[ant_sz]

I am a Chinese student, some of my friends and I hold something like a hangout every year about June 4th to in memory of this event. But most of students nowadays in Chinese university have no idea what happened at 1989.

What's more, It is very hard to figure out what happened exactly because although many articles like this provide some limited information, many of the statements have no hard backing evidence and are not persuasive.

But I think the action GFW blocks google every year about this time contribute conversely to making many young people with high education get to know the Tiananmen because many of them would like to know why the government is doing this.

[akfanta]

"It is very hard to figure out what happened exactly" - This is exactly the reason why I am very skeptical about all these articles. Growing up in China, I first learned about this on Wikipedia back in the days when it was not blocked. I was furious about it back then. The fact that I had to learn this from Wikipedia for the first time just made it even worse. I tried a lot to collect more information about this. Most of the stuff I found was pointing fingers at the government and military. Being young and naive, I full-heartedly trust every single piece of it.

Now I live in Canada and have stayed outside of the Chinese censorship for almost 6 years now. My opinion have changed quite a lot. I used to believe the idea of communism brainwashing, but now I have a feeling that this sort of brainwashing and censorship goes both ways. Remember the famous tank man? It's one of the important icon of this event and was marked as a symbol of the Chinese government's oppression and brutality. That image/video was widely spread in the western medias. The majority of the public believe he was rolled over by the tank, because you know, Chinese government are evil. The full video was posted earlier on Reddit. Many was shocked to find out that the tank tried to drive around him and eventually stopped until the tank man was pulled away by someone else. Why the mainstream media never showed the full video to the public? Because it contradicted with the brutal image of Chinese government/military that they were trying to portrait to the public. Propaganda is a funny thing. Bearing stereotype and ignorance, both side will hold a strong belief that they are right.

I am by no means saying Chinese government is innocent. They pretty evil imo. I am just trying to say is that it is very hard to figure out what really happened now that both sides are extremely biased and ignorant towards the other end. I personally believe there were students killed and injured during the military intervention, but I am strongly skeptical against the massacre claim as there was no solid evidence so far. The truth probably lies somewhere in between the stories.

[pwang]

I was here in the US during Tiananmen. The western media at the time reported the full story about the "tank man", and that he was pulled away. No western outlet (that I can recall) ever asserted that he was crushed by the tank. They were showing the utterly remarkable video on a loop, constantly - the tank trying to drive around him, but not being willing to run over him. So it's not so much explicitly censorship, as much as the fact that through the lens of time, that fuller story is not really told.

[cefstat]

I agree that there is a lot of bias and ignorance from both sides.

But concerning the example you bring up, I remember having watched the video with the tank stopping and trying to go around the man several years ago (I believe in '89 but I can't be sure). In particular, I don't remember that there was even a period when I thought that the tank went over the man - the video of the tank's attempted maneuver is still very vivid in my memory. On the other hand, I never believed that the people pulling the man away were helping him. I have always assumed that they were arresting him. Of course I could be wrong.

[firstOrder]

One thing people tend to forget is China lucked out in some ways by 9/11. On April 1st, 2001, less than three months after Bush became president, he sent a US plane to the Chinese border, it rammed into a Chinese pilot's plane, killing him, then landed on Chinese soil without permission. Then the US government and press went crazy because the Chinese went in to inspect the plane. Continual press reports about how "we can see with satellites them looking at our plane and technology".

Luckily for the Chinese, all this warmongering ended five months later when the guy who the US armed to overthrow Afghanistan's secular government crashed into the Pentagon etc. because he opposed US bases on Saudi soil.

In all the mawkish tributes to the dead in the Pentagon and changed focus to Afghanistan and the Middle East, the Chinese got about a decade's breathing room from US imperialism. Of course the US is now redeploying to the Philippines and so forth, so that is changing again.

[mullingitover]

> Luckily for the Chinese, all this warmongering ended five months later when the guy who the US armed to overthrow Afghanistan's secular government crashed into the Pentagon etc. because he opposed US bases on Saudi soil.

The best part of this whole story is that the day the infamous "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" photo was taken, the US was complying with the terrorists' key demand and pulling all troops out of Saudi Arabia. Someone's mission was definitely accomplished that day.

[leishulang]

the whole event was somewhat manipulated by western forces: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8OnM3heTO4

[firstOrder]

In the United States, poor and working people in Los Angeles performed similar actions around this time of year back in 1992. They were concerned with the brutality of the local police, and how the government was unaccountable for it. The US government sent the army and the Marines in and killed some people. This is also unknown to most students in the US nowadays. If it is brought up they say the people were thugs, rioters, gang members, criminals etc. It must have been a lot of criminals since it took thousands of heavily armed police, national guard and military to get back control.

[djrogers]

It is absolutely horrifying that you would compare the violent rioting, looting, arson, rape, and general mayhem of the '92 LA riots with the peaceful demonstration in Tiananmen Square.

Regardless of your opinion on the motives of the rioters, their 'tactics', the actions of the thousands of others who followed in their wake, and the geography involved (the riots covered over 32 miles in an area with several million residents) set the stage for a government response that included military forces. This was not the case in Tiananmen square where the demonstrators were a)peaceful and b)located in a relatively small area.

Your comparison shames the bravery of the '89 demonstrators, while at the same time drastically minimizing the horror of the response (both that day and after) by the Chinese military.

[firstOrder]

This person makes my point. As I said, American students are more apt to know about what happened longer ago and farther away in Beijing than what happened more recently and closer to home in Los Angeles. When and if it is brought up, the military being unleashed on the poor and working people of Los Angeles is defended, the civilian population is called criminals etc. This is a fairly normal reaction for a typical American professional.

As far as being "peaceful" in Tiananmen Square, policemen and soldiers were killed, vehicles were set on fire injuring and killing the occupants - there are plenty of pictures and videos of the violence the police and military faced when they tried to peacefully clear the square, as well as in other parts of the city.

[djrogers]

I was living in Los Angeles during the riots, and regardless of your revisionist history lessons, the people I saw raping, pillaging, and looting were not merely the 'poor and working people of Los Angeles' - they were criminals.

[firstOrder]

Here are some of those peaceful people you were talking about in Beijing - a soldier bloodied by the peaceful crowds beating, a soldier beaten to death by the peaceful crowd, a tank set on fire by the peaceful crowd etc. Glad they were peaceful and not violent criminals like in Los Angeles.

http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bi... http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bi... http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/china060412/s_t29_...

[akfanta]

@djrogers

"It is absolutely horrifying that you would compare the violent rioting, looting, arson, rape, and general mayhem of the '92 LA riots with the peaceful demonstration in Tiananmen Square."

"I was living in Los Angeles during the riots"

did you live in Beijing during the Tiananmen event?

[khuey]

One key difference is that anyone in America can get on a computer and read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots, or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings, or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_American....

In fact, I wonder if there's some sort of perverse lesson here in the fact that this information is freely available in the US and yet still few people know about it.

[mercer]

I suppose that would be the 'Huxley argument' (http://cdn.visualnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/orwell-...).

I try to be hopeful and positive about the fact that we have unprecedented access to information. But both the behavior of those around me and, sadly, that of myself, indicates that more information does not make us more informed.

I try to counter my tendency to consume news from sources that I already agree with, for example, but it's a constant battle, because most of my news sources either use technology to filter for me (Zite, etc.), or rely on group processes where the group is very similar to myself (Hacker News, to a degree).

[afarrell]

Can you provide a source for your assertion that few people knew about these? These are ingrained in the popular culture.

"Can't we all get along?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sONfxPCTU0 "four dead in Ohio": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvg4n8Txgdc Perhaps Japanese internment is less well known, but I feel like I see it referenced at least once every 8 months or so. Also, have a rap song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BJjo0BCbGo&feature=kp

[afarrell]

What history textbooks did you read growing up? I've been trying to collect history textbooks from other countries.