Date of 4 June remains one of Chinaās strictest taboos, with government using increasingly sophisticated tools to censor its discussion
There is no official death toll but activists believe hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed by Chinaās Peopleās Liberation Army in the streets around Tiananmen Square, Beijingās central plaza, on 4 June 1989.
The date of 4 June remains one of Chinaās strictest taboos, and the Chinese government employs extensive and increasingly sophisticated resources to censor any discussion or acknowledgment of it inside China. Internet censors scrub even the most obscure references to the date from online spaces, and activists in China are often put under increased surveillance or sent on enforced āholidaysā away from Beijing.
New research from human rights workers has found that the sensitive date also sees heightened transnational repression of Chinese government critics overseas by the government and its proxies.
Youāre actually delusional if you think anything like the Tiananmen square massacre is happening in the US today.
Its far worse, seppoland has actual concentration camps at the border and
secretplainclothes police disappearing people into torture prisons in foreign countries. Also funding, arming and running political cover for a genocide. Why just today it vetoed a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. And thats just whats currently going on off the top of my head.If we look at US history however we can find stuff like throwing a bomb on their own civilians and just one genocide after another.
Boy tankies will literally anything out of their ass to justify their false narratives.
No, the reality is that you cannot come up with any examples like this massacre so youāre trying to cope with any random thing you slap on. Come back to me when you have an example of the federal government giving direct orders to massacre anything that moves during a massive civilian protest (pro tip: you canāt).
Trying to argue that the US today is worse than China today or even back then, is the definition of arguing in bad faith. Just about every index and measurement shows that China is way more authoritarian, and to the CCP human rights isnāt even a subject of debate, itās more like a loose guideline that should be applied selectively.
If you really want to get into history, then literally nothing in history matches the insane death toll of communist China. Mao is literally historyās biggest killer by a big margin, and his reign has resulted in the worst man made disasters ever. From illegally occupying to Tibet to putting the Uyghurs in āreeducation campsā to stealing islands in the South China sea from the Philippines to massacring civilians peacefully protesting to literal demicides to the worst man made famine in history, and so much more. Your ignorance on the history of China is expected, but also still embarrassing
For the record, unlike you mouthbreathers, I actually acknowledge the bad things the US has done and does, because I actually have principled. I know you donāt have any, otherwise you wouldnāt be showcasing yourself as a hypocrite and a clown for everyone to see in attempt to distract from a basic criticism of the Chinese government.
You canāt just make up shit. The soldiers werenāt given orders to āmurder anyone that movesā or else the tank wouldāve run that guy over. Where did you get that? They just looked at each other for awhile. I donāt think anyone even died in Tiannamen Square itself. Battles happened in other parts of the city as soldiers defended themselves, though. It wasnāt peaceful like you said earlier, soldiers died. Not that I think every protest necessarily has to be, or should be, peaceful, but at least get the facts straight.
And of course similar things happened in the US. We bombed an apartment building. There was the Kent shootings, the Haymarket massacre, Whiskey Rebellion, the incident in Waco, the assassination of Fred Hampton, hell, cop shootings happen every year. Not to mention hundreds of years of slavery where who knows how many were killed.
And no, Mao is not worse than Hitler. Mismanagement leading to famines is bad and the Cultural Revolution went too far in some places, and China acknowledges those mistakes btw, but they donāt compare to the targeted genocides, holocaust, and wars of Hitler. And most of those things you said werenāt even Mao. Plus, the US has done all those things of illegally occupying places (thatās how we got a bunch of states like Hawaii or Texas, as well as territories later like the Philippines), we did more than re-education camps of Native Americans, we killed them all and are now helping Israel do their own genocide and occupation in the present day, we have basically taken over the sea in the whole world and kill people who donāt agree (like Yemeni civilians), and have military bases all over including places they donāt want us (like Guantanamo Bay in Cuba), and have massacred civilians protesting peacefully as I said above, and helped other countries do the same, and have people under-fed and poverty stricken in the richest nation in the world.
You say you acknowledge the bad the US has done and then ignore all of them to make it sound like China is the worst places to have ever existed, at the same time an ongoing genocide is happening facilitated by the US. All youāve proved is you consume propaganda uncritically and without context.
Tank man stood in front of the tank on June 5th, the massacre happened on June 4th.
What was that again about me making shit up? It sounds to me like youāre getting high off youāre own supply.
You know what, thatās a good idea. Letās get the facts straight, shall we? Go ahead and post your sources that actually support your claims. Shouldnāt be a hard thing to do if theyāre facts like you say. Iāll be waiting.
Lol you really had to do mental gymnastics to come up with any examples at all. I mean you had to go all the back to 1791 to the Whiskey Rebellion (if weāre going back that far then look up the Taiping Rebellion) to find something and then used the Waco Seige of the Branch Davidians cult as an example. The only relevant example you have is the Kent state shooting, and even thatās from 1970 and only 4 people were killed. Even then, Iām honest enough to acknowledge that this event was indeed bad and should be condemned.
Highly debatable. Mao has a very good case to top Hitler. He killed way more people and he was just as ruthless. Mao tops Hitler as the worst dictator of the 20th century.
Somewhere between 40 and 80 million people died under Maoās reign. That canāt brushed off with an āoopsiesā. Also, China still hails this guy as a national hero even though his successor, Deng Xiaoping (whoās responsible for the Tiananmen square massacre), had to literally do a de-Maoization like Khrushchev did with de-Stalinization to save the country from collapse.
Donāt get it twisted, Hitler is one of the most evil men in history. Thereās a reason why he reached infamy in history. Iām just pointing out that he wasnāt without rivals during the 20th century, and Mao is one of the very few people with a legitimate case as being the shittiest human of that century.
Wow, you are slow. Itās not a competition. The reason why I brought up those things about China was to demonstrate no matter what examples are brought up about the US, China has an endless bag of atrocities to match or even exceed. Thatās not the point because nobody is arguing which country has the worse history, the point of contention was that the person that I replied to originally claimed that the US today is worse than China today when it comes to things like Tienanmen Square massacre and their examples had no relevance to their claim at all.
You donāt need to have a ledger of condemnations so tankies can be satisfied with their perceived proportionate amount of criticism being applied towards China or any country. If an event is worthy of criticism then it should be criticized, simple as. If youāre seething over people condemning an atrocity and drowning yourself in fallacies like whataboutism, then thereās a good chance you either support the atrocities or the entity responsible for committing them.
If you made a post about the Kent State shooting, for example, right now on Lemmy or anywhere else really, youāre not going to get a hoard of Americans or non Americans in the comments crying about āBuT wHaT aBoUt ChInA hYpOcRiTeS?!?ā, theyāre just going to condemn the event and move onā¦ as they should. But when it comes to doing the same thing for a country like China or Russia, you will always get a hoard of tankies defending the reprehensible acts and crying hypocrisyā¦ even though they themselves are hypocrites.
Ironic coming from you
Theyāre always combined together. Theyāre considered part of the same event.
Journalistic and diplomatic testimony at the time confirms this. Itās pretty accepted by people who were there, including Western journalists. This is one example of a journalist there for the Washington Post at the time who later wrote a piece regretting writing their article in such a way that contributed to the myth that people died in the square.
I gave more recent examples too. The only reason I went back that far is to show that the US has been shooting at its citizens from the beginning. Keep in mind, China is a lot newer of a country than the US, so it feels fitting. When cou tries are newer, they are a lot more vulnerable to different conflicts and, sadly, these things can result as different factions fight it out. Itās only been around since about the 50ās. And 1970 isnāt that much older than 1989. You act like itās ancient history.
Once again, Mao didnāt kill more than Hitler. Famines are not the same as purposeful targeted genocides. If you want, we can say that US Presidents are worse than both if you add every death resulting from every war, and every post-war famine, civil war, etc that the US has been involved with. Youād add up basically every death from everything thatās happened in all of South America and the Middle-East since the 50ās in there.
Not to mention that the numbers you quoted arenāt reliable. Their sources are dubious and usually CIA funded. Dengās numbers are a bit more realistic at 16.5 million but still most likely exaggerated because of the downplaying of Maoās legacy they were doing at the time, like you mentioned. US numbers are usually wild guesses and extrapolations.
And of course they still hail him as a hero. Even if policy-wise he wasnāt the best, he was still a great and successful revolutionary who freed them from an oppressive monarchy, brought them socialism, cut poverty, increased life expectancy, reduced mortality, increased the spread of education and healthcare, and led them on the path to where they are now as an extremely successful country. And yes, they were increasing life expectancy even while he was in charge.
And yes, the US is worse today. They are enabling a genocide. Thatās basically the checkmate of atrocities.
Its not a competition, but the point is that these statements and propaganda always start as a way to encourage war and conflict with other countries. Every single time. Itās why China doesnāt celebrate the Kent massacre every year or the Civil War, or things like that that the US does. They donāt have military bases all over the world and arenāt constantly invading and occupying other countries, so they donāt really need the excuse to drum up propaganda as an excuse for war. And while China has a lot of negative points, thatās what makes the US worse that people in it donāt understand: itās inperialistic nature.
Are you really dumb enough to not understand my point with the dates? You made the stupid argument that if there was a really a massacre then why isnāt the tank man dead. This isnāt the āgotchaā you think it is because it shows you donāt understand what happened. The Chinese government gave the soldiers the order to massacre the students protesting on June 4th, tank man and the picture of him happened AFTER the massacre on June 5th.
So let me get this straight, your grand argument to justify this massacre is that the people werenāt killed in the square itself but right outside of it? Damn, you sure showed how innocent and glorious the CCP is with this zinger.
You literally had one single relevant example. Even if we take all the other examples you gave and ignore their validity for a second, they still had less deaths combined than the Tienanmen Square massacre.
No way somebody is dumb enough to think China, one of the worldās oldest civilizations, is newer than the US. China didnāt start in 1949.
You donāt even know what the topic of conversation is, do you? If you scroll up this thread and read what the original point of contention is, then youāll quickly realize that itās about some idiot saying that the US TODAY is worse than China. You citing examples from 1791 to 1970 shows that you either have no idea what the conversation is about or your argument is so weak that you have go that far back to find anything.
Maoās death toll is so high that his non famine deaths give the Holocaustās death toll a run for its money. Letās do some basic arithmetic:
Chinese land reforms: 1 million - 4.7 million
Government violence during the Great Chinese Famine: 2.5 million
Anti-Rightist Campaign: 550k - 2 million
Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries: 712k - 2 million
Three-anti and Five-anti campaigns: 100k
Cultural Revolution: 500k - 2 million
Thatās bring us to: 5.362 million - 13.3 million
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_China#Peopleās_Republic_of_China_(since_1949)
So even if we exclude the famine, which we shouldnāt because those deaths are direct result of his policies, his death toll is still either half of that of the Holocaust at best or even higher the Holocaust at worst. When we factor the Great Chinese Famine that he caused, then heās well and away the greatest killer in history.
Except weāre not going to say because thatās idiotic logic. First of all no, not a single American president comes even close to Maoās death toll. Second of all, his death toll, like Hitlerās, is a direct result of his policies. These death toll figures donāt include deaths caused by wars. If we included the Chinese Civil war or the host of other wars that he involved in, then he might actually top 100 million death by himself. Thirdly, even IF we did include wars, what kind of clown counts every single death in wars, including the deaths caused be the enemies, as a part of the death toll? Not only that, but including subsequent events as well? Thatās stupid.
No, theyāre extremely reliable. All the estimates are provided by independent research teams and well respected academics whoās full research, sources, and methodology are have been peer reviewed and are available to all who wish to see them. You just want to find any excuse to dismiss the figures because they donāt conform to your tankie biases.
Do you actually think successfully arguing that the death toll is āonlyā 16.5 million is some sort of win? Not only is it sad that you think that, but itās also a losing battle because that figure is well below what most academics estimate. Thereās another thing, simply putting saying āUSā or āCIAā in front of everything you donāt like doesnāt discredit the validity or accuracy of those figures or statements whatsoever nor does it make the association inherently bad. These assumptions exclusively exist in the empty minds tankies who think the rest of the world thinks like them, well they donāt.
People understand that despite all itās flaws, the US is still a liberal democracy that actually has freedom of speech and freedom of the press. This means that academics in the US are extremely reliable because theyāre independent researchers who can publish all their research without fear of manipulation or censorship from the government regardless of how the government wishes the results were or how they make the government look.
This isnāt the case in China because itās an authoritarian country, and so research on touchy subjects is inherently unreliable because it all goes through the great CCP filter. Not to mention that the research on Maoās astronomical death toll isnāt exclusive to US researchers. Academics all over the world have studied the same material and came up with estimates that are largely in the same range. So no matter what excuse you come up with, they simply wonāt mean anything because youāre defending a position that contradicts reality.
What monarchy lmao? China has been a republic since 1912. I know tankies are ignorant, but do you seriously not know who the communists fought during the Chinese civil war? Because thatās astounding levels of ignorance.
Literally all of this is false. Maoās policies were such massive failures that killed so many people and brought so much suffering that the country was actually on the brink of collapse. After he died, his successor, Deng Xiaoping, had to do a de-Maoization to help save the country. The Chinese economy under Mao was extremely small and stagnant, and China didnāt experience any real economic growth until Xiaoping started liberalizing the economy. In the late 70s and throughout the 80s, he introduced a series of reforms that allowed people to own private property, allowed foreign investment to flow into the country, created āspecial economic zonesā where capitalism ran free, and allowed markets to exist again. Only then did China economic rise start to take off.
You can literally see this in GDP numbers:
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/chn/china/gdp-gross-domestic-product
The country went through a genocide that killed 30 million people followed by a civil war that killed 10 million people. The life expectancy in China in 1945 was 33.4 years. Literally any sort of stability wouldāve seen a rise in life expectancy. We saw the same thing happen in Russia, Germany, and bunch of countries who exited eras of brutal war. With that being said, Mao wasnāt exactly good for the life expectancy, you clearly see in the countryās life expectancy graphs when the famine happened as well as when his brutal massacres started slowing down:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041350/life-expectancy-china-all-time/
China is arming Russiaās genocide in Ukraine as well as committing their own genocides in TIbet and Xinjiang. So if weāre using mental gymnastics make the US indirectly supporting Israel count as enabling genocide, then China has a checkmate x3.
These atrocities are historical facts, not propaganda, and recognizing them isnāt going to start wars. What kind of idiot thinks that recognizing and condemning an atrocity like the holocaust is propaganda to start a war? If you ever get the self awareness to wonder why nobody likes tankies, this is why.
Nobody is celebrating this massacre you dimwit. People are acknowledging and condemning it because, unlike the US, the Chinese government denies the atrocities it committed and pretends this massacre never happened.
Yes they literally are. Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, India, Tibet, and the list goes on and on.
Clearly, you donāt understand what imperialism is either because if you think China isnāt imperialist then youāre huffing something strong.