You’re posting this photo because the video it’s taken from shows him climb up on the tank, have a conversation with the tank commander, climb down off of the tank and leave without incident.
E: literally 3rd result on YouTube, from the CBS news archives:
“That doesn’t make it any less impactful” Uhh yes it does, because the impact when this photo is shared without context typically comes from the implication that he was run over, like an American protestor might be.
There’s also a bigger picture with Tank Man, that shows the mostly empty square the tanks were leaving, with a handful of soldiers and bikes.
And a bunch of other photos showing the battle that took place in the surrounding streets, with cops that had been lynched and burned and protesters gunned down.
The evidence disproves the western narrative of tanks machine-gunning protesters inside the square, then liquefying bodies, that were then burnt and washed down the drain (and getting stopped by Tank Man on the way out).
That’s not to say the Chinese claims should be taken at face value, but nothing I’ve seen contradicts their claim of 300 dead and several thousand wounded.
“As far as can be determined from the available evidence, NO ONE DIED that night in Tiananmen Square.” What?! Who would make such a blatant propagandist claim? China’s communist party? Nope. It was Jay Mathews, who was Washington Post’s Beijing Bureau Chief in 1989. He wrote this for Columbia Journalism Review.
Here are a few more examples of what western journalists once said about what happened in Tiananmen Square in June 1989:
CBS NEWS: “We saw no bodies, injured people, ambulances or medical personnel — in short, nothing to even suggest, let alone prove, that a “massacre” had occurred in [Tiananmen Square]” — thus wrote CBS News reporter Richard Roth. Tinanmen CBS
BBC NEWS: “I was one of the foreign journalists who witnessed the events that night. There was no massacre on Tiananmen Square” — BBC reporter, James Miles, wrote in 2009.
NY TIMES: In June 13, 1989, NY Times reporter Nicholas Kristof – who was in Beijing at that time – wrote, “State television has even shown film of students marching peacefully away from the [Tiananmen] square shortly after dawn as proof that they [protesters] were not slaughtered.” In that article, he also debunked an unidentified student protester who had claimed in a sensational article that Chinese soldiers with machine guns simply mowed down peaceful protesters in Tiananmen Square.
REUTERS: Graham Earnshaw was in the Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3. He didn’t leave the square until the morning of June 4th. He wrote in his memoir that the military came, negotiated with the students and made everyone (including himself) leave peacefully; and that nobody died in the square.
But did people die in China? Yes, about 200-300 people died in clashes in various parts of Beijing, around June 4 — and about half of those who died were soldiers and cops.
WIKILEAKS: A Wikileaks cable from the US Embassy in Beijing (sent in July 1989) also reveals the eyewitness accounts of a Latin American diplomat and his wife: “They were able to enter and leave the [Tiananmen] square several times and were not harassed by troops. Remaining with students … until the final withdrawal, the diplomat said there were no mass shootings in the square or the monument.”
if you liberals are so sure of your own understanding then surely you can read more on the subject:
https://worldaffairs.blog/2019/06/02/tiananmen-square-massacre-facts-fiction-and-propaganda/ cw: dead burned bodies of the chinese soldiers, but i’m sure you are into that
Imagine how much libs would celebrate the military in the US for showing the “restraint” to not run over or shoot a protestor. Let’s be real, if this was the modern day US that guy would be dead the second he touched the tank. (and even that is generous)
Actually yes, it’s very common in China to have people maybe mention or discuss the June 4th Incident, in China it’s simply called 六四事件. Everyone in China has seen this image, yet still more than 95% of Chinese in a Harvard Study were found to feel positively about the Beijing Government.
Additionally there is very little to no internet censorship in Hong Kong whatsoever due to the One China Two Systems policy. Beyond information of the June 4th incident genuinely being accessible in Mainland China, it’s in addition “extra accessible” in HK. Many even speak and read English in Hong Kong due to English colonization so they could look at your post if they wanted.
2 systems until they arrested the prodemocracy politicians that represented the majority of the people in Hong Kong.
Wow that’s crazy! I didn’t know they did away with the two systems policy, I must be crazy, because I went there and it was clearly different in numerous ways from the rest of China. Weird!
I also wonder how many people were killed by police during those demonstrations, I know many Americans were killed and gravely injured by their police forces now and during BLM.
Additionally, if HK was such a good democracy beforehand, why did the “pro democracy” camp only have 29 seats out of possible 70 if they represented the majority of people in Hong Kong? Maybe in the US if we had a party that did away with right wingers and made housing more affordable that would be a good thing, it seems to have been working pretty well for HKers since.
Wait this isn’t satire? This post was made with 100 percent sincerity? Lmao
