Monday, June 24, 2019

Tiananmen 1

A significant 30-year anniversary slipped past us two weeks ago. On June 4, 1989, hundreds of thousands of Chinese students faced off with their government in Tiananmen Square.

"For seven weeks prior, protestors swelled into the hundreds of thousands (over a million at the height of the protests, according to some reports) and called for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, government accountability, and an end to cronyism and corruption."

They lost, the government won.

"Dissension permeated the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and even some of the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party sympathized with protestors, but in the end, hardliners won out. Orders were given to use military force to clear the square."


One protester, never identified, stood in the path of military tanks coming to take them down. Many were killed, the number estimated at 200-10,000.

(cont'd tomorrow)

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