Tiananmen Square: China minister defends 1989 crackdown
1–10 of 62 posts
Re: Tiananmen Square: China minister defends 1989 crackdown
#2I posted for the long Kate Adie video in the article which I had not seen before.
The other reason is my concern at a defence minister even mentioning this event when everyone is aware of the state position already. It seems to be an expansion of the conversation from trade and market access to ideology which is unfortunate. There's enough to sort out with just market access, currency flows and IP.
Re: Tiananmen Square: China minister defends 1989 crackdown
#3I posted for the long Kate Adie video in the article which I had not seen before. The other reason is my concern at a defence minister even mentioning this event when everyone is aware of the state position already. It seems to be an expansion of the conversation from trade and market access to ideology which is unfortunate. There's enough to sort out with just market access, currency flows and IP.
As detailed in the article, he didn't "mention" the event but was replying to a specific question about it during an event in Singapore.
Re: Tiananmen Square: China minister defends 1989 crackdown
#4"That incident was a political turbulence and the central government took measures to stop the turbulence, which is a correct policy," he told the forum.
Gunning down protesters then grinding into a mulch with tanks and aocs, so that you can wash the remains down the gutters is never a solution.
Trying to push this incident into the background only shows how little change has happened.
Once more - this isn't a situation you can ever forgive a government for. There is no ifs, buts or collateral reasons for this.
Re: Tiananmen Square: China minister defends 1989 crackdown
#5I wonder who asked the Tiananmen question to the minister from the audience in Singapore. That guy has some backbone, I like it. They should be challenged on the topic of their political repression more. And not just the typical American channels which Beijing finds easy to dismiss as western propaganda.
It's a pretty simple equation. Why would any state have to spend so much explicit effort on making no one mention it, if there was nothing really wrong with it?
It will forever be the giant elephant in the room, regardless of how big and successful China makes itself. Few westerners really understanding how completely thorough and effective it was. The near universal obedience seen among the population would seem very foreign to most people in the west. Which is in itself an interesting cultural question.
Re: Tiananmen Square: China minister defends 1989 crackdown
#6Same sort of response I'd expect an American Government Diplomat to give if asked about what happened to the 82 men/women/children of the Branch Davidians in Waco, TX.
Governments defend their actions, usually.
Re: Tiananmen Square: China minister defends 1989 crackdown
#7Same sort of response I'd expect an American Government Diplomat to give if asked about what happened to the 82 men/women/children of the Branch Davidians in Waco, TX. Governments defend their actions, usually.
Isn’t the suppression of the event in media the key difference, though? The Waco massacre was widely discussed and publicized, and you can find plenty of information on it if you’d like - including people that defend the Waco standoff.
Re: Tiananmen Square: China minister defends 1989 crackdown
#8Same sort of response I'd expect an American Government Diplomat to give if asked about what happened to the 82 men/women/children of the Branch Davidians in Waco, TX. Governments defend their actions, usually.
Janet Reno admitted the storming of the compound was a mistake and regretted the loss of life. She also took full responsibility for the actions. You can also find Waco testimony all over the internet, including hours and hours of footage.
That's a far cry from what we see here.
Re: Tiananmen Square: China minister defends 1989 crackdown
#9It sounds like the US government ministers who defended the 1992 crackdown in Los Angeles at the Republican National Convention and elsewhere. The US army marched in to quell the upset, and dozens were killed.
Although we do not hear much about that in the US other than praise of the army. Just endless rehashes of Beijing events before LA happened, in the middle of Trump's trade and South China sea war with China.
Re: Tiananmen Square: China minister defends 1989 crackdown
#10China has pulled more people out of poverty since the 1989 crackdown than all the other counties combined.
Given western style governments have shown they are incapable of doing it, a brutal crackdown seems fair enough.
Long term it may turn out different, but to the people born and living in China today, it seems to me they did the right thing or at the very least it's defensible.