i mean something definetly happened that day
what im saying is: the chinese military didnt randomly gun down innocent protestors and there is no proof of this
Worked with a Chinese woman who grew up in Beijing during this time. She's pretty neutral when it comes to the CCP despite being a US citizen now (can't be a dual citizen in China). I'd always tease her about the Uyghur genocide and she genuinely did not care. But I jokingly asked her where she was during the massacre while our work group was out for drinks, thinking she probably had no connection. Her face went blank and she talked about how the tanks were rolling down their residential neighborhood streets. It was pure martial law.
These were the only photos I could find of the dead.
I can already hear the China shill excuses coming forward. Let me first set the scene. In the 80's, recovering from the Cultural Revolution of the 60's and 70's that only ended with Mao's death, Deng Xiaoping tried to modernize China which allowed for some liberalization of the markets and thus a bit of liberalization of the culture. Coming off the back of the Cultural Revolution, it was a much more open society. Some student protests started to crop up in 1986 after a professor came back from a stint at Princeton and realized China's authoritarianism and command economy were why it was such a shithole and taught students about it who demanded reforms. A CCP leader dealt with these protests peacefully, and was later forced to resign. That leader's death in 1989 was the catalyst of the Tiananmen Square Protests. While there were various disorganized groups protesting, overall it was students demanding faster liberalization and reform. The protests were allowed to go on for a while uninterrupted, giving the students hope that change would finally come. But seeing that the softness used to deal with the previous protest led to these protests, Xiaoping ordered a full takedown and hence the massacre.
To those wondering why there isn't more photographic proof, you've gotta remember a few things about China in 1989:
1.) They were poor as fuck so not many people owned cameras
2.) The most likely people with access to cameras would be journalists who all worked directly for the state and wouldn't even be able to report on this if they wanted to
3.) Any photos or videos taken by the Chinese would not have been able to make it out of the country for others to see on their own
4.) All these pictures came from foreign photographers/journalists. Every foreigner staying within the vicinity of Tiananmen Square had their rooms checked and any film they found was confiscated. The only stuff to survive was hidden during the searches and then smuggled out of the country when they left.
So, with the CCP having full control over all information, they suppressed any discussion of the incident forever. Today, if you asked a Chinese 20-something about the massacre, they'd either not know what you're talking about at all or say it's all fake.
