Regarded as one of history’s darkest moments, the Tiananmen Square massacre has forever
been etched into our consciousness for its sheer bloody violence.
It happened at a time when Communism in China was on shaky ground and many regular Chinese
people were fed up with the rampant corruption within the government as well as the absolute
suppression of their civil liberties.
Many of us remember the image of the massacre through one iconic photograph.
Known as “Tank Man”, this image summarized the entire event and how lopsided it was when
students and protesters ended up at the mercy of the military’s guns.
Underneath the story behind the image, however, was darker narration of how a nation silenced
thousands of voices protesting its oppression and wanting change.
In this video is a bit late because I wanted to publish this in early June during the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Unfortunately I did not finish it until recently,
but regardless, let's talk about it.
In this video, we are going to countdown the 10 most horrifying facts about the massacre at Tiananmen Square.
Number Ten: The People’s General Before the military were sent to the square
to suppress the protests, several high ranking PLA commanders were called by the Chinese
Communist Party to pledge their allegiance and support of the Party as well as pledge
their willingness to combat the situation with military force.
One military leader, Major General Xu Qinjian, refused the order believing that to use such
powerful force to butcher thousands of civilians is a deplorable act that the government cannot
do to its own people.
Several commanders felt the same way as Xu and begged the government to reconsider
their plans in a petition saying, “The people’s military belongs to the people and cannot
oppose those people.
Even less can it kill the people.”
Unfortunately, the call fell on deaf ears and a violent dispersal ensued later on.
To many, Xu Qinjian was seen as a hero for standing up for what he believes is right,
refusing to resort to violence.
Before he was arrested and court martialled, he told the press, “The People’s Army
has never in its history used to suppress people.
I’d rather be beheaded than be a criminal in the eyes of history.”
Risking his life as he spoke out against the Communist Party, he was sentenced to five
years in prison and was banned from entering Beijing.
Number Nine: Shots Fired The orders from the government to disperse
the protesters were vague; vague enough to dodge any kind of legal repercussions that
could later on boomerang back to the Chinese Communist Party.
One of these orders was the use of live rounds to clear the Square.
However, there were no clear and specific details regarding it.
The government could not give direct orders to shoot civilians, much more orders in writing.
The soldiers were left to decide from themselves.
But if their bullets just so happens to hit people, the Party promised these same soldiers that
there will be no legal consequences.
Despite this, however, many soldiers chose to aim their guns at the sky, firing warning
shots instead.
Unfortunately, not all soldiers shared the same sentiments as their comrades.
And by the time the protests reached fever pitch and people were starting to throw debris
at soldiers. The troops were now looking for
an excuse to kill because of rising tempers.
One soldier Wang Yongli said, “No one said to shoot,”
“but it was, like, ‘We’re going to teach them a lesson’.
And then these soldiers unleashed their fury.”
Number Eight: The Life and Death of a Goddess Effigies are not uncommon when protests and
demonstrations erupt.
Normally, effigies are massive, paper-mache caricatures of government personalities to
whom the protests are directed towards.
During the onset of the protests at Tiananmen Square, students and civilians erected what
they called the “Goddess of Democracy”.
Made mostly from polystyrene and plaster, this statue was created as a symbol for hope and a warning
to the oppressive Communist government that the people will not be silenced.
It was a 30-foot monument to celebrate the pro-democracy movement.
It was also supposed to embarrass the authorities should they decide to take it down but when
the tanks rolled in, the statue of the Goddess of Democracy was crushed and destroyed, sending
the pro-democracy movement an ominous message that would later on translate to hundreds
of violent arrests and thousands of deaths.
Number Seven: The Spark that Started the Flame The Tiananmen protests did not start overnight.
As a result of economic and political mismanagement, China was plummeted to economic chaos in 1988.
Inflation triggered panic buying in cities as well as the purge of reformists within
the Communist Party.
Public discontent swelled slowly and steadily until the purge and death of one of the Communist
Party’s top official, Hu Yaobang, who was advocating for reform in government, on April
15th, 1989 signalling the crescendo of a nationwide protest.
Demonstrations had spread to neighboring cities like Shanghai, China’s largest metropolis.
In the following days when the military were being mobilized, protesters have already set
up blockades around the city.
Soon enough, people were marching to Beijing, calling for reform as they occupied Tiananmen
Square by the thousands until it swelled up to the millions.
Crackdowns and arrests have begun as well as a sudden reshuffling of top positions within
the Chinese Communist Party.
Number Six: A Lifelong Censorship More than a quarter of a century after the
bloody events at Tiananmen, the Chinese government still employs a strict and absolutely extensive
censorship that, now, employs over two million censors online.
Information about the massacre is still being rigorously wiped from servers in the country.
Typing “Tiananmen Square” will yield to zero results as well as any keywords relating
to the event.
The government has even gone so far as blocking any number combinations that would yield to
any information on the dates when the protests erupted.
Basically to the Chinese government, the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989, never happened much
to the chagrin of the world’s largest online population.
Number Five: The Higher Road Months before the massacre at Tiananmen, the
first wave of violence began at Xinhua Gate.
Students from different universities from all over Beijing showed up to protest; about
10,000 of them staged a sit in at the gate, chanting “Long Live Democracy!” while
challenging Premier Li Peng to come out and meet them.
It was not long when police officers appeared to subdue them and create a barricade.
When students tried to break through the barricade, officers exercised a maximum level of tolerance,
keeping to strict orders not to harm any of the students but to keep them from breaking
through the barricade.
By dawn, however, the orders had changed and about 300 students were dragged and beaten
senseless when they resisted.
A month after the violence at Xinhua, students and protesters still took to the streets and
made their way to Tiananmen.
Thousands of people swarmed the streets when soldiers were called in by the government
to end the demonstrations.
However, due to the thick crowd, many of the troops were blocked off from each other and
were trapped in a sea of angry demonstrators.
But the protesters did not let the trapped soldiers suffer.
According to one soldier, protesters brought in food and escorted many of them to bathrooms
to make sure that they were not harmed and remained safe in the thick of it all.
It was this act of kindness that made the event even more unbearable to the world when
the same soldiers whom the protesters helped would weave their way through the city incognito
and carry out the Party’s orders to open fire on them.
Number Four: Violence at Chengdu The bloodbath did not just happen at Tiananmen
Square.
As the unrest swelled, protests broke out in different parts of the country and Chengdu
was among the regions that had the bloodiest uprising.
When word about what happened in Beijing reached Chengdu, thousands of protesters marched to
Tianfu Square calling it Little Tiananmen.
Armed with banners, they were met with police officers.
Chanting “We are not afraid to die”, protesters hurled rocks and debris at the officers who,
in turn, struck back with tear gas and batons.
It was chaos when a full on battle ensued.
Several protestors recounted seeing the
police tossing bodies in truck piling them on top of each other,
suffocating those underneath.
By the end of the Chengdu protest, about 1800 people were injured and eight were confirmed
dead.
What’s more disturbing was that among the thousands who participated in the protest,
hundreds of them have gone missing and many of their loved ones are demanding answers from the Chinese
government for their whereabouts to this very day.
Number Three: Media Shakedown Members of the international press were not
spared the violence of the event.
Admist the global outcry against Beijing, the Chinese Government decided to impose a
total news blackout that kept the entire world in the dark about what’s happening in the country.
The Communist Party was intent on not having a single image of the massacre leaked or published
that they ordered the Secret Police to crackdown on journalists trying to do their jobs.
Charlie Cole, the man who won accolades and a World Press Award for his photo of the “Tank
Man”, had to risk his life in order to get the word out to the entire world.
He was one of the many journalists who were beaten and intimidated by China’s Secret Police.
Threatening his life and beating him senseless, the Secret Police confiscated rolls and rolls
of film and Cole had to practically beg them to leave his camera.
When they left Cole’s hotel room, Cole climbed to the roof of his hotel and – with an unused
film he managed to hide – was able to take a photo of the now iconic image we associate
with the massacre.
Cole knew he had to get the photo out.
In order to avoid the film from being confiscated, Cole taped the roll inside his toilet tank
just before the Secret Police returned and beat him once again. This time taking away
his passport and forcing him to sign a confession that he had taken photographs illegally during
Martial Law.
They never found the film he hid and, when the coast was finally clear, he snuck out
of the country and rushed it to the office of the Associated Press.
The image was published and the world was given a clear view of what was happening in
Beijing.
Number Two: Martyrs of the Massacre On June 9, 1989, shortly after the dust of
the massacre has settled, Communist Party Chairman Deng Xiaoping made a public address
about the massacre.
Calling the military and the police who had died “defenders of the people”, he called
upon the crowd gathered around him to “stand and pay a silent tribute to the martyrs.”
Unfortunately, the thousands of protesters who have staged hunger strikes and marched
down the streets of Beijing to Tiananmen and lost their lives were discounted from the ceremony.
The civilians who were shot and killed by the army were, in Deng’s words, not “ordinary
people” and were declared by the Chairman as “the dregs of society”.
He also said, “We should not forget how cruel our enemies are.”
“For them, we should not have an iota of forgiveness.”
Basically, to the eyes of the Chinese government and its Communist Party, the soldiers and police
officers who shot protesters and ran them over with tanks were the heroes of the story.
Number One: Tank Man Cole’s photo was not the only one that made
the presses.
Several other journalists were able to get video clips of the event out into the world but the picture
that really said it all was the one defiant protester that we only know as Tank Man.
Staring down a column of 25 tanks, Tank Man dared them to run him over.
When tensions mounted, a number of people tried to pull him out of harm’s way.
But it was not long, though, when men in blue uniforms came and dragged Tank Man away.
Charlie Cole was a witness and described the men in blue as agents of the secret police.
He strongly believes that Tank Man was immediately hauled to prison and, without a shadow of
a doubt, mercilessly executed by government agents.
He said, “People were executed at that time for far less than what he did.”
No other statements were released from the side of the government except for a vague,
passing comment made by Jiang Zemin to a US reporter saying that he thinks that Tank Man
was never killed.
I still remember when this massacre happened because
I just moved to the U.S. with my family and
I remember I a kid, I was about 8 or 9 years- old.
And my parents and all their friend were all students at that time,
So when the protest occurred, they really relate to it because people at that time they wanted democracy in China.
They wanted free information. They wanted freedom of belief. Freedom of speech.
Everything that's guaranteed in the Chinese constitution but really is not allowed under the Communist Party.
And I remember after the massacre I was marching on the streets - uh - with my parents,
and I really didn't understand what was happening at that time.
What's really sad now is that, I feel like the propaganda instilled by the Communist Party - is working.
Because every year, less and less people really commemorate this horrific event.
And in many cases the young generation in China don't really even know about this event.
Because this isn't taught in classrooms...and like i mentioned you can't even search for this on the internet.
As much as I love China, and I do,
and as glamorous as it looks on the outside
It's still a country where you don't have freedom of speech, you don't have freedom of belief.
And the people there are under constant media censorship.
But hopefully, and I don't know how, but hopefully one day soon the Chinese people will be able to have the democracy they deserve.
And if you guys want more information about the Tiananmen Square Massacre,
you want more information about the Communist Party
I'll have that for you guys in the description box below.
Thank you all so much for watching this video. I'll see you later.