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.
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.
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.