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.
> 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!
>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.
In contrast to the man in the audience Singapore was one of the first countries to normalise relationships with China, and in his biography From third world to First, Lee Kuan Yew actually seems somewhat supportive of it because he contrasts China's handling of the situation with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And realistically a country like Singapore is always going to be best positioned by keeping its relationships to opposing forces like the USA and China ambiguous. Committing to one side will draw a reaction from the other, and for smaller countries that's devastating. The space for most freedom and autonomy for a country like Singapore is right in the middle, in a competition between two large nations, choosing sides is a bad move.
CCP wanted that answer out. It will reach its intended audience: upcoming generation of party leadership; young and affluent non-CCP Chinese; nationalist Chinese; law and order Chinese.
I think that substantial and important subset will be satisfied with the answer. The rest are busy chasing virtual butterflies glued to their "smart assistant" (a feature, not a bug) just like their counterparts over here.
And the fact of its being discussed rather diminishes that propaganda card.
> 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?
> elephant in the room
You mean like two modern skyscraper crumbling into dust in a handful of seconds which one must not mention in respectable society unless repeating the "party line"?
Like those two elephants?
Should we discuss the official fact finding efforts for additional black humor, and then revisit the "universal obedience" phenomena?
> 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.
Laughable and racist. (See "conspiracy theory" for disambiguation.)
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.
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?
You can just go visit China and see for yourself. Beijing / Shanghai at least, but better yet outside the top tier cities (if you can get a proper Visa for that).
I found it almost funny that you just cannot say anything negative about anything Han-related. Few months ago I was having lunch with somebody considered educated & globalized (went to school in the UK, works in a Canadian VC firm in Beijing). The minute I said that my air quality monitor[1] is reading PM10 100+[2] in Beijing so I need to wear a mask, she said I was exaggerating and that the monitor firmware was modified by American propaganda machine.
Then this other guy went on a rant of Aquaman (movie) being a great Chinese achievement because it's directed by James Wan (Wan is a common Han last name). The guy is Malaysian-born Australian who made a career in LA.
I don't particularly care if that's how people prefer to live their life (if it works for them that's fine). I just find it funny and weird every time I go there.
I think some Chinese think of the 64 events in the context of the Cultural Revolution (which was still fresh in the memories of the leadership at the time). Many were afraid that the student protests would result in another Cultural Revolution and believe it was for the greater good to stop the protests at all costs.
Perhaps a congruent (but not exactly analogous) debate in the USA would be the use of atomic weapons at the end of WW2.
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.
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".
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
None of those events are hidden from view, are taboo for the press or public to talk about, and have even been studied in depth with research available to the public.
Not the same at all. If the Chinese government were smart, they could have had the debate, shrugged off any conclusions they didn’t like, and let general apathy run its course. But they didn’t do that.
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.
You might expect this, but this says more about you than it does about the American government and its diplomats, at least the ones in charge when the Branch Davidians were in armed rebellion against the US government. Here is a reference describing her apology at the time: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Janet-Reno . The relevant quote: "Reno’s acceptance of full responsibility and her candour and obvious regret over the incident helped her earn the respect of many Americans."
"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.
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.
We act like we find it so unacceptable but we're still perfectly willing to do business with them. Why should they change if they know they can get away with anything since $100 televisions matter more to us than our principles?
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.
Are you thinking of the protests in 1968 at the Democratic National Convention? It was the police, there, not the army. I don't believe there were any deaths there, though. Maybe you're thinking of Kent State? That wasn't affiliated with any party's convention.
dmix|6 years ago
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|6 years ago
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...
Barrin92|6 years ago
In contrast to the man in the audience Singapore was one of the first countries to normalise relationships with China, and in his biography From third world to First, Lee Kuan Yew actually seems somewhat supportive of it because he contrasts China's handling of the situation with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And realistically a country like Singapore is always going to be best positioned by keeping its relationships to opposing forces like the USA and China ambiguous. Committing to one side will draw a reaction from the other, and for smaller countries that's devastating. The space for most freedom and autonomy for a country like Singapore is right in the middle, in a competition between two large nations, choosing sides is a bad move.
state-sponsored|6 years ago
[deleted]
eternalban|6 years ago
CCP wanted that answer out. It will reach its intended audience: upcoming generation of party leadership; young and affluent non-CCP Chinese; nationalist Chinese; law and order Chinese.
I think that substantial and important subset will be satisfied with the answer. The rest are busy chasing virtual butterflies glued to their "smart assistant" (a feature, not a bug) just like their counterparts over here.
And the fact of its being discussed rather diminishes that propaganda card.
> 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?
> elephant in the room
You mean like two modern skyscraper crumbling into dust in a handful of seconds which one must not mention in respectable society unless repeating the "party line"?
Like those two elephants?
Should we discuss the official fact finding efforts for additional black humor, and then revisit the "universal obedience" phenomena?
> 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.
Laughable and racist. (See "conspiracy theory" for disambiguation.)
mrtimo|6 years ago
Interesting that HN is not blocked.
godelski|6 years ago
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...
I'm curious, because if they analyze these links (or even this message) I figure it would be easy to identify.
muterad_murilax|6 years ago
thrwwayy1905|6 years ago
avocado4|6 years ago
I found it almost funny that you just cannot say anything negative about anything Han-related. Few months ago I was having lunch with somebody considered educated & globalized (went to school in the UK, works in a Canadian VC firm in Beijing). The minute I said that my air quality monitor[1] is reading PM10 100+[2] in Beijing so I need to wear a mask, she said I was exaggerating and that the monitor firmware was modified by American propaganda machine.
Then this other guy went on a rant of Aquaman (movie) being a great Chinese achievement because it's directed by James Wan (Wan is a common Han last name). The guy is Malaysian-born Australian who made a career in LA.
I don't particularly care if that's how people prefer to live their life (if it works for them that's fine). I just find it funny and weird every time I go there.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DJ1WCVP
[2] https://www.who.int/airpollution/data/en/
basementcat|6 years ago
Perhaps a congruent (but not exactly analogous) debate in the USA would be the use of atomic weapons at the end of WW2.
lambdasquirrel|6 years ago
felipemnoa|6 years ago
Nasrudith|6 years ago
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|6 years ago
Ennis|6 years ago
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|6 years ago
m0zg|6 years ago
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|6 years ago
It’s always very interesting to hear from someone who’s directly lived through experience. Thanks for offering your perspective.
megous|6 years ago
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23SudanUprising&src=tyah
hajile|6 years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt5cYU70ujs
Dramatize|6 years ago
nickysielicki|6 years ago
Governments defend their actions, usually.
gesticulator|6 years ago
seanmcdirmid|6 years ago
Not the same at all. If the Chinese government were smart, they could have had the debate, shrugged off any conclusions they didn’t like, and let general apathy run its course. But they didn’t do that.
jorblumesea|6 years ago
That's a far cry from what we see here.
DFHippie|6 years ago
marak830|6 years ago
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|6 years ago
Causality1|6 years ago
bitbatbangboo|6 years ago
aaron695|6 years ago
[deleted]
peisistratos|6 years ago
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|6 years ago
DFHippie|6 years ago
smacke|6 years ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism