Wikileaks Cables Say No Bloodshed Inside Tiananmen Square

netchaos writes "Secret cables from the United States embassy in Beijing have shown there was no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square when China put down student pro-democracy demonstrations 22 years ago." Which is not to say that everything was flowers and wine: "Instead, the cables show that Chinese soldiers opened fire on protesters outside the centre of Beijing, as they fought their way towards the square from the west of the city."

Comments

No big secret here

[Senes]

They waited until people were located outside the square itself before the slaughter began.

Re:No big secret here

[macshit]

... and remember, Li Peng's still alive. There's still time for a trial in the Hague...

Oh, haha, I forgot, he has power and influence.

Re:No big secret here

[sakdoctor]

Does it make that much of a difference if the students were slaughtered in the squares, or just round the corner?

Re:No big secret here

[brit74]

> "Everything I've ever read about it was that students were run over by tanks, inside the square."
I don't remember the "run over by tanks" part, although I do remember a man standing in front of the tanks, not getting run over.

Re:No big secret here

[poity]

First of all this news in no way lightens the cruel brutality through which the PRC government dealt with their citizens that day, but I want to make a point on a possible explanation for the "tanks crushing people" claim. I'm not saying it's false, since we'll never know the truth having not been there, but consider this: The Chinese word for "suppress" is "ya", which is the same exact word for "to physically crush underneath" -- to put suppress an idea or to crush grapes underfoot for juice, it's the same word. So the phrase "they're using tanks to suppress people in the square" and "they're using tanks to physically crush people in the square" are the same in Chinese. Perhaps the real meaning was lost in the moment, then even more so in translation.

Re:No big secret here

[houghi]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4313282.stm
At the top of the square just in front of the Forbidden City, an APC got separated from its column, and in its panic to get out of the crowd area, ran over several demonstrators. This, in turn, caused the crowd to grow violent.

Yes, technicaly an APC is not a tank. So we look further.

At about four or five in the morning, tank columns raced into the square smashing buses, bicycles and humans under their treads.

Clearly talking about tanks and not an accident.

You can decide for yourself the quality of said source. His name is Charlie Cole and he is the winner of the 1989 World Press Photo of a man standing in front of a tank in China. The URL above tells what happened that day. Sounds like a pretty good quality source to me.

Re:No big secret here

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Think about how long a million people would be allowed to camp outside the US capitol buildings, especially if they were harassing and looting.

It happened, recall the Bonus Army. *four* people died. Not hundreds (or possibly thousands, accounts vary) like in or around Tiananmen Square.

Re:No big secret here

[Anonymous Coward]

I was working for CTV news in Toronto at the time and I saw the raw footage of a protester getting run over by a tank and squashed like a bug. It's not something you forget. The footage was edited down to make it look like the tank had stopped, which it did, hesitating for a few seconds.

Two weeks later we were visited by the Chinese head of media and they were given a full tour of the facility.

Re:No big secret here

[okmijnuhb]

This should have been in the summary, then I wouldn't have wasted my time thinking the Chinese military peacefully put down the protest, an the US government lied to us about it, and then for a few moments afterwards that Slashdot is controlled by the Chinese trying to put a different face on it.

Slashdot you're beginning to really suck.

Re:No big secret here

[linuxrocks123]

Was this footage made public? If not, why not?

Re:No big secret here

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

A lot of Americans live withing walking distance and have relatively unrestricted access to the press and the court system. DC has one of the highest lawyer-per-capita populations in the world. You can't walk ten feet without tripping over an NGO. If anyone tried to cover up something that big, a lot of those people would work very hard to prevent it--and they have media connections and strong grassroots networks.

Re:No big secret here

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

> I wonder why would USA want immunity...

Several reasons, some of them legitimate. There is a lot of anti-US sentiment in the world that makes the US doubt it can get a fair hearing in an international war crimes setting. Also, the US is the leading military power in the world, and its unique role in world affairs makes it much more likely to get dragged into court than other nations.

In the less legitimate realm, like other world powers, the drawbacks of certain international processes are greater for it than the benefits. It supports the ICC, but will not fully sign on because it does not trust the international community not to be anti-American, and because it would cost either side quite a few votes in domestic elections. Finally, when it does things badly, it does not want attention drawn to it, and signing on to the ICC makes it slightly harder to cover things up when they decide to for reasons of saving face--they need to pretend to do an investigation. The ICJ shows that pretty clearly--a CIA operation supporting terrorist techniques against communists during the cold war was dragged into the spotlight.

Tomato Tomato

[similar_name]

I just want to point out as these threads get started that everything is relative. There are fine lines between terrorists, rebels, rioters and demonstrators and typically that line is determined by the winners and which side you're on. So, before we deride the Chinese government we should remember the workers riots at the turn of the century in the U.S. where many were killed by authorities, or the race riots of the 60s, again where many died, the following war demonstrators where again authority put them down, the Chicago riots, the L.A. riots and all the other riots that we call riots because they were put down and we live here.

I'm not saying any of it is right or siding with any side but the Chinese authority protect that authority just like authority in any other country, including whichever one you happen to live in.

Re:Tomato Tomato

[the eric conspiracy]

The difference is that in this country such things were reported on the news, you can read reports about what happened, and many laws were changed as a result.

Re:why did you post this?

[dAzED1]

The average mundane "idiot" doesn't have the time to be a subject matter expert on every single event in history, every single peice of technology, so on so forth, all at once. Most of us "idiots" base our perceptions on that which we're told in shortened recounts of such things. And for my idiotic experiences, that was that tanks ran over students, in the square. If you knew this to not be true, yet let it remain generally believed, then it is you to blame - not wikileaks or slashdot.

Osama

[gmuslera]

Remember when at first the news said that he had hostages, was armed, and the marines had to kill him, and then the truth slowly come out, still leaving the 1st impression?

Re:Osama

[Seumas]

To be fair, my average fellow American didn't stick around to listen long enough to updated reports. At "Osama was killed", they spent the next week flopping their dicks in the air and smashing beer cans on their heads while running around in public with giant foam fingers chanting "USA USA USA" like retards.

Re:why did you post this?

[dmomo]

>> has the appearance of a cover up or a smear against china, in the eyes of your average idiot reading this post who's knows nothing about tiananmen square

Or to be fair, in the eyes of the intellegent reader who happens to not know the details of what is referred to as the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Don't be so dramatic. Not everyone knows everything and we all take accounts of some events for granted. You rant has some good points, but my eyes glazed over at your egotistical attitude. You've got something to contribute, clearly. Why not let people take you more seriously?

Re:why did you post this?

[dAzED1]

knowledge flows from those who have it, to those who do not. If those who have it do not share it, then they are to blame for it not being widely known. By the by, your continued insistence upon attempting to insult doesn't help your argument in the least. Oh, and as another side note - very credible sources do indeed say tanks ran over protestors in the square - such as the person who took the iconic photograph. Also, this might come as a surprise to you, but some of us learned things before we could "link" our sources; what I know on the subject, I learned in textbooks that I read long before most had even heard of the internet.

Re:Not inside the square.

[taiwanjohn]

> What I remember is the video of a protester standing down a column of tanks inside the square.

Actually the "tank man" footage was shot from the Beijing Hotel, looking WSW down Changan E. Rd.. The vantage point is (IIRC) a few hundred yards east of the square.

Rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

This is rubbish. Of course you can specify what kind of crushing it is in Chinese. The character ya alone is ambiguous, but by using it in a 2 character compound word (as most words are in Chinese) you can easily be more specific.

It's almost exactly the same as in English. You can have ambiguity or you can be specific.

There's a Chinese guy on Chinese /. right now writing "Ah, but in English they say 'They used tanks to crush the protestors', but in English 'crush' is vague. It could mean that the tanks physically squashed them, or that they used shells to fire on the protesters, or that their presence alone with police alongside was enough".