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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."
They waited until people were located outside the square itself before the slaughter began.
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.
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.
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.
>> 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?
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.
> 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.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
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".