V-rod on June 5, 2009 at 7:46 AM

Mandarin not one of your strong suits? :-)

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.

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.

DarkCurrent on June 4, 2009 at 5:21 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.

MadisonConservative on June 4,2009 at 5:41PM.

MadisonConservative: I stand to be corrected!

Thanks for clarifying that MC!:)

Blacklake on June 4,2009 at 5:59PM.

Blacklake: I caught todays anniversity on
OPFOR’s website!:)

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.

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.

kkaneff79 on June 4, 2009 at 5:08 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.

Do you know what the catalyst for the fall of the Berlin wall was?

David Hasselhoff.

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the massacre of civilian protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square by the People’s Liberation Army of the People’s Republic of China. For nearly two months,……

And they were so brave. I hope I am as brave.

As long as they can have their mostly comfortable middle class lives, they’ll gladly give up their freedoms.

JadeNYU on June 4, 2009 at 5:51 PM

Yes, I know. I live here.

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

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.

canopfor on June 4, 2009 at 5:18 PM

The local PLA divisions would not move against the protesters. They brought in rural divisions that would do the dirty work.

Abby Adams on June 4, 2009 at 5:09 PM

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.

kkaneff79 on June 4, 2009 at 5:08 PM

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

And,now the Chinese have a solid new vechicle for
their Military!

The HUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!

canopfor on June 4, 2009 at 5:23 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.