
Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents - ComputerGuru
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-42465516
======
aleyan
> The figure was given in a secret diplomatic cable from then British
> ambassador to China, Alan Donald.

> Mr Donald's telegram is from 5 June, and he says his source was someone who
> "was passing on information given him by a close friend who is currently a
> member of the State Council".

Here we have a telegram by a guy (British Ambassador) who heard from a guy
(unknown) who heard from a guy (unknown State Council) facts about the events
of the day prior (massacre was on June 4th). Where did the unknown State
Council official get his estimates from; were those official or just something
he heard and repeated (and when did he get them)? Initial estimates of
disasters are often quite wrong; here they were produced in game of telephone
in a day or less; and they are not collaborated by any evidence we have now.

I rank the quality of new evidence as low. Rumors repeated in old official
telegrams are still rumors. I expected BBC to have reported more critically.
Alan Donald is still alive; BBC could have asked him if he received any
updates to that first number that he trusted more.

I also have to fault BBC for it's phrasing around Donald's source. At first
reading it sounded like Donald's source is an unnamed member of the State
Council who is a close friend of the Ambassador. After reading BBC's sentence
a carefully however; it sounds like the Donald's source is a person who is a
friend of an unnamed member of the State Council. This ambiguous sentence is
deceptive.

EDIT: I see vote count moving up and down on this comment making me think it
is controversial. If you disagree with my doubts on the veracity of this
story, write a comment. Maybe I missed something.

~~~
yogenpro
In terms of the source, on a side note, I personally know people who were on
the square that day, and later escaped to the US to seek asylum under Chinese
Student Protection Act of 1992 [1]. They have a lot of first-hand information
and photographs, but wouldn't release them to media because they still have
families live in China, and as a consequence of release those information, PRC
may reject their entry in the future. To most of the people getting the truth
out to the world doesn't outweigh the freedom of visiting families and
friends, which is reasonable.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Student_Protection_Act...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Student_Protection_Act_of_1992)

~~~
DashRattlesnake
Is there any effort to collect those photos/accounts for later release, say
after the person's death?

I understand the reluctance for them release publicly right now, but it would
be a shame if it was all effectively lost because of that.

------
hsrada
A day to Remember (10 Min) :
[https://vimeo.com/44078865](https://vimeo.com/44078865)

Liu Wei, a Chinese artist goes around the streets of Beijing on June 4th
asking people ‘What Day is it today?’ hoping for an answer on the lines of
‘Today’s the 16th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre’ but what he
gets instead is a lot of ‘I don’t know’'s from the people whose faces clearly
say otherwise.

~~~
aaefiikmnnnr
I asked my graduate school classmates who were from China and got similar
result. Very few of them said they heard of the event after they got to the
U.S. and Googled it, but couldn't believe what they read since none of it
appears in their life before they left China.

~~~
refurb
This may be a one-off thing, but I remember playing an online trivial game
with some Chinese post-docs. They had no idea who Chung Kai-Shek was! It was
almost as if pre-CCP history didn't exist.

~~~
yogenpro
He's name in Chinese was 蔣介石 (courtesy name 蔣中正). If they came from mainland
China, they would definitely recognize both, since they're in the history book
for everyone. The same goes for those 2 names' Pinyin (the Chinese
romanization system used by PRC) Jiang Jieshi or Jiang Zhongzheng. Chung's
story (along with the civil war between CCP and KMT) is well-known in China
and depicted a lot in TV shows and movies.

Chung Kai-Shek is the romanization of 蔣介石 in Cantonese. If those post-docs
weren't native in Cantonese, there's almost no way they can connect the
pronunciation of Chung Kai-Shek back to 蔣介石.

In another romanization system used by ROC, 蔣介石/蔣中正 is Chiang Chieh-
shih/Chiang Chung-cheng. Mainland Chinese can probably recognize them, but no
guarantees.

~~~
edwinyzh
Exactly!

------
votepaunchy
What did they do with all the bodies?

"Students linked arms but were mown down including soldiers. APCs then ran
over bodies time and time again to make 'pie' and remains collected by
bulldozer. Remains incinerated and then hosed down drains.“

~~~
hsrada
The Tank Man (1989) :
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d8/Tianasquare.j...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d8/Tianasquare.jpg)

`An unknown protestor bravely stands in front of a column of armored tanks as
an act of defiance against the Chinese government following the Tiananmen
Square protests of 1989.`

`This photo is one of the most iconic images of the 20th Century and has since
been widely used to represent the protests. It was a set of student-led
popular demonstrations in Beijing which took place in the spring of 1989 aimed
at exposing the deep splits within China’s leadership. It was also known as
the ’89 Democracy movement. The protests were triggered in April 1989 by the
death of a communist leader.`

Some more context behind the photographer who clicked the photo -
[https://pastebin.com/aGVLYDVz](https://pastebin.com/aGVLYDVz)

~~~
ak39
What happened to the Tank Man, did he survive the protest?

~~~
justincormack
No one knows who he was
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man)

------
zizek23
In a previous naive world intoxicated by dreams of global citizenry and
humanism it would be easy to get sanctimonious and posture about evil.

But cultural divides are real and are not going away. And these kind of events
and stories simply become opportunities to target other countries weaknesses,
reassert a jingoistic sense of superiority and perpetuate existing comfort
zones.

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.

But that is handwaved away as 'necessary' somehow. The fact is people don't
even care about the poor and suffering in their own cities and countries, so
how can they care about an unknown people in another part of the world? It's
posturing, China's problems will be only be fixed by those chinese who truly
care for their people and country.

~~~
glenstein
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 observations we make about atrocities are insincere or untrue or that
they are unworthy of attention. And independently of our sincerity or
consistency, I think the observation is simply true on its merits anyway, and
it's bewildering (to me at least) why anything other than that should matter.

~~~
yesenadam
OK, so to take just one example, say 50 or so Tiananmens died in the latest US
appalling invasion/massacre of Iraq. So that was 50x as horrible and
unforgiveable, and should 'forever be held against the USA' in the same
essentially horrified way? Something comparable happened every few years of
the last century. I get the feeling most people reading this will hold more
against me for saying this, than against the US for its countless slaughtered
10,000s. Well, I guess it horrifies Americans because they empathetically
imagine the US government not killing brown people in other countries by the
million, but its own people, and that is scary.

~~~
keiferski
I don’t disagree with you, but I think the fundamental difference here is that
American invasions are a) acknowledged b) considered fairly negatively by
virtually everyone, even by those who initially supported them. It is a
publically discussed issue with multiple acceptable opinions which range from
“expensive quagmire” to “massive human rights violation.”

Tiannamen Square, conversely, was covered up, erased from history and is
essentially unknown or uncared about by the majority of the Chinese
population.

~~~
glenstein
Right. And the reason we keep historical events like these in mind is so that
we learn lessons from them, understand clearly that they are wrong, so that we
don't reproduce the political and intellectual climates that allowed them to
happen.

------
tomlock
I wonder if Altman bought this up when he was in China.

~~~
mutteraloo
Sam Altman loves China; he'll ignore everything bad about it except the
(certain) libertarian aspects (which doesn't conflict with the government)

EDIT: whoever modded me down, take a look at
[http://blog.samaltman.com/china](http://blog.samaltman.com/china) or
[https://techcrunch.com/video/sam-altman-of-yc-china-
remains-...](https://techcrunch.com/video/sam-altman-of-yc-china-remains-
important-to-us/59c19c759e45104758db6a74/)

~~~
pwaai
I think this shows the underlying naivety in American optimism in Chinese
markets.

Their sole purpose is to learn, take as much as they can possibly get away,
turn around and create entire industries overnight by creating a domestic
bubble shielding it from foreign competition.

It's similar to how South Korea propped up it's economy in the 70s, by
imposing high tariffs on imports and restricting consumer choice to only
domestically produced imitations by a state bankrolled conglomerate. At one
point I believe Samsung even sold pirated copies of SNES games according to
allegations in a 90s magazine. Japanese consoles were harder to get than PC,
hence the proliferation of broadband internet leading to other side effects
(actually Son Masayoshi advised the Korean administration back in the late 90s
to go broadband early as possible).

I'd say that we are likely to hear more "honeymoon" stories from Sam, just
like the thousands of like minded hopefuls that came to China and have left
empty handed.

....but prove us all wrong by being the first American to make his billions
and be allowed to keep it under the nose of Communist Party of China.

~~~
bostik
> _Their sole purpose is to learn, take as much as they can possibly get away,
> turn around and create entire industries overnight by creating a domestic
> bubble shielding it from foreign competition._

Which, according to Bad Samaritans, is the rational choice of any still
developing country.[0]

This of course doesn't absolve China (or the US for that matter) of their
abhorrent actions in any other realm.

0:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Samaritans:_The_Myth_of_Fr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Samaritans:_The_Myth_of_Free_Trade_and_the_Secret_History_of_Capitalism)

~~~
pwaai
> In 2008, Ministry of National Defense of South Korea release a list of 23
> 'seditious' books including "Bad Samaritans". The books on the list cannot
> be read or kept on bases under military regulations. The ministry argued it
> may cause misunderstanding among the readers about the free market economy.
> The army argued that the books contains some information that related to
> antigovernment and anti-Americanism.[2]

HAHA! Now I _must_ read this book.

Any book banned by a government that doesn't incite terrorism outright is
worth a read imho.

It's hard to argue with the results though. South Korea was pretty much a
third world country but state directed infrastructure building in key
productions like steel, shipyard building, all had roots of building up a
deterrent against North Korea.

------
dghf
This bit confused me:

> China bans all activists' commemorations and highly regulates online
> discussion of the incident, including censoring criticism. But it is marked
> annually by activists elsewhere in the world, _particularly in Hong Kong_
> and Taiwan. [Emphasis added.]

Hong Kong is part of China, albeit as a special administrative region. So does
the ban not apply in HK? Or does it apply in theory, but in practice is not
enforced? Or are HK-based activists just more willing to flout the ban?

~~~
candiodari
The last one. There's no stopping these activites in Hong Kong. (for the
moment)

It is becoming _very_ clear however, that a serious crackdown from Beijing is
coming. Not on this particular incident, but in general on the political
freedom in Hong Kong. It is becoming undeniable China demanded Hong Kong back
in order to destroy it.

But when it will arrive. Good question.

~~~
schuke
This is not exactly correct. HK has pretty solid rule of law and has a Basic
Law that guarantees freedom of speech. Beijing cannot interfere directly and
activists face completely different consequences after speaking out. That's
why Beijing can only abduct a few booksellers from HK and had to deal with the
messy fallout.

~~~
intro-b
I'm not sure if a few journalistic op-eds and moderate pieces of international
condemnation count as "messy fallout." It seems like it was a successful,
measured attempt at probing the limits of what they could get away with.

------
mongol
It is strange that such a relatively recent event has so big uncertainty in
the historical records.

~~~
arethuza
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls
the past."

Edit: Apologies for the bare quote - I've always found the concept of the
"mutability of the past" a fascinating and particularly troubling aspect of
Orwell's work.

------
Neil44
It's hard to imagine a soldier carrying out these acts. They all start off as
ordinary people so what is the journey from that to a mental state where they
will commit those acts on other citizens.

~~~
trhway
there is a reason people are drafted into army when they are just basically
overgrown boys with malleable brain/mentality.

I heard about one other aspect to Tiananmen - 20 years before Tiananmen the
young generation back then perpetrated the Cultural Revolution with all the
related mass crimes and violence, in particular against the representatives of
the older generations. To them, now 40-50 years old, the students at Tiananmen
looked like the start of possibly something similar to Cultural Revolution and
having been perpetrators themselves, they were very afraid of such a new thing
starting, especially with them now possibly being the target, and this is why
the society was in general ok with the thing crushed mercilessly right at the
beginning. Again, i'm not a China expert, just heard/read things along these
lines, and being from USSR (where in particular young revolutionaries fervor
had been a thing) find such situation and its explanation pretty plausible.

------
rdtsc
From what I understand the govt there made an implicit pact with the people
basically to allow some free market liberalization, letting Western companies
in and such in exchange for being able to sweep this massacre under the rug
and pretend it didn't happen.

Crushing people into pies, then bulldozing them down and then washing what's
left into sewers is hard to forget though. Add another 10k to the list tens of
millions of victims of Communism.

------
igravious
I wouldn't normally quote Wikipedia at length but …

“Other estimates

Unofficial estimates of the death toll have usually been higher than
government figures, and go as high as 10,454.[2] Nicholas D. Kristof, then
Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times wrote on June 21 that "it seems
plausible that about a dozen soldiers and policemen were killed, along with
400 to 800 civilians."[1] US ambassador James Lilley said that, based on
visits to hospitals around Beijing, a minimum of several hundred had been
killed.[157] In a 1990 article addressing the question, Time magazine said
that the Chinese Red Cross had given a figure of 2,600 deaths on the morning
of June 4, though later this figure was retracted.[158] A declassified NSA
cable filed on the same day estimated 180–500 deaths up to the morning of June
4.[159] Amnesty International's estimates puts the number of deaths at between
several hundred and close to 1,000,[158][160] while a Western diplomat who
compiled estimates put the number at 300 to 1,000.[1] Official US Government
papers declassified in 2014 estimated there had been 10,454 deaths and 40,000
injured. In British Government papers declassified and made public in December
2017, it was revealed that its ambassador to China, Alan Ewen Donald had
reported in 1989 that a member of the State Council of the People's Republic
of China had estimated the civilian death toll at 10,000.[2][161]”

“Identifying the dead

The Tiananmen Mothers, a victims' advocacy group co-founded by Ding Zilin and
Zhang Xianling, whose children were killed during the crackdown, have
identified 202 victims as of August 2011. The group has worked painstakingly,
in the face of government interference, to locate victims' families and
collect information about the victims. Their tally has grown from 155 in 1999
to 202 in 2011. The list includes four individuals who committed suicide on or
after June 4, for reasons that related to their involvement in the
demonstrations.[162][163]

Wu Renhua of the Chinese Alliance for Democracy, an overseas group agitating
for democratic reform in China, said that he was only able to verify and
identify 15 military deaths. Wu asserts that if deaths from events unrelated
to demonstrators were removed from the count, only seven deaths among military
personnel may be counted as those "killed in action" by rioters.[109]”

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989#Death_toll)

Clearly the figures are contested and undoubtedly 10s of security personnel
were killed by protestors and hundreds (at least) of protestors were killed by
security personnel. There's a _big_ jump between various claims of ‘in the
hundreds’ and the ~10,000 claims made by US and UK declassified government
papers. One would expect some sort of evidence eventually to filter out to
support a figure as high as that, not “his source was someone who "was passing
on information given him by a close friend who is currently a member of the
State Council".” – that's not evidence, that's hearsay. I'm not saying the
figure couldn't be that high, I'm saying extraordinary claims need more
substantial backing up.

edit: Just to be clear – hundreds killed protesting political reform is in
itself absolutely shocking when you think about it.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The big problem is that we will just never know. An official formal
investigation wasn’t allowed then and isn’t allowed today. As with everything
else censored in china, what is left is rumor, hearsay, fuzzy truth, etc...
that is the tragedy of censorship and not some CIA plot to discredit china.
The Chinese government makes their own bed here.

Most of the deaths occurred throughout the city as the people rioted (because
who the hell likes having the military in their city), few deaths happened in
the square itself, few of the deaths were actually PKU students, most of whom
had gone back to campus before the real shit show began (you can find many in
the tech industry today, though they don’t reveal that they were involved
easily).

China back then lacked riot police, they lacked any form of non-lethal crowd
control capabilities. Then you had confusion in the army, soldiers who didn’t
load their weapons getting killed, then civilians getting mowed down by other
units in retubution.

I honestly think that if the government went to find an accurate account of
the event, they would find many mistakes made, many tragedies occurred, but
they wouldn’t lose the confidence of the people. That they don’t bother just
shows how far they have to go.

------
DanielBMarkham
Want to see corruption in the U.S.? Take a look at your news feed.

I went to several major U.S. websites and didn't find any mention of this
story at all. I can find plenty of Trump stories, but zero coverage of what in
any sane world would be a major news event.

There's some really good discussion here around what to think of China. I love
the Chinese. I'll let others debate what this says about their country and way
of life. But this many people being killed in a public and brutal fashion in
recent memory by a major world government? The country has nothing to do with
it. This is a significant historical fact and it's major new information about
a controversial and shocking story from just a few decades ago.

So why no coverage? My guess is that it's about money -- embarrass the Chinese
and they'll hurt you in the wallet. But that's just my guess.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
Great discussion we have here, but I only see two people identifying as
Chinese in the comments and that dearth of local opinion does not help
convince me that we know what we're talking about.

~~~
mutteraloo
here, let me show you why

\- Man in China sentenced to five years' jail for running VPN
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/22/man-in-
china-s...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/22/man-in-china-
sentenced-to-five-years-jail-for-running-vpn)

\- France couple in China unreachable after Liu Xiaobo tribute - BBC News
[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
china-42454865](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-42454865)

\- China Continues Hunting Down Liu Xiaobo Commemorators, Rounding Up
Dissident Writer [https://chinachange.org/2017/12/22/china-continues-
hunting-d...](https://chinachange.org/2017/12/22/china-continues-hunting-down-
liu-xiaobo-commemorators-rounding-up-dissident-writer/)

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
Those are risks for people living in mainland China, or expecting to go back
there. Anyone with Chinese heritage would do, for the purpose of the local
perspective I would like to see.

------
desireco42
And they would know because they were there... oh wait, they were far away but
they always have fingers in every unrest in the world.

------
almostApatriot1
And it's a huge joke now in China (at least the fact that you're not supposed
to mention it.)

~~~
nailer
Is it really? Would like to know more about what current generations think.

~~~
ringaroundthetx
What I find most illuminating is how the current generation’s thoughts are so
dramatically different than the Chinese-American’s whose parents left/escaped

In the states we have alot of Cantonese speaking people with a disdain for the
party and the outcome, masquarading their opinion and obsolete language as
relevant and other Americans treat it as canonical

My experience with mainlanders is complacency and contentment with the
expected role of government, who have no idea why some people focus on an old
uprising as if nothing else happened in 30 years

Not supposed to be a popular opinion but thats what Ive observed

~~~
kchoudhu
> obsolete language

Huh?

~~~
greggarious
>> obsolete language

>Huh?

This is an oversimplification, but basically Cantonese is the main language in
Hong Kong and Macau and in parts of southern China (Guangdong) that border
whereas other parts of China use Mandarin.

You can probably work out why someone who speaks Mandarin would call Cantonese
a "dead language" in a thread about Tiananmen Square.

~~~
kchoudhu
Oh, I understood exactly what he was getting at. I was hoping he would use the
opportunity to apologize, but hey, internet.

~~~
greggarious
Oh, my bad. Sorry for chinasplaining :)

~~~
kchoudhu
Not at all -- lots of opportunities for misunderstanding in this thread.

------
codeproject
This story is fake. I was there. Hard to believe this, I didn't see anyone
dead in the Tiananmen Square. We were at Square. The soldiers surrended us.
The soldiers shouted, "Get out of square". People were very emotional. Some
wanted to stay and others wanted to leave. We heard that student leaders, Liu
XiaoBo (who is awarded 2009 Nobel peace prize for this effort) was elected to
negotiate with the troop commander. Later Hou Dejian, (who is the Taiwanese
singer and one of the leaders), told the crowd that we can leave peacefully
and there will be a safe corridor. Because there were a lot of people who
didn't want to leave, Hou shouted, those want to leave say "go" and those want
to stay say"stay". From my memory, the result was about even. Someone from
speaker said that majority want to go. Let's get out peacefully. I remember
very clearly, on the side of the corridor, there were several cameramen to
record the proceeding of our leaving. There was a western looking face. if you
want to know the truth, see the TV documentary Tiananmen square. that one is
very objective. I lived in Beijing at the time. The reason I end up in the
square was that initially, I was at FuxingMen area where troop shoot people
happened so I moved along the ChangAn street and end up in the square. I
passed by the square very day before the crackdown, I had tried to get into
the square to talk to the student leaders. But I can't get to the center where
the People's monument is stood because student union was established there and
the tempory pass was needed to get there. During the night of June 3rd,
everyone can get there and still hard to talk to the leaders. There are about
hundreds of deaths. after 89, There is a group called "Mother of Tiananmen
square". a group of women who lost their children during the night. They are
very brave and under pressure from the government, tried to collect the names
of those who died during the night and documented circumstances of death. They
documented about several hundred of cases. After the incident, I come to USA.
I found out why there are people want to exaggerate this thing. For the news
people, the more sensational the better. that make their career. Most people
don't know, there were about 40 thousands of chinese students in US
university. at the time, most of these students were sent here by Government.
It is called "Gong Pai", means their expenses were paid by the government. as
part of the deal, these people have to be back to China when their schedule is
up. At the time, China was very poor. these people don't want to go back. So
there was an incentive there. and Later, Geroge H.W.Bush issued an Executive
order which granted these students and scholars wholesale so far you proved
that you were in USA before April 11, 1990. Those who come after that can
apply for political asylum as well. at the time, U.S is in recession. Helped
people to apply for the political asylum was a big business. I myself was
asked if I want to apply. (I said no). There were Chinese student leaders end
up in U.S too. They need money to survive. They want to get the funds from U.S
government to continue the Democracy moment. so they have the incentive to
hype this as well. Believe me, at the time, I want to believe this exaggerated
version of the story. I want to tell people there were ten thousands of people
died crushed by tanks. But that is not true. After I come to US, I was very
disappointed by some of Chinese students behaviors in US. They organize the
demonstration and have the picture taken in the US campus so that they can use
it as proof to apply political asylum. The American journalists were in favor
of student demonstrators, I can understand, but some were really embarrassed
themselves professionally. fake news is not invented during 2016 election.
Knowing both sides very well, I saw a lot of fake news, something out and out
lies being reported about china during the 1990s. Still, there were a lot of
honest American journests that earned my respect, in all emotional times, they
just stick to the facts, no bull. Unfortunately, people like that never get
promoted. it is true every where. Honesty never pay.

~~~
plandis
Hello,

I downvoted you because you are best case ignorant, or worst case trying to
cover this up. I suggest you read through Amnesty Internationals documentation
about the incident.

------
mutteraloo
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 freedom worldwide. This psychopath will eventually cause harm to
a few countries (Taiwan, South Korea) when said and done, maybe enable North
Korea to strike a few nuclear missiles into Los Angeles or Tokyo, who knows.

~~~
LV-426
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 they even _think_ of something as insane as
enabling North Korea to strike Tokyo or Los Angeles (or anywhere else) with
nuclear weapons?

~~~
bufordsharkley
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).

~~~
rqs
Just that?

Chinese here. I could say, if our government proves capitalism can be very
well integrated and become more productive in an authoritarianism society,
then that is a really bad news for democracy.

On the other hand though, after watching many Fox News clips on Youtube, I
don't think you guys are doing very well on democracy, especially the people
in the US.

Democracy is much harder to maintain than authoritarianism. It's very easy to
get hijacked, especially the world is full of liars now days.

I'm not saying you should abort democracy, instead, you guys should be
grateful for what you have, and be careful don't lose it, because if you did,
you probably won't get another one for free.

~~~
soundwave106
US national level politics has been stuck in neutral for a while. But local
and state level governments have been often doing pretty well. So although
it's not visible on the surface, I think US democracy is doing "good enough".
I think a key here is that one person / governing body really doesn't have all
the power here.

Fox News is populist media; populist media is a "feature" in practically every
country. On the other hand, populist media on the "other side" exists without
too much conflict here so far. There's also more sober sources of information
too, for those that feel that both are pretty junky. Honestly, the fact that
polar opposite populist mouthpieces can both exist is probably a better
indicator of democracy than the fact that a single populist media outlet
exists. If one had to ding our democracy at the moment, it's that high level
government officials in the US _are_ trying to discredit media sources more
than in previous times. It's not censorship by any means yet, but it is
something to watch (and, if one was a US citizen, seriously push back on).

China will be interesting to watch too. Although they've come a long way, they
are still a middle income country by PPP. I can't think of any high income
country of late (other than petro-dictatorships) that hasn't embraced some
form of more democratic, more open model. Xi Jinping is going in the opposite
direction.

The interesting question is whether his current concentration of power will
satisfy, and truly keep the stability they seek, of all of the 1.4 billion
people in China... _especially_ at a time when China's middle class is rising.
I also wonder whether the current control tightening of information, and a
reluctance (so far) to ease off the heavy handiness of government involvement
in business, will harm innovation in China in the long run. We'll see -- not
being Chinese, I obviously don't know enough to wonder anything other than
some vague "armchair thoughts".

------
junkscience2017
governments going to war with their own citizenry (and I mean actual war, not
class war) is less rare than one might think. it is also why people who come
to the US from these places also say "don't give up your guns".

think it can't happen here? Waco.

------
Pica_soO
Its not reasonable, and certainly not humane what happened on Tienanmen. But
it is understandable. Those government cadres feared the return of the red
brigade- they had seen what happened with 'elite' that fall from grace during
the rule of the mob by Mao. If a democratic uprising would show the same
behavior tendencies as the red brigades, a - its either us or them - mindset
would have governed most decisions.

How did the students talk and negotiate with the CCP on Tienanmen?

------
oldandtired
Let us not forget that all countries today face major problems politically.
The world is being polarised in multiple ways and those countries that at one
time had the appearance of moral superiority have fallen to the same levels as
those they oppose.

Totalitarianism comes in may forms. Countries such as China and Russia have
specific characteristics that US, Britain, Germany, Canada, Australia, etc,
etc, etc are trying to emulate.

Freedom is a lost art today and jingoism has risen its head again.

~~~
DonHopkins
Jingoism as in "Make America Great Again"?

~~~
grzm
Please stop feeding this conversation between the two of you. Neither of you
is engaging in good faith, and carrying it across threads is even worse.

~~~
oldandtired
What cross thread conversation? My comment was about the general downhill
movement of governments and that in effect what we see in China is being
reflected everywhere.

I don't recall any specific conversation with DonHopkins.

------
thriftwy
I temember several years back some journalists stating they didn't actually
have evidence for large scale massacre (as opposed to chaotic skirmishes) and
made most of that story up.

Was it so or wasn't? At this point I don't know what to think.

