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Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

#81

Post by tanilama »

LV-426 wrote: post #60
mutteraloo wrote: post #35

Lest we forget, this is still the same government that mowed down 10,000 innocent lives, that still runs China today. They've gotten better at hiding behind marketing, propaganda, and strong arming other countries, but they're still ruled by a small, powerful group of elders that control every aspects of Chinese people's lives. It's sad that we keep feeding this dangerous psychopath which threatens democracy and free…

Leaving Tiananmen Square aside - since nobody can disagree it was a terrible, indefensible crime - can you explain further how you think China is threatening democracy and freedom "worldwide"? They're certainly a threat in Hong Kong, where they have a degree of control and influence, but how and where else? While they lay claim to Taiwan, what harm do you think they are going to cause to South Korea and why would the…

China represents an existential crisis for some by itself, as a country ignores many fundamental pillars of western society, which have been theorized for half a century to offer an explanation for its own success, yet it so far has achieved much more than expected to be.

Although I think China needs to credit much of its success to western ideas, but it doesn't accept all of them, it takes what it needs and rejects the rest. If this holds, then other developing countries may start adopt the China model (though I don't think it would necessarily work for them), instead of the West's solution, which might signal a global scale retreat on a lot of things, like democracy/free speech/more censorship...you name it.

Re: Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

#82

Post by osdiab »

mutteraloo wrote: post #35

Lest we forget, this is still the same government that mowed down 10,000 innocent lives, that still runs China today. They've gotten better at hiding behind marketing, propaganda, and strong arming other countries, but they're still ruled by a small, powerful group of elders that control every aspects of Chinese people's lives. It's sad that we keep feeding this dangerous psychopath which threatens democracy and free…

I’m not Chinese, but I did live there for a bit. If you haven’t already I suggest you take the time to get acquainted with Chinese culture, modern history, and modern Chinese lifestyle. In recent times there have been significant human tragedies there for sure, but given the historical context they feared to relive, and the incredible gains they’ve made in recent years, you can think of their actions as real large scale cases of “the ends justify the means” and “putting the greater good ahead of the individual.”

Still lots of morally reprehensible stuff that cannot be excused, and its a pity they rely on rewriting history and suppressing subversive thought to preserve the government’s legitimacy, but to assume that China is some kind of giant hellish labor camp, and that our frankly ineffective and destructive forms of Western democracy are the only true answers to the world’s problems, is short sighted, blindly dogmatic and ignorant of the way the world works these days.

Re: Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

#83

Post by ralmidani »

yesenadam wrote: post #75
ralmidani wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or there would be protests daily in western capitals about the sheer unimaginable scale of destruction, devastation and millions of families destroyed and lives lost in the middle east starting from Iraq to Libya and now Syria done purely to further geo-political and financial interests. My parents and wife were born in Syria. I lived and studied there for 5 years, and spent some time in then-liberated Eastern Alep…

Is that what Noam Chomsky seems to believe? That would be stupid and crazy, wouldn't it? Half-witted.

He doesn't say it explicitly, but if you follow him enough you get that impression.

Re: Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

#84

Post by osdiab »

mutteraloo wrote: post #57
Dolores12 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China wouldn't become as what it is today if they didn't do it. There could not be economic growth during political instability. Life of a billion+ people is now better and in hindsight i guess it was worth it.

bullshit. or maybe the Chinese communist would have been overthrown, and they would have had a better government. all the progress China's made today is because the communist government took their foot off of the necks of the common citizens, and let the citizens work tears and sweats. Stop using what-ifs to justify monstrocities.

They did have many governments and coups in the last 150 years, and they didn’t lead to incrementally better situations, but instead turmoil and foreign exploitation. I’m not Chinese and I can’t speak for their decisions, but it sounds like you don’t know the historical context and assume that Western liberalism always leads to positive ends - which, given our catastrophic interventions around the world, doesn’t seem to be the case.

EDIT: to be clear, nobody is saying what they did is moral. But what I am saying is that the results of such an uprising was not guaranteed to be peaceful, orderly, nor lead to better outcomes; and furthermore you can make the argument that the success of modern Chinese governance has been one of the greatest triumphs of poverty alleviation and human development in all of human history. So to claim with such conviction that that branch of history would be the better option smacks of ignorance to me.

Re: Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

#85

Post by yesenadam »

ralmidani wrote: post #83
yesenadam wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that what Noam Chomsky seems to believe? That would be stupid and crazy, wouldn't it? Half-witted.

He doesn't say it explicitly, but if you follow him enough you get that impression.

OK, thank you for explaining.

Re: Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

#86

Post by osdiab »

bufordsharkley wrote: post #59
Dolores12 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China wouldn't become as what it is today if they didn't do it. There could not be economic growth during political instability. Life of a billion+ people is now better and in hindsight i guess it was worth it.

One can offer stability within a democratic framework. To say that the wholesale slaughter of protesters was necessary to deliver market reform is simply absurd.

Clearly it wasn’t a moral or just choice, but when China has seen rebellions that lead to the deaths of tens of millions of people in the last century, you can at least see why the incumbent government may have had pause.

Re: Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

#87

Post by zipwitch »

bufordsharkley wrote: post #62
LV-426 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving Tiananmen Square aside - since nobody can disagree it was a terrible, indefensible crime - can you explain further how you think China is threatening democracy and freedom "worldwide"? They're certainly a threat in Hong Kong, where they have a degree of control and influence, but how and where else? While they lay claim to Taiwan, what harm do you think they are going to cause to South Korea and why would the…

I don't claim to be an expert on any of this, but it's pretty clear that China is unwilling to deny trade with North Korea, effectively propping up the Kim regime. Kim is engaging in increasingly dangerous provocations (admittedly provoked by the fact that the United States is still fighting the Korean War).

Their trade with North Korea has been cut in half since last year, and they've repeatedly supported increased sanctions, including yesterday. Here in the United States it's popular to isolate nations on the far side of the planet, where we don't have to directly deal with the horrific consequences. But North Korea borders China, and the Chinese will need to deal with the effects of a full or partial North Korean collapse.

And I don't think it's actually an effective (or humane) was to try to solve problems like this to begin with.

Re: Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

#88

Post by glenstein »

Fricken wrote: post #66
glenstein wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think whataboutism, or exhortations to appreciate the complexity of global politics carry more value than the basic, straightforward observation that what happened at Tiananmen was horrible and unforgiveable, and should forever be held against China. People don't have the energy to protest everything, because we're poor, exhausted, distracted, and yes, often confused and hypocritical. It doesn't mean the obse…

None of the people involved in the decision to use violence against the Tiananmen square protesters are still in power. Who is it exactly that we should never forgive forever ? And where are we going to find the energy to hold this grudge along with all the other unforgivable acts throughout history given that we're already so poor, exhausted, distracted and confused?

>Who is it exactly that we should never forgive forever?

For starters, whoever decides to delete references to Tiananmen from the Chinese internet, and the surrounding bureaucratic system that permits (or probably demands) it to happen. Whoever orders the media to omit reference to it every anniversary. Whoever continues to order that parents and/or spouses of the victims are placed under house arrest or removed from their homes on the anniversary.

But even replying that way feels kind of absurd, because it individualizes actions that are best understood as expressions the authoritarian regime itself, and it dismisses as a mere "grudge" the kind of thing anyone should remember in the name of maintaining a historical conscience.

We shouldn't forgive because it's not the type of thing that somehow becomes more forgivable with the passage of time. And most importantly of all, we shouldn't forgive because China is largely unrepentant and in every significant way they are still the same regime as the one that carried out the events in the summer of 1989.

edit: And as for who should hold a "grudge," I would say those of us with the energy to participate in these conversations for the purpose of minimizing the historical legacy of Tiananmen have plenty of energy to spare. Both for remembering what it was, and for remembering that the forces that allowed it to happen are still with us in the form of a regime that continues to jail and torture human rights lawyers.

Re: Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

#89

Post by glenstein »

tw04 wrote: post #77
lozenge wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the same government. Those in power at the time chose who would succeed them, and so on to this day.

Good point, whereas in America the Republican and Democratic parties have since been dismantled and replaced... Yang Shangkun must have had one heck of an influence if he was able to dictate who would be president of the country 15 years after his death... Of course Yang was forced out of the party in 1993 (the last time he had any influence), but don't let history and facts get in your way.

In a meaningful sense, you can say the Republican party is largely the same today as it was during the Contract With America, and the Democratic Party is largely the party of New Deal programs. Sameness here refers to ideological continuity rather than literal individuals being the same.

Re: Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

#90

Post by mutteraloo »

glenstein wrote: post #61
mutteraloo wrote: post #35

Lest we forget, this is still the same government that mowed down 10,000 innocent lives, that still runs China today. They've gotten better at hiding behind marketing, propaganda, and strong arming other countries, but they're still ruled by a small, powerful group of elders that control every aspects of Chinese people's lives. It's sad that we keep feeding this dangerous psychopath which threatens democracy and free…

There's a serious problem with our own (US) culture's ability to think clearly about the problem posed by Chinese authoritarianism in the 21st century. I would attribute the problem to our tendency for centrism, both-sideism, and probably to the just-world hypothesis. People are tempted to bury it in a larger narrative of global complexity, thinking that treating it like a trick question is evidence of sophistication…

Or maybe you're just under their marketing and propaganda. here are some things the authoritarian government did just this year

- China puts a freeze on burning coal, leaving millions of families shivering in the cold http://shanghaiist.com/2017/12/05/coal-ban.php

- China Blowing Major Bubbles In 2017 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2016/12/19/china-bubb...

- In locked-down Xinjiang, China is tracking kitchen knives with QR codes https://www.fastcompany.com/40510238/in-xinjiang-china-some-...

- Big data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizens http://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-cre...

- China threatens U.S. Congress for crossing its ‘red line’ on Taiwan https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2017/10/12...

- Joe Hockey’s stark warning to Australia over Chinese interference http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/joe-hockeys...

- Chinese diplomat in U.S. threatens Taiwan with military attack https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3316709

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