Numerous military buses, trucks, armored vehicles, and tanks being burned by the “peaceful” protesters. Sometimes the soldiers were allowed to escape, and sometimes they were brutally killed by the protesters. Numerous protesters were armed with Molotov cocktails and even guns.
The official report of the Chinese government from 1989 (translated here) shows that more than 1000 military and police vehicles were burned by rioters. And 200+ soldiers and policemen were murdered. Just imagine how much restraint the military and the police had shown.
Wait, how could the protesters kill so many soldiers? Because, until the very end, Chinese soldiers were unarmed. Most of the times, they didn’t even have helmets or batons.
What exactly happened in Beijing in 1989 that lead to this bloody affair?
The answer lies with two key figures: General Secretary Hu Yaobang, and Ambassador James Lilley.
Hu Yaobang was a member of the communist party of China and was one of the three major rightist-reformers that set China on the path its on today, the other two being Zhao Ziyang, and Deng Xiaoping respectively. Hu Yaobang as a reformer was also a spokesman for the intelligentsia and by the end of his life was well-beloved by the youth of China (we're talking below 30 here, folks) therefore when he passed away the youth of China organized public grieving events with the largest occurring in Beijing. This is to say if Hu didn't die from old age that year, none of this would've happened that year. This is to also say this event had nothing to do with "freedom" or "democracy" or whatever pigshit your favorite rush limburger propagandist spoon feeds you, it was a funeral service that was hijacked to unseat the Chinese government - which so coincidentally is a speciality of the agency the second person we're talking about.
Ambassador James Lilley, the son of an american expat oil executive for Standard Oil, was a CIA agent operating in east Asia from 1951 to 1981 with little officially known about him (I know for a fact he's fucked around Korea and Laos, so it's not a stretch to say he's likely been involved with every conflict that occured during his official career). In his "post" CIA career he's acted as a diplomatic liason to the provice of Taiwan, a teacher to future state department ghouls, and "helped" South Korea end its military dicatorship by helping the military win the election "democratically", and abruptly five days after the death of General Secretary Hu Yaobang James Lilley was appointed as the US Ambassador to China by also former CIA ghoul and president of the United States George H. W. Bush. What an astounding coincidence.
@seahorse@midwest.social You should reign in your fragile mods that ban users for simply pointing out uncomfortable truths about western propaganda cuz this is a really bad look.
Edit: nevermind it was you that banned me lol
You're a coward, a liberal and a western chauvinist piece of shit and I will advocate immediate defederation if you do not answer for this bullshit.
I went looking to see what prompted this response and the book they linked fucking agrees with you. Ngl the guys "first hand witness" credentials are suspect (the books mainly discusses the political situation rather than any account of the protesting), but he specifically says there wasn't a massacre in tiananmen square.
I still remember the one and only time I met a midwest.social user irl. I was part of the PSL delegation to a local coalition-building meeting. Someone had mentioned using fediverse-based sites to bypass censorship, we struck up a conversation after it was over. We both used Lemmy, he was on Midwest.Social. He asked "What instance do you use? Hexbear?". I told him, no, sorry, I'm in the PSL, I use Lemmygrad. I don't get to see posts on midwest.social because they defederate. Maybe you should talk to your admins about changing that. He got mildly uncomfortable, wrapped up the conversation and walked away. I imagine because he was confronted with the fact that those "Tankies" are not just Russian bots or (all) apathetic keyboard-warriors but do actually exist in the real world.