In 1989, blowback was swift; alienation today is ‘systematic, progressive, long-term.’

China’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy activists sparked a seminal crisis in Beijing’s relationship with the West. On the massacre’s 35th anniversary, China’s leaders face familiar international blowback over their conduct.

Instead of gunfire, today’s sources of discomfort about China are a mix of its aggressive industrial policy and militarization toward neighbors, plus a national-security agenda from Chinese leader Xi Jinping that has curtailed personal freedoms at home and shaped affairs abroad.

  • Tryptaminev@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    Obligatory reminder that the Tiananmen protests were against capitalist reforms that were crucial in shaping todays China and were very much welcomed by the Western countries.

    It is adding insult to the injury, that the western narrative keeps eluding this aspect to make it seem like the protestors died for the opposite of what they actually protested for.

      • Tryptaminev@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre

        The protests were precipitated by the death of pro-reform Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Hu Yaobang in April 1989 amid the backdrop of rapid economic development and social change in post-Mao China, reflecting anxieties among the people and political elite about the country’s future. The reforms of the 1980s had led to a nascent market economy that benefited some people but seriously disadvantaged others, and the one-party political system also faced a challenge to its legitimacy. Common grievances at the time included inflation, corruption, limited preparedness of graduates for the new economy, and restrictions on political participation. Although they were highly disorganized and their goals varied, the students called for things like rollback of the removal of “iron rice bowl” jobs, greater accountability, constitutional due process, democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech. Workers’ protests were generally focused on inflation and the erosion of welfare. These groups united around anti-corruption demands, adjusting economic policies, and protecting social security. At the height of the protests, about one million people assembled in the square.

        China was already state capitalist by then and people protested that.

        • DMBFFF@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          1 month ago

          I just pulled this out from WP:

          wp:Red August

          (my bold)

          Red August (simplified Chinese: 红八月; traditional Chinese: 紅八月; pinyin: Hóng Bāyuè) is a term used to indicate a period of political violence and massacres in Beijing beginning in August 1966, during the Cultural Revolution.[1][2][3] According to official statistics published in 1980 after the end of the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards in Beijing killed a total of 1,772 people during Red August, while 33,695 homes were ransacked and 85,196 families were forcibly displaced.[1][4][5] However, according to official statistics published in November 1985, the number of deaths in Beijing during Red August was 10,275.[5][6][7]

          This was back in Mao’s time.

          It seems that Communism killed those Chinese people.

          • Tryptaminev@lemm.eeEnglish
            0·
            1 month ago

            What kind of abstruse logic is this? Next thing you are going to say the people murdered in Gaza today are the victims of Christian crusaders.

            The victims under Mao were victims of communism. But it wasn’t Mao that committed the Tiananmen massacre. It was a state capitalist regime that was supported by the West.

            Why are you trying to spread disinformation about historical events?

            • DMBFFF@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              1 month ago

              Presumably,

              Mao self-identified as a Communist (or something like it) and is today defended by such.

              Deng self-identified as a Communist (or something like it) and is today defended by such (at least by many Chinese).

              Palestinians, Gazans, and Jews were victims of the Crusaders.

              • Tryptaminev@lemm.eeEnglish
                01·
                1 month ago

                And the Nazis called themselves national socialists. Doesn’t mean their economic policies had anything to do with socialism (quite to the contrary).

                Advertisment labels are not what to judge these things on, but concrete policies. And those were state capitalist in China and the reason for the protests and massacre. And they continue to this day.