Originally Posted by FlyingFrog

I hope, since I read from your words the "arrogance" (you may not notice that) and "ignorance" (no offence, just pointing out you don't really know other countries).

Hey, IMHO, perhaps the ideal way to govern a people is to be able to have substantial control of information. I'm not saying that State Controlled Media is always a bad thing. It offends that "freedom of speech" loving side of my American phyche to contemplate, but as I consider it I can see the advantages of State Controlled Media.

The point I'm trying to make is that denying any wrongdoing (or lack thereof) in the whole Tianamen Square fiasco seems to be done based solely upon State-run Chinese Media. What body exists to guarantee that media does not clean up any embarassing parts and write a rosey picture for everyone?? If the Chinese Media is accountable to somebody else for the verification of facts, I appologize. Please educate me sir. I'd like to know who they are accountable to?? Who makes sure they have their facts straight??

Dear godofthunder9010, I repeat I really respect your views, but sometimes not all of views are correct, since even God makes mistakes.

I have 2 points to say about this 6.4 tragedy:

1. Students first besieged the Tiananmen square for more than one month, even the ceremony for Gorby from USSR was cancelled (changed location) because of this. During the whole 6 weeks, PLA army didn't harm any students. But later because of a traffic incident involved a army jeep, students started to attack army and burnt dead 3 soldiers, then it became a RIOT, hence PLA was forced to take control.

2. Chinese government published: 350 people dead, later the students confirmed the number too, since all universtities know how many students from their school died.
But western media LIKES to make the number sky high, like thousands, AND crashed by tanks. I really HATE propaganda in the west media. Don't treat me brainwashed, I studied in China and studied in Europe and work and live here for long time, I really got pissed off when seeing ppl talk lies again and again (not referring to you).

I hope you can understand where I'm coming from. I prefer to grant most people or situations the benefit of the doubt, but I'm always going to scrutinize things. Its not specific to China nor any other nation. I think you may have noticed that I don't like the 100% USA-centered perspective of history and world politics that I grew up with. Its a perspective that never leads to anything good.

The Tianamen Square incident created quite the dilema for the PRC. There they were trying to brush up their image and prove to the world that they were becoming more free -- yet they HAD to retain the image of being in control of things too. That creates a tough balancing act and the protestors at Tianamen Square HAD to be removed one way or another. I don't think anybody doubts that. I don't think anybody is going to argue that China had almost no chance at all coming out of that mess without looking bad. The blinds were pulled and then SOMETHING happened. What happened? Well, I have absolutely no certain idea actually.

Survivors of the incident that managed to escape to other nations, say events transpired in a certain way. The PRC's story is very different. It is survivors of Tianamen Square that made it out of China and into other nations that claim the deaths of protestors were well into the thousands. They claim that the PLA struck first. Obviously, they are a biased source of information. So too is the PRC's official account potentially biased. So we have the distict possibility of both sides lying a little to make their side look rosier, and no way to tell for certain one way or the other. Even "official numbers" provided by Universities can be tampered with.

Can you see why I'm sceptical?? Does that make sense or do I sound prejudice. It is always my goal to not be biased and to stop myself when I am being such.

It is survivors of Tianamen Square that made it out of China and into other nations that claim the deaths of protestors were well into the thousands.

They need to get political refugee status, therefore they HAVE to make it BIG, more terrible stories more chance to get Credit from USA government since USA likes to hear those "big" stories, and more chance to get the "refugee" status. Am I right?

The USA's media seems to love making China look bad because of an endless list of reasons -- most of them being flat-out racist IMHO. That doesn't prove that the Chinese Media has not done any creative modification to official stories though. At the very least, we learn that we take US Media with a very large grain of salt -- just like any other media source.

The reason that Tianamen Square is so relevant to this topic is pretty simple -- if Taiwan is taken over by the PRC, it provides one incident to base predictions of the fate of Taiwan upon. If the PLA invades Taiwan tomorrow, I think we can guarantee that there are going to be protests.

My question would be why would these kids lie? Do you not have faith in your fellow Chinese to tell the truth? I've seen one of these college kids getting interviewed and he was in a wheelchair with no legs.

Frog has a decent case for them 'fudging' on the details. The best evidence would be if several dozen escaped protesters that had never, ever met or talked to each other all managed to give almost identical accounts. Anybody know if there has ever been anything like that??

in my school library there is actually a western-collection of pictures from 64 that is actually not-biased, it was created by a group who wanted the truth:

in the pictures, there is, yes, the picture of the soldier's burnt body on a pike, as well, there was 3 pictures of men, not young students, holding up the bloody helmets of soliders who were killed.

IN a series of pictures, the PLA was showered with rocks and aparently moltov cocktails ( a picture somehow never shown in the news duing that year)

also ina series of pictures, actual students, i mean young, thin with glasses students giving out flowers to the guards of the tianenmen,

anothe rpictures shows hongkong provotists and anti-chyinese people handing out water , tents and supplies as to supply an army.

Look, even in the midst of revolutions, there were many times when revolunionaries have different ideas. for example, in the french rev, many people wanted to take over the government and make the country a safe place to live, while the radicals killed thosuands with gullitains and sorts.

exactly in tianenmen, mostly students, though many unknown people, some are radicals who went up aginst the pla, some were afraid, soem just wanted democracy., china actually could've had democracy , but the radicals just ruined it and the government saw teh whole thing as a mistake, thereby giving up some reforms and reactiviting them later in time.

Truly was a lose/lose situation. The question is, how will China react if they are confronted with another situation similar to Tianamen Square in Taiwan after taking over? Your dealing with a people that is accustomed to more freedom than China currently has to offer, so you can expect them to be quite unhappy with Chinese control. Also, there's is that very large chunk of Taiwan that wants TI. They aren't going to stop wishing for it just because the PLA is occupying the island. On top of all that, the individual standard of living for Taiwanese is very very unlikely to improve with the PLA occupying. So a person living if a person from Taiwan isn't any better off, and is less free that he/she was, they're not going to be happy.

So how does China react when it happens? If it turns out anything like Tianamen Square, the Taiwan is better off just being left to itself and China is better off without them. ** I've yet to hear a scenario that doesn't involve the mass slaughter of Taiwanese. **

Originally Posted by godofthunder9010

Your dealing with a people that is accustomed to more freedom than China currently has to offer, so you can expect them to be quite unhappy with Chinese control.

Who told u or how do u kown that?