All of these seemingly ordinary images
have something in common.
They were all taken down by Chinese internet censors
for alluding to the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Meanwhile, just across the Taiwan Strait,
an inflatable version of ‘Tank Man’ appeared in the
middle of Taiwan’s Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
on May 21, just weeks before the 30th anniversary of
the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Three decades ago, this anonymous man stood in front
of a convoy of tanks just one night after thousands of
protestors had been killed in one of modern China’s
most violent military crackdowns.
Tank Man has become a symbol of defiance and
peaceful protest around the world...except in China.
To understand why China chooses to wipe out such a
significant part of its history we need to dive into
what caused the protests in the first place.
You’re watching Explore Mode and today
we are diving into the Tiananmen Square protests.
First, let’s get acquainted with these two guys.
Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.
Mao is widely known for founding the
Chinese Communist Party,
writing the infamous Little Red Book,
the Cultural Revolution...the list goes on.
What’s relevant to this story though was his plan for
economic reform which was meant to help China
surpass its Western competitors in the late 50s.
The plan was known as The Great Leap Forward.
It was supposed to catapult China from a mainly
agrarian country to an industrialized powerhouse
in a span of five years by separating its population into
communes where citizens would focus on achieving
certain economic targets —
Sounds good right? Except it wasn’t.
The leap was anything but great.
Not if you’re not a fan of catastrophic levels of
environmental damage, famine, family separation,
and death anyway.
Policies for the Great Leap lasted roughly 3 years
but the effects were disastrous.
Mao’s strategies failed greatly.
Roughly 45 million people died as a result of famine and
execution punishments if they failed to achieve goals.
Mao then tried to fix this huge nono by starting the
Cultural Revolution…
but that’s a whole other thing.
Let’s flash forward to China under Deng Xiaoping.
Deng took over after Mao's death in the late seventies.
His views on economic policies were much more
pragmatic and it was during his rule that China opened
to foreign markets.
Poverty levels plummeted,
China’s GDP rose exponentially
and diplomatic relations improved.
I mean look at him here in a visit in the U.S.
wearing a silly cowboy hat,
oh Deng you goofball.
Things were going well. Hooray, right?
Well, hooray for a while.
In the late eighties prices in China soared.
Inflation went from 7.3 percent in 1987 to
20 percent in a single year.
On top of that, an economic reform called the dual-track
system benefited those in higher economic and
political positions leading to resentment from
the general population.
So, corruption + inflation + economic disparity…
sounds like the perfect recipe for civil unrest.
Which leads us to another guy.
Well, the death of this guy, unfortunately.
Hu Yaobang.
Hu was once a close advisor to Deng and was liked
among students for his reformist views
but he was forced to resign after being too lenient
when dealing with student protests in ‘86 and ‘87.
Because how dare he appeal to the youth of China?
In late April 1989, Hu dies of a heart attack.
His passing was the perfect excuse for students to
both commemorate the leader as well as air out
their discontent with the party.
The protests quickly expanded as the students were
joined by workers, public officials, professors and
intellectuals, all of whom were calling for
economic reform and an end to authoritarianism.
As the protests grew in number,
Chinese authorities retaliated by publishing an
editorial accusing demonstrators of being anti-party
and anti-socialist.
Unfortunately for them,
the letter actually helped students garner
even more support.
This is where things start to take a turn for the worse.
The Chinese government was expecting a visit from then
reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in mid-May.
At the same time, protestors had gone on a hunger
strike and demonstrations were expanding to
other cities in the country.
When Gorbachev arrived in Beijing,
China’s Great Hall of the People,
where foreign politicians are usually welcome was,
well, filled with people, hungry people.
International media captured the whole shebang,
leaving China rightfully embarrassed.
Days after, authorities declared martial law
and on June 4th Chinese military violently took over
Tiananmen square armed with tanks and weapons,
they opened fire against the unarmed students and
ran over demonstrators with their tanks.
Cause there’s nothing more dangerous than
defenseless, bike-riding, sign-wielding youth, amirite?
China has never revealed an official death toll
but estimates place it in the high thousands.
30 years have passed since but China’s efforts to
erase all evidence from this day have increased.
According to Reuters, Chinese internet censorship
companies are now using AI,
machine learning as well as voice and image recognition
to erase all evidence on the web more accurately.
Posts that include related dates, names, and images are
all automatically censored.
And by this we mean any type of photo that could even
be slightly suggestive of the incident.
Researchers at the University of Hong Kong collected
and compiled photos that had been posted and
taken down between June 1st and June 4th of each year
between 2012 and 2018.
These include the ones you saw at the beginning
of the video.
The numbers 4, 89, 46, 82 and any numerical
combination in reference to the date of the massacre
were also subject to censorship.
The list goes on and will likely continue to get longer
in the years to come.
Their influence goes beyond borders.
This year, Twitter blocked a number of Chinese dissident
accounts just days before Tiananmen’s anniversary.
According to the New York Times, the accounts that
were taken down were from human rights lawyers,
activists, nationalists, and college students.
Twitter claims that they didn’t erase the accounts
because of pressure from China,
but that it was all a mistake.
They were actually looking to block CCP bots and
instead took down anti-CCP accounts.
The company has since apologized
but their actions say a lot about
the power of Chinese influence.
Now Tiananmen is remembered in a small museum
in Hong Kong called the June 4th Museum,
where items that once belonged to victims of the
massacre are displayed in their honor.
This year, around 180 thousand people
gathered in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park in a candlelit vigil
to commemorate the victims of the massacre.
Footage of the incident was transmitted on a
large screen as demonstrators chanted out
the date of the tragic event.
The 30th anniversary vigil was the largest the city
had ever seen,
possibly because its people fear it may be the last
chance they will have to openly memorialize this date,
as Beijing continues to slowly tighten its grip
around the autonomous region’s democracy.
Unfortunately, their fears are substantiated.
Under Beijing’s influence, Hong Kong is pushing forward
amendments to extradition legislation which would
allow local authorities to send individuals arrested in
Hong Kong to face trial in China and territories
it doesn’t have formal extradition deals with
which include Macau and Taiwan.
Local government claims the extradition bill will prevent
the country from being a safe haven for criminals.
But the truth is, the new bill would completely
de-stabilize the “one country, two systems” structure
that has kept Hong Kong as a safe haven, true,
but for those brave enough to speak against the CCP.
Thousands of Hong Kongers have taken to the streets
to protest against the bill in the territory’s
largest demonstration since the 1997 handover to China.
Sadly, their pleas are falling on deaf ears.
A day after the protests, Hong Kong Chief Executive,
Carrie Lam announced the law was not going to be
withdrawn telling reporters,
“we are duty-bound to address that deficiency.”
referring to a legal loophole the bill is supposed to fix,
adding, “We are doing this out of our clear
consciousness and commitment to Hong Kong.”
On the other hand , Human rights groups like
Amnesty International have voiced their concern
over the bill.
Man-Kei Tam, Director of Amnesty International
Hong Kong, said,
“If enacted, this law would extend the ability of
the Mainland authorities to target critics,
human rights activists, journalists, NGO workers and
anyone else in Hong Kong,
much in the same way they do at home.”
Thank you for watching Explore Mode.
If you want to read more about Tiananmen,
links to all our sources are in the description box below.
Make sure to hit the subscribe button and the
notification bell to stay tuned for our next video,
where we will explore China’s nationwide efforts
to monitor their population
But most importantly,
remember to leave your explore mode on.