
Tiananmen Square: China minister defends 1989 crackdown - Ennis
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-48489002
======
dmix
I 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.

~~~
cyphar
> And not just the typical American channels which Beijing finds easy to
> dismiss as western propaganda. [...] The near universal obedience seen among
> the population would seem very foreign to most people in the west.

You say that, but mainstream western media is very rarely _really_ critical of
the government and especially the core policies of the government (which are
the same regardless of whose government it happens to be). Yeah, mainstream
media will take some potshots (which is an improvement over China) but very
rarely will there be an actual critique of establishment politics.

Almost no mainstream media was critical of the Iraq war and the lie that
Saddam had WMDs. No mainstream media is critical of the currently 5 illegal
wars (not approved by Congress thus being illegal under the US constitution,
nor an act of defense thus being illegal under the Nuremberg Convention) being
waged by the US. No mainstream media was critical of the Syrian gas attack
(used as justification to bomb Syria with America's "majestic" weapons) which
may have been false, given the recent leak of an internal OPCW document
detailing evidence that the gas canisters could not have been dropped from a
helicopter and the attempts to cover it up[1] -- which was so ignored by
mainstream media that I can't even find an article mentioning it. No
mainstream media is critical of US interventionism nor modern US imperialism.
No mainstream media is critical of the current narrative being pushed by the
government about Venezuela or Iran. And that's just the war narrative!

[1]: [https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/douma-syria-opcw-
chemic...](https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/douma-syria-opcw-chemical-
weapons-chlorine-gas-video-conspiracy-theory-russia-a8927116.html)

~~~
khuey
I wouldn't take Robert Fisk at face value here without some detailed citations
of primary sources after he signed onto the "jet fuel can't melt steel beams"
9/11 conspiracy theory.

~~~
cyphar
As I mentioned above -- I don't like that the only article I could find of any
repute which mentioned the leaked OPCW report was the Independent (the other
option was InfoWars). And yes, about half of the article does appear to be at
least slightly bullshit. But the leaked report was so ignored by mainstream
media there isn't even a mention of it in an opinion piece in more reputable
papers like the Guardian.

Aaron Mate did a piece on this[1], who is definitely a more reputable
journalist (though not mainstream). I also just found that (of all people)
Tucker Carlson mentioned this on his show[2]. Then again, I have many other
issues with Tucker Carlson.

[1]: [https://thegrayzone.com/2019/05/25/opcw-syria-gas-attack-
sta...](https://thegrayzone.com/2019/05/25/opcw-syria-gas-attack-staged-
theodore-postol/) [2]: [https://www.activistpost.com/2019/05/were-being-
played-tucke...](https://www.activistpost.com/2019/05/were-being-played-
tucker-carlson-features-leaked-syria-chemical-attack-memo.html)

------
mrtimo
I'm reading this thread while in a hotel a block away from the square in China
(not on VPN, because that has not been working due to political events). Of
course the BBC article is blocked. The thirtieth anniversary of the event is
tomorrow.

Interesting that HN is not blocked.

~~~
godelski
Let's test it: is this blocked?
[https://outline.com/99a78v](https://outline.com/99a78v)

What about this (expires in 7 days, but does require an actual download. It is
a FF screenshot of the BBC page):
[https://send.firefox.com/download/0fc126b73012ee50/#o_bILCxP...](https://send.firefox.com/download/0fc126b73012ee50/#o_bILCxPlonNXbETPbroRA)

I'm curious, because if they analyze these links (or even this message) I
figure it would be easy to identify.

~~~
mrtimo
Neither were blocked.

~~~
godelski
Well then it looks like you can use outline to read things that are being
censored.

~~~
EForEndeavour
For now, at least. The Chinese firewall may eventually whack that mole, too.

------
muterad_murilax
Man, this entry disappeared from the frontpage quickly! Anyone knows why?

------
thrwwayy1905
I am trying to understand what it feels like to Chinese people. As Americans,
is there any past government action we can't criticize? I am sure there is
some example but I can't think of it. Is there something similar for us?

~~~
lambdasquirrel
I think it’s actually quite simple. The Chinese fear the American government
more than the Chinese government. Therefore they care more about the
legitimacy of the Chinese government and are willing to elide whatever
mistakes their own government may have made. That their government may or may
not have told the truth about Tiananmen is immaterial.

~~~
frosted-flakes
Why do they fear the American government?

------
Nasrudith
This sadly isn't news - authoritarians never admit their mistakes.

They unironically invoked Mao's pest campaign when the last time they did that
they created mass famine because in the absense of chemical pesticides it is
far preferable to pay the "sparrow tax" than have uneaten locust grubs eat
everything.

The best they have for Mao is doublethink where they abandoned his views and
suppress Maoists while refusing to condemn him and his mistakes for fear of it
harming their "legitimacy".

------
smacke
As of this writing, this post is 2 hours old, ranked #96 (4th page of HN), and
has 117 points. I believe it was on the front page 30 minutes ago. This is a
steep drop in ranking -- what are the factors in the HN ranking algorithm that
could contribute to this?

------
Ennis
I 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.

~~~
NotPaidToPost
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.

------
m0zg
I feel like China has learned from Perestroika and made a conscious choice not
to go down that path, but instead focus on economic freedoms rather than
political. To offer some perspective: the 90's were a dark time in Russia. The
Soviet Union disintegrated, taking large chunks of deliberately decentralized
economy with it, there was hunger, hyperinflation, deficit of basic goods
(same shit you're seeing in Venezuela right now), and the poorer, older, less
economically nimble part of society was disproportionately impacted.

This was, in large part, because people were given near total freedom (far
more of it than you see in the US today) in one fell swoop, and _way_ before
they knew what to do with it. Naturally, some people were much better than
others at turning this to their advantage, opportunistically injecting
themselves into the corridors of power, buying up previously state-owned
factories for fractions of a penny on the dollar, swindling the common people
out of whatever breadcrumbs the government threw to them during privatization.

This shit was allowed to run unabated for a decade or so, and ended up with
Yeltsin hanging up his hat and apologizing on TV, before de-facto installing
Putin as his successor. The people behind this were Siloviki: the powerful
folks who run or otherwise control Russia's several security services.

In retrospect, given the amount of pain, death, and suffering inflicted on the
general public, it could be that shooting a few hotheads early on would be an
objectively better option. The country could then proceed to a much more
controlled and measured liberalization, with law and order carefully enforced
throughout, rather than a decade-long free-for-all (or rather "a few") that
ensued in practice.

That's not to say that Tiananmen suppression was justified. I grew up in
Russia, so I was a direct observer and participant of the events I describe
above, so in the case of Russia I can tell you with a good degree of
confidence that if the wild 90's weren't allowed to happen there to the extent
that they did, Russia would be far better off.

Stuff like this also can't be judged by reading propaganda, foreign or
domestic, so those who haven't been there at that time should refrain from
commenting one way or the other. That'd be just regurgitating someone else's
talking points: an entirely pointless exercise.

I'd love to hear from someone who lived in China at that time and for whom
this is not something they've read about on the Internet.

~~~
partingshots
Were you still a child/teenager during the 90s while living in Russia? Or were
you already an adult and working at that point?

It’s always very interesting to hear from someone who’s directly lived through
experience. Thanks for offering your perspective.

~~~
m0zg
I was a student for most of the 90s (6 year MSc). But I was also working part-
time. So I guess a little of both. Still remember it all pretty vividly 20+
years later. Not having any money to buy food for weeks on end especially
(subsisted on eggs, potatoes, and pickles). I also remember converting all my
ruble denominated savings into dollars on a whim 2 weeks before the 1998
default. That was a major coup for me: before the default USD/RUR was about 6,
after - about 21, and most prices were revised upward correspondingly. Imagine
losing 2/3rds of your money in the span of a few days for no fault of your
own, just because the oligarchs are picking the rotting corpse of your country
clean and can't be bothered to pay taxes (some of which would normally go to
service the debts).

People still remember all of this. That's why Putin is so popular: he is
widely credited (and rightly so) with pulling Russia from the brink of
disintegration. I always voted for anyone but Putin, though: can't stand vote
rigging, and he rigs every single election, even though he doesn't need to:
he'd be elected by quite a margin anyway.

------
megous
Meanwhile, the same thing is repeating in Sudan at the exact same day and
nobody cares. Peaceful months long sit-in met with violence.

[https://twitter.com/search?q=%23SudanUprising&src=tyah](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23SudanUprising&src=tyah)

------
hajile
If you want to learn about the incident, here's a great documentary (NSFW)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt5cYU70ujs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt5cYU70ujs)

~~~
Dramatize
NSFL might be more appropriate?

------
nickysielicki
Same 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.

~~~
gesticulator
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.

~~~
scotty79
It seems to me like Orwell vs. Huxley difference. In the end thing is mostly
forgotten in both cases.

~~~
DFHippie
Here is the difference: in one case it is forgotten because the government is
actively imprisoning people who mention it; in the other, because people are
apathetic and easily distracted and perhaps disagree that this is an event of
similar import. It seems a rather important difference to me.

~~~
scotty79
It is a difference but when I read what you wrote I have trouble deciding
which is worse.

------
marak830
"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.

~~~
imglorp
Right. And it's not like the Dalai Lama can go home either. The only thing
that's changed is they dictate more of the groupthink than they did in 89. The
social credit system is probably going to be more effective than that tanks
were.

------
bitbatbangboo
"Crackdown", in 10 years it'll be "Trouble" then "Protest" then "Revolt"

------
peisistratos
It 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.

~~~
Rebelgecko
The 1992 Republican National Convention was in Houston and AFAIK no one died

~~~
peisistratos
I said Los Angeles, not Houston.

It was defended at the 1992 RNC as I said -
[https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/patrickbuchanan199...](https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/patrickbuchanan1992rnc.htm)

In fact the Republicans have this speaker saying an almost word for word echo
of what the Chinese minister said.

~~~
peisistratos
The two replies are completely puzzled about what I mean by the US army
marching into Los Angeles in 1992, with dozens dead in the wake.

It makes me think of people who are "shocked" that Chinese college students
don't know about Beijing in 1989, and they say how the Chinese elite have
suppressed events. But I talk about the US army marching into Los Angeles in
1992 and dozens dead in the wake, and it is a complete mystery to multiple
people here, they have no idea what I'm talking about.

~~~
openasocket
People probably don't know what you're talking about because of the way you
phrased it. Generally people don't recognize "the 1992 LA Riots" but they do
recognize "the Rodney King Riots", which I'm pretty sure is what you are
referring to?

Also, saying that the military and police killed "dozens" is a bit
disingenuous. While 53 people were killed during the riots, of those 8 were
killed by police and 2 by national guardsmen.

