Tiananmen Square "Massacre": a Western Lie

Intro

At the tail-end of the Cold War, in the People's Republic of China (PRC), tensions were brewing between the people and their government.  These tensions - as we are taught here in the West - culminated in a massacre that went on for about two days, resulting in the death of anywhere from 200 - 10,000 innocent Chinese civilians - protesting for freedom and democracy - at the hands of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). 

Such an event turned the world's perception of China sour. But what if there was no massacre? What if the “Massacre” was a powerful tool of misinformation utilized by Western nations to turn public opinion against China? Some believe that not to be far from the real truth, especially when there’s evidence of America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) - well known for their ability to intervene in other country's affairs, especially when it comes to their government - being involved.

Before June 4th, 1989

China had already had multiple student-led demonstrations around the Beijing area from 1985 - 1986, none of them ever being as big - or as infamous - as the 1989 protest that was held at Tiananmen Square, but helped play a role in the conditions that caused the event to occur. 

One of the more notable situations that spawned out of the previous protests was the resignation of the then General Secretary of The Chinese Communist Party, Hu Yaobang, on January 17th, 1987.  A reformist, it had been theorized that Hu resigned because of bad political and economic reforms that had caused “severe hyperinflation and corruption”, as well as being unable to stop the student-led protests that the state had started to fear would cause “political instability” and mistrust of the government, causing major setbacks in regards to the policies at the time. 

After Hu Yaobang's death in April of 1987, students took to the streets to “demonstrate against corruption and called for more political reforms”. 

Tiananmen Square “Massacre”

In May of the next month, after being unable to put an end to the protests, China declared martial law to intimidate the demonstrators to clear them from the square; this failed and the army started toward the square in the following month on June 3rd, 1989. The massacre occurred the following day. 

The verdict is out and everyone around the world agrees that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) successfully decimated anywhere from hundreds to thousands of people who were just “protesting for freedom and democracy”. 

A Suppressed Truth - Understanding Tiananmen 

But this isn’t the only narrative around, with multiple witnesses of the event recounting something entirely different. One of these people being a Chilean Diplomat who attended the event - reporting to the US - said that “although the soldiers were armed with anti-riot gear - truncheons and wooden clubs, most of them were not armed with rifles”, and that although he did hear “sporadic firing outside the square”, he witnessed no firing from within. The same Chilean diplomat also recounted a time when troops and armored vehicles made their way across the square from the north to the south to be met with 3,000 protestors sitting at the monument of the people’s heroes. Instead of murdering the demonstrators, the PLA and the demonstrators were able to reach an agreement, and the protestors were able to leave the square at 4:30 in the morning on June 4th, a few hours after the peak of the “abuse” had started. 

Hou Dejian, another attendee of the protests has also come out to speak about how he witnessed no casualties at the square, stating “During the whole withdrawal process I didn't see a single student, other citizen or soldier killed in the square. Nor did I see any armored personnel carriers rolling over people.”

Among Diplomats and notable celebrities that were in the square at the time of the crackdown were Western journalists eager to spread the lie of the “massacre” that took place on June 4th, 1989. One of these was BBC journalist James Miles who in the year 2009 condemned his Tiananmen Square article, and admitted to “conveying the wrong impression of the massacre”.

“There are no reliable estimates on how many people were killed in those events, not only in Beijing but also in other cities”. The fact that there is no reliable number of casualties is a little suspicious. When the number of casualties in a “massacre” is perpetually undetermined, especially when the count is being made to be anywhere from 200 - 10,000 casualties, it can allow for many compromising situations for the Chinese governments and can make them look very bad and suspicious. 

A Military Under Siege/CIA Involvement/Conclusion 

With everything said about the massacre one thing that could never be thought of is that the “peaceful” demonstrators would dare to fight back against the might of the Chinese Army, although that’s exactly what happened. An article by The Washington Post paints a scene of war just outside the square, with “Anti-government fighters being organized into formations of 100 - 150 people, armed with both Molotov Cocktails and golf clubs.” Although there were no casualties inside the square, the same can’t be said for the outside. Casualties were made up of both Soldiers of the PLA and demonstrators. 

In the streets the “pro-democracy” protesters were engulfing armored vehicles in flames and pulling soldiers out to be beaten to death, these same soldiers were also being lit on fire. Although there is no situation in which one human should be able to take the life of another, the soldiers of the PLA can defend themselves. Why not take into account the amount of people's abuses committed by our military? Why not condemn our police force for the abuse that they enforce on our people at the times of protest, the recent student protests for Palestine and the BLM protests being a huge topic of discussion for the way that they treated the demonstrators.

Members of the PLA were forced to take drastic measures because their lives were at stake, it was either fight back or be burnt to death and strung up from buildings and other vehicles, the same as their comrades. 

Why do our criticisms of government and human rights violations seem to be only targeted toward other countries and never our own? It’s because of Tiananmen Square and many events that came after. It’s because our government needs our hatred directed at specific places in the world at specific points in time. The way they need our hatred directed towards Iraq in the late 90’s. The way they need our hatred to be directed towards Cuba in the ’60s. There is always a second truth to American documentation of a subject as touchy as Tiananmen Square, and that’s because it fills imperial interest.

Tiananmen Square was able to make China look like the world's biggest violator of human rights. In the same way, it was able to make the Middle East look like if Toys ‘R’ Us was the biggest exporter of terrorism and W.M.D’s in the world.

There is nothing to gain from imperial lies unless you are the imperialist. No one ever even seems to mention the leader of the protests Chai Ling's actual involvement, stating such obscene things like “the goal of the protest was to create bloodshed to make the people angry so that way they’d rally for the cause”, but being scared to lose her own life and not even informing other protestors of the real truth. She was then taken from Tiananmen to be transported to the US as a part of a CIA-backed plan - Operation Yellowfish - where she was placed in top position in some universities and was able to graduate from said high-ranking universities at the cost of her peers' blood being scattered across the city streets. 

The war of Misinformation is another war that only the imperialist wins and all we can do in said war is educate ourselves to out-wit and out-smart them.