China didn't have anti protest gear at that time, that's why they took tanks over there, there weren't any of those trucks that shoot water and the like, basically what they had where guns and the military since the police wasn't that well equipped. And as I said in me previous comment, they do acknowledge it, as a counterrevolutionary movement that must be stopped. Think about it in the same way that how the US handled the Black Panthers, they were basically risking the status quo (the bourgeoisie staying in power) and they effectively suppress them through different means.

[–] pleasemakesense@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Right, the point I was trying to make was; they acknowledge that people died in the protest (300 or whatever it is), so what exactly is the issue and necessity to deny what happened? Why this obsession with "setting the record straight" when there is nothing really to refute?

[–] gary_host_laptop@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It wasn't a massacre of peaceful students, but a skirmish between PLA soldiers and armed detachments from the pro-capitalist / free market reform movement. The protest movement, as evidenced by their own accounts, called for market liberalisation, and free market reforms, rallying around a replica of the statue of liberty. After the movement had been building in the square for seven weeks, unarmed soldiers were sent in to disperse the protesters, after which many soldiers were beaten to death, torched, and lynched. The New York Times death count went from 2600, to many thousands, to 8000, to tens of thousands. In reality only around ~200 (including soldiers) were killed or trampled, in smaller clashes outside the square. The on-scene New York Times reporter disavowed the article, especially about machine-gunning of protesters. A wikileaks cable from a US ambassador to the US state department, confirmed that no killings or machine-gunnings took place in the square.

Well, one could say it doesn't make sense to let people rally nowadays for this, since there's probably counter intelligence funding that's propelling the massification of this news and so on, so why would you let some people go and complain that you suppressed a US coup d'Etat attempt?

[–] pleasemakesense@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

So you argue that the massacre makes sense, that it is fair for the Chinese government to kill whoever took part in the protest. I just don't understand why denying the extent or rationalizing it through 'they attacked first', when killing counter revolutionaries seems to be a completely valid reason for killing people who took part