful protesters at Tiananmen Square. https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/donald-trump-tianamen-square-putin-220610
Recalling the time that aspiring-dictator Trump praised a ruthless murderous dictator raises the question of "Which time?". Thank you for being specific.
Critical support for comrade trump
Another reminder to vote in November.
Fuck the CCP!
I was there on the 20th. It’s interesting how everything has to remain somewhat the same. The entrances to the forbidden city don’t change, the grandstands for the Mao style parades don’t move. If you stand in a certain spot on the square and you remember a photo, hold these people in your mind, you can truly feel them. It was one of the most moving experiences in my travels.
Unfortunately, we too often fail to remember—- history has a way of repeating itself
CCP shills are deep in here lol.
It's that day of the year where right wingers come out and pretend that all mentions of the massacre have been removed or is illegal to post on us social media.
I wonder how much Chinese propaganda is on Reddit these days 😂 Edit: I will say I am against the CCP, not China itself
Seeing as this post is number one on /r/all and the tankies are getting ethnically consumed in here, I don't feel like there's anything tangible right now.
Don’t forget the Russia stuff too but it is real low hanging fruit. Easy to spot. The Chinese stuff is that sweet spot of misinformation.
Well I mean, they actually have educated people operating their network. Russia's bullshit machine is run by racist incels who don't know how to actually communicate with human beings, and therefor can't actually sway anyone who isn't also a racist incel. Both however, are attempting to provoke chaos and kill innocent people by proxy.
> The Chinese stuff is that sweet spot of misinformation. Yep look at the comment history of the people in this thread defending the CCP/trying to discredit the massacre and they will look like normal people with no links to China, but for some reason they want to act like the massacre is a hoax? lol This is the one topic they cannot manipulate and gaslight people about because it's too recent, well known and well documented, so they out themselves as soon as they do.
China is a great country with a long, proud history. One of the cradles of civilization. The CCP will eventually lose the mandate of heaven.
Where absolutely nothing happened…right?
Or, as it's known in China:
Horrific event [https://www.amnesty.org.uk/china-1989-tiananmen-square-protests-demonstration-massacre](https://www.amnesty.org.uk/china-1989-tiananmen-square-protests-demonstration-massacre)
Is this the one event China had an amnesi about? 😂😂Lmao
The CCP bots astroturf Reddit so damn much, it’s nice to see the other side of that for a change
动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 思想 反共 反革命 抗議 運動 騷亂 暴亂 騷擾 擾亂 抗暴 平反 維權 示威游行 李洪志 法輪大法 大法弟子 強制斷種 強制堕胎 民族淨化 人體實驗 肅清 胡耀邦 趙紫陽 魏京生 王丹 還政於民 和平演變 激流中國 北京之春 大紀元時報 九評論共産黨 獨裁 專制 壓制 統一 監視 鎮壓 迫害 侵略 掠奪 破壞 拷問 屠殺 活摘器官 誘拐 買賣人口 遊進 走私 毒品 賣淫 春畫 賭博 六合彩 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Winnie the Pooh 劉曉波动态网自由门
Funnily enough, it’s also my birthday today, and I am Chinese. So I technically don’t exist
My parents survived the Tiananmen square massacre. They saw things you can't even imagine. I'm so grateful to have been born in America and to have never had to gone through what they went through.
Could you share what they saw?
Interesting video showing what the CCP is doing to prevent things from happening but it's just Streisand effect at work https://youtube.com/shorts/MrBwwm4r3T4?si=hwryNOOtl_5FbS8b
I’m not too familiar china’s history, just really know the most about Tiananmen Square. But when everyone was protesting, did they do so knowing that there was a possibility that they could die? Or had the government not shown their true colors before this?
They probably didn’t know that the government would massacre them. They were most likely expecting arrest at worst
Jesus. That’s fucked. I just scrolled through that Imgur link that has this laid out really good. It’s all so fucked.
Why don’t you ask the kids at the tiananmensquare.
I’m just sitting in my car and waiting for my girl
Tianammen what? nothing happened that day what are you talking about?
Is it just me or are the people in the last photo very clearly napping? Why is this marked NSFW? EDIT: To all the downvoters: for once in your life please use your eyes and then use that visual information to come to a conclusion independent of what you are already told.
Yeah they are napping, just marking NSFW because of the word massacre and some people don't have the ability to tell if they are napping or dead.
Things like this is what's wrong with media presentation. Let the person decide. Trigger warnings and NSFW (except for very obvious you will get fired stuff) makes people have preconceived notions. You are presenting something that is basically just a reminder of a day. Nothing in your words or images are remotely concerning. So why NSFW? Now people think those are dead people. See where it goes wrong?
I was supposed to be in Peking that week. We cancelled the trip as things got heated. I have never been to China and never will be.
There is nothing nsfw about the images though. The 4th one are people sleeping.
Nothing happened, and you have lost 125 social credit for suggesting that something did.
The "social credit" thing isn't real, at least not in the sort of Black Mirror dystopian sense. The censorship is real, though, and pretty shockingly effective. I bet you'll still meet international students who had no idea this was a thing.
It's 50/50, the 'social credit' is similar to that credit score use in most banking system worldwide, because China **is** a capitalism country with extra Authoritarianism on top. However said credit score is also affect by several other factors outside of money-related, and this is the part of many conspiracies around 'social credit': like 'thing you said online', or 'your public behaviour', or 'violating rules and laws', etc. I wouldn't be surprised if some of that were true, but I also doubt *all* of that is true.
And since the world has been gently sucking on China's giant teat for those past 35 years, we're all indirectly complicit in allowing their government to get away with this massacre.
Imagine defending the CCP when there’s evidence proving this tragedy. Man, y’all probably really wanting to get those social credits going huh.
Never happened! You have no proof! It was a day like any other (/s of course)
[Hong Kong 97 \[TAS\] (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oWh3kM-yGc)
Aaaand you just got the song stuck in AVGN’s head all over again.
As a Chinese immigrant living in America, it's interesting to think about the Tiananmen square massacre when recently American university students were arrested for protesting against Israeli oppression against Palestinians. Of course, getting arrested is waaaaay better than being gunned down (or in the case of Kent State, much fewer students were killed), but having grown up in the US, I was taught that the difference between China and America is more than mere degrees on a scale. America is supposed to have some fundamental, categorical moral righteousness. Shouldn't America be celebrating these student protestors for championing human rights?
Why did they have to use tanks though. Its so inefficient and attracts all the bad press. Could've just arrested the whole place no?
To demonstrate power
Il get downvoted to hell for pointing this out but they tried, the protesters burnt a few of them alive and hung one from a bridge.
The situation was closer to a coup than a protest. The protests lasted a month and a half and there were as many as a million people at the peak. The army was brought in from the surrounding regions, there was widespread unrest across the city, people threw rocks at the soldiers and blocked streets with burning vehicles. There’s even reports that APCs were set on fire and destroyed, and maybe even fighting between PLA units - a US soldier in the country claims to have seen an APC with damage from an antitank weapon. I think the leaders figured it was time to put all the chips down. If the student movement continued, things could come completely off the rails, and they needed to have the army ready to put down an actual revolution. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre#Resistance_to_martial_law_orders
There aren't just reports of APCs set on fire. There are pictures. The scene in the outer parts of the city was a war zone as armed workers blockaded the path of the soldiers, allegedly joined by a handful of local police. The army suffered a bunch of casualties, including a couple dozen fatalities. The students in the square downtown were far more peaceful and actually declined to accept a machine gun that the workers salvaged from an APC and brought to them.