20 Years Ago: Tiananmen Square massacre
posted at 4:55 pm on June 4, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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In 1989, all things seemed possible. The Berlin Wall would fall in November, but by the summer, change had already seemed inevitable as the Soviet Union began to collapse under its own weight. In the late spring, though, it appeared that China’s communist regime might go first — as a growing rally of democracy activists captured the attention and imagination of the world. Twenty years ago today, Beijing crushed the nonviolent rebellion against their authority.
Of all the tributes to the Tiananmen Square massacre, the one above captures it best. It uses “Requiem for a Dream,” an outstanding and entirely fitting piece of music for this remembrance. We had a dream that the world could finally throw off the shackles of tyranny and authoritarianism, and that a non-violent protest could succeed against heartless despots. In Eastern Europe, that dream was realized as the US broke the Soviets through Ronald Reagan’s economic and ideological warfare. In China, that dream was dashed under the tread of tanks and in a hail of bullets.
Today, please pray for the victims of the massacre and give thanks for their courage. One day, it will be rewarded, and they will be honored among their countrymen.
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Cute little Google screen today…Yawn!
PappaMac on June 4, 2009 at 4:59 PM
We had a dream that the world could finally throw off the shackles of tyranny and authoritarianism, and that a non-violent protest could succeed against heartless despots.
We might have to start dreaming about that ourselves pretty soon.
Bishop on June 4, 2009 at 4:59 PM
only difference is some of us know how to disable then destroy an M-1A1/2 MBT.
elduende on June 4, 2009 at 5:04 PM
Bishop, would anyone have the balls?
PappaMac on June 4, 2009 at 5:05 PM
Hey what an opportunity! You too can be the iconic man with briefcase standing in front of the column of main battle tanks.
I was just coming of age when this event happened. I remember thinking how lucky I was to be born in this great and free nation. My how things change :/
daesleeper on June 4, 2009 at 5:05 PM
I remember they cut in on Saturday morning cartoons…
But even then, we knew something significant was happening; we just didn’t understand it all.
XWing5 on June 4, 2009 at 5:07 PM
Was but a child then. Still am in many ways. Coming to a city near you?
abobo on June 4, 2009 at 5:08 PM
Hey Ed,
Do you know what the catalyst for the fall of the Berlin wall was? Jesus man, by the time the wall was falling the war was over.
You may now go back to your three hundred times a day anti-abortion posts.
Kumbaya
kkaneff79 on June 4, 2009 at 5:08 PM
There is a reason that the students built a Statue of Liberty.
Abby Adams on June 4, 2009 at 5:09 PM
With Ogabe selling the nation to the Chinese, you could have a shot at being the guy staring down a ChiCom tank.
Bishop on June 4, 2009 at 5:09 PM
But now they own our debt and we cannot be criticle of the blood in the streets or the prisoners in the Gulag. We are willingly putting on the chains of tyranny under the banner of Hope N’ Change.
Kuffar on June 4, 2009 at 5:12 PM
Don’t you fools realize that we lived with the same situation for 8 years under the Boooosh Administration!
Caper29 on June 4, 2009 at 5:12 PM
Dude…Dude….the Republican party has sat in the Whitehouse far longer than the donks over the course of the last thirty years. Foreign policy is the domain of the State Department and the executive branch. Is the subjegation of the Chinese the fault of Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II?
kkaneff79 on June 4, 2009 at 5:14 PM
The Chinese claimed there were 241 deaths, according to wikipedia. I heard someone giving a talk once who claimed there were tens of thousands killed. We’ll probably never know the truth, but I tend to think it’s closer to the larger number.
VanPalin on June 4, 2009 at 5:15 PM
I wonder if that protest in Tienanmen Square were to happen today, would the same results have occurred?
JetBoy on June 4, 2009 at 5:15 PM
Ask Falun Gong how those protests of theirs are going…
elduende on June 4, 2009 at 5:17 PM
I watched one of the Tiananmen Square Massacre documentarys,
and the Chineese Government,er I mean the Peoples Liberation
Army murdered their own civilians!!
Sickening!
canopfor on June 4, 2009 at 5:18 PM
Well, that same protest could not happen in Tienanmen Square today. Tight, tight, and more tight security.
Upstater85 on June 4, 2009 at 5:19 PM
I doubt it would happen today. Most university students in China’s big cities are relatively fat, dumb and happy. We’re converging.
DarkCurrent on June 4, 2009 at 5:21 PM
What the Eff is your point? THe CHicoms have financed our house of cards called on economy under BOOOOSH and Barry. We are the ones that will be facing down tanks in the street and carted off to the Gulag next. We dare not raise a whisper to the CHicoms lest they call in our debt. Reality Dude.
Kuffar on June 4, 2009 at 5:23 PM
Just remember,that with Obama’s Stimulus bailouts,
the Liberal Party has sold America to the Chinese!
And,now the Chinese have a solid new vechicle for
their Military!
The HUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!
canopfor on June 4, 2009 at 5:23 PM
That we are…
The worst part is that the American Student Activists would probably be fine with just completely boycotting China. That’s not the solution either. They should start challenging the ideology and setting a better example.
Upstater85 on June 4, 2009 at 5:24 PM
The question is how many of those taken into custody were then shipped off in vans, where their organs were harvested (alive/dead unknown) and sold to the highest bidder.
A communist empire that oppresses its people owns our debt?
Sounds like a good reason for CIA ops to shake things up, and war if necessary.
Ally my ass.
MadisonConservative on June 4, 2009 at 5:27 PM
If Obama started pressuring the Chinese over their support for the North Koreans, they may just cave. They are rather embarrassed by little brother. Noooo Obama is too busy selling the free world down the toilet and comparing Gazans to martyrs.
Upstater85 on June 4, 2009 at 5:27 PM
Um…
MadisonConservative on June 4, 2009 at 5:28 PM
Unarmed civilians, no less.
UltimateBob on June 4, 2009 at 5:34 PM
Sigh. It’s so stupid, what can I even say? That Bush turned the military against Americans domestically? Caper29, quit wasting our oxygen. Try blogging in China let alone blogging something anti any administration. Unfortunately, you will never know or understand what it is/was like. People that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I won’t be sharing my bread with you in the gulags you sorry sack of…
Levinite on June 4, 2009 at 5:38 PM
The Chinese have been producing Hum Vee clones for quite some time.
HuskerNate on June 4, 2009 at 5:39 PM
Not THE Hummer. China bought the Hummers held by GM, which were the H2 and H3 pieces of crap. The original military Hummer is produced by AM General, and they’re not giving it up.
MadisonConservative on June 4, 2009 at 5:41 PM
The local PLA divisions would not move against the protesters. They brought in rural divisions that would do the dirty work.
It was called the Goddess of Democracy. The protests were weakening by that time with fewer and fewer students staying in the Square and quite a lot of garbage piling up. Some art students made it and that rejuvenated the entire pro-democracy movement.
Umm no. Tiananmen Square had minimal influence on the events of Eastern Europe in the fall of 1989. Without going through everything you should know the principal defenders of the Communist Chinese after the June 4 massacre were the DDR’s leaders Erich Honecker and Egon Krenz. Another event that occurred the same day was much more important. Today is the 20th anniversary of free elections in Poland, where Solidarity suprised the world, and themselves, by winning every seat they contested in the Sejm and 99 out of 100 seats in the newly created Senate. That was the crack in the dam through which the flood would follow.
As an aside any strategy boardgamers interested in recreating these eventful days may be interested in my game 1989:Dawn of Freedom
Ted Torgerson on June 4, 2009 at 5:42 PM
They loosened the noose just enough that the people no longer feel as if they are choking. As long as they can have their mostly comfortable middle class lives, they’ll gladly give up their freedoms.
We’ve got the same going on in reverse. The noose is tightening as we become less and less free, but more and more coddled. Unfortunately for those of us that prefer freedom, freedom comes with a lot of personal responsibility that most people don’t want to deal with.
JadeNYU on June 4, 2009 at 5:51 PM
Yes, I know. I live here.
DarkCurrent on June 4, 2009 at 5:55 PM
67 years ago: The Battle of Midway. Sad that nobody ever seems to remember that.
Blacklake on June 4, 2009 at 5:59 PM
God Bless you Tank Guy… wherever you are.
Ugly on June 4, 2009 at 6:01 PM
I was so little then.
And they were so brave. I hope I am as brave.
Mommypundit on June 4, 2009 at 6:07 PM
David Hasselhoff.
Daemonocracy on June 4, 2009 at 6:16 PM
for all those throughout history who have stood up to oppression and paid the ultimate price… we salute you.
Kaptain Amerika on June 4, 2009 at 6:16 PM
The final trigger was Poland refusing to prevent East German citizens from crossing over it’s border into West Germany. This gave East German’s a way into the West that didn’t involve running mine fields and being shot at.
Within weeks, so many East German’s had fled, that there was nothing left for the leaders to do. They had to either admit defeat, or learn how to operate the factories themselves.
We woke up one morning to find that the guards on the Berlin wall were gone.
MarkTheGreat on June 4, 2009 at 6:21 PM
I must add that Reagan and Pope John Paul’s support of Lech Welesa and his independant workers union was the wedge that forced Poland to open up. Once Poland was open, there was no stopping the human wave. There were no means to restrict travel into Poland, and Poland had opened it’s border to the West.
I must add that the many union leaders in the US joined with Reagan and John Paul to support the free union movement in Poland.
Too bad there are no longer any patriots in leadership positions in American unions.
MarkTheGreat on June 4, 2009 at 6:24 PM
The Battle of Midway.
Blacklake on June 4,2009 at 5:59PM.
Blacklake: I caught todays anniversity on
OPFOR’s website!:)
canopfor on June 4, 2009 at 6:27 PM
I knew they were going to fail when the student explained why they refused to arm themselves. Mohandas Gandhi’s movement only worked because the British people couldn’t palate what was being done in their name.
darktood on June 4, 2009 at 6:28 PM
…Hummer is produced by AM Gerneral…
MadisonConservative on June 4,2009 at 5:41PM.
MadisonConservative: I stand to be corrected!
Thanks for clarifying that MC!:)
canopfor on June 4, 2009 at 6:34 PM
I was almost 19 twenty years ago. I remember thinking that many of those protesters(much like those at the Berlin Wall when it came down later)were my age.
I felt lucky that I was here rather than there.
annoyinglittletwerp on June 4, 2009 at 6:45 PM
So true. They don’t want freedom; they want success. I think the attitude is typified by a Chinese co-worker who, upon our discussion turning political, said, “Communism, capitalism… it’s all the same.” To be fair, a lot of that’s due to a very different economic climate. But the political atmosphere is also very different, as is the attitude of youth.
calbear on June 4, 2009 at 7:00 PM
Is this our future?
Driefromseattle on June 4, 2009 at 7:09 PM
Wonder how much crap one has to buy at Wal-Mart to enable the Reds to build one of those tanks?
Dr. ZhivBlago on June 4, 2009 at 10:48 PM
“Mohandas Gandhi’s movement only worked because the British people couldn’t palate what was being done in their name.”
A point that is sometimes lost in the feel-good euphoria of how non violent struggle is the “only way”.
Non violent civilian disobedience requires a mental will power that can take any amount of crap and resist the human reflex to retaliate against the unjust aggressor – many people dont understand the persistence it takes.
With all that being said, the British were forced to leave because of the collapse of the Empire after WW2 and the growing unpopularity of their rule over India.How they left the subcontinent in an absolute mess is another story.
To ALL those Chinese freedom lovers who braved the might of their military tanks and the harsh label of traitors for fighting for freedom, I hope your sacrifice never goes in vain.
nagee76 on June 4, 2009 at 11:09 PM
Sadly, the bulk of Chinese youth have no information about Tiananmen…save for it being portrayed officially as a counter-revolution that failed when it is mentioned in Chinese schools at all. References to it on the internet are routinely blocked by Beijing. Little coverage in print media on the subject, almost from the start over 20 years ago. So, 20 years after, more American kids know about Tiananmen than do Chinese kids. Shows that government control over the press is an effective means to prevent certain themes from reaching the public. Sort of like our own MSM…maybe?
China still segregates its military units along ethnic lines. Posting Han soldiers in non-Han districts, for example. Far easier to have a different ethnicity shoot down protesters than to have similarly ethnic soldiers balk at doing the same.
coldwarrior on June 5, 2009 at 1:58 AM
no subtitles?
V-rod on June 5, 2009 at 7:46 AM
Mandarin not one of your strong suits? :-)
coldwarrior on June 5, 2009 at 8:38 AM
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