[JumpCrisscross]

> the protests on US campuses

Naïve comparison.

The CCP declared martial law. It had its troops, not police, indiscriminately fire machine guns into protesters and bystanders alike while other units drove tanks over crowds of kids [1]. Thousands died, thousands more were disappeared, and to this day the government is so scared it will jail anyone who talks about it.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protes...

[seanmcdirmid]

It’s more complicated than that. China lacked riot police in 1989, the PAP didn’t really exist, and the normal police had no training for riot control, or even any guns.

Even the PLA was really provincial. They first brought in local garrisons made up of Beijingers who sympathized with the protesters and the beijingers who rioted after the army came in. They had to bring in remote garrisons to actually shoot people.

China made lots of mistakes and fixed them in many ways:

* the PAP was greatly expanded to provide something between police and the PLA for dealing with protests.

* They stopped garrisoning PLA troops in their hometowns.

* political obedience to the party was given priority over merit in PLA promotions.

Everything else is about right. They don’t want to talk about it. Even the middle school students involved are all 50 now, so it’s disappearing from memory. Also, it stopped a period of non-economic liberalization that was going on in the 80s, and stunted much liberalization afterwards.

[JumpCrisscross]

> China lacked riot police in 1989, the PAP didn’t really exist, and the normal police had no training for riot control, or even any guns

Beijing had experience with riot control in Tibet [1]. One month prior to Tiananmen, they put down protests in Urumqi [2].

Agree that the police were unprepared. But the decision to violently suppress was made by the CCP’s top leadership. This wasn’t an accident. It was a deliberate massacre of protesting children.

> China made lots of mistakes and fixed them in many ways

Beijing switched from open to covert killing. Were China party to the ICC or ICJ, Xi would be open to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in Tibet and Xinjiang/East Turkestan [3]. The continued fear and repression in Hong Kong is noteworthy not because it’s unstable, but because it’s still visible.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_and_uprisings_in_Ti...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi_unrest

[3] https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/un-reports-...