I did a deep-ish dive on primary and secondary evidence for the time. Still have it in a google doc that could turn out an article.
I think the tl;dr is that the popular narrative (especially in Australia, where I live) is that the CPC bulldozed 10,000 protesters at Tiananmen Square with tanks in 1989 because they were protesting against the communist party. Guts squishing out of treads. The narrative obviously paints Australia's largest export partner as hideously evil (and by association every socialist project. Whether or not you accept this, a lot of Australians do).
My own research (sorry, I hate this term, conspiracy theorists ruined it) has uncovered a few things that are publicly available that throw shade on this narrative:
Most of the journalists that were actually present (I focused on Australian ones, because that's where I live) agree that no massacre happened at the square that night. They claim to have been amongst the last to leave after the order to disperse.
The source for 10,000 comes from two places: A journalist at a nearby hospital who estimates that 10k people could have been rushed in as casualties. More significantly, the main source for the 10k figure was an intelligence asset at the Australian Embassy IIRC who said that an internal member of the CPC had told them the 10k figure. Notably, this happened quite early in the night. This was then repeated by the Prime Minister the next day (totally to the surprise of the intelligence asset and the embassy).
The source for tanks grinding up protesters bodies into paste come from one place, a person that the above journalists say was not present at Tiananmen Square and was in a position to flee the country a couple of hours later. Not impossible, but strains credibility. The source's claims later influenced people's memories of "Tank Man", a video of a person interacting with a column of tanks for a bit before leaving. Ballsy, for sure, but he was not being ground up into paste and neither did the tank crews seem willing to do that.
There were separate protests going on on the highway leading up to the Square. China is a big place with a lot of people, and at the time Deng was introducing market reforms. A significant number of protesters were in both events were protesting against the market reforms that Deng was introducing (allowing more free flow of Capital to the rest of China). The majority of the deaths (that did happen, I wouldn't claim otherwise) happened on this approach. For this reason, the most senior journalist of the Australian cohort at the time regrets calling it the Tiananman square massacre as he feels it gives the CPC ammunition to discredit everything about it. He's still alive, I have an email I need to send him, or go bother him in person next time I'm in Melbourne.
The massacre (the references to the event that did happen) was more like a roving street battle. The first casualties were Chinese soldiers, some of which were burned alive while chained to buses and APCs. There were also many protester casualties. The CPC claims a little under 300 fatalities of the entire event, including their own troops. I find this largely plausible, or at least that it's lower than the commonly believed 10k figure in my country by at least an order of magnitude.
The biggest promoters of the various claims are people closely associated with the NED's office in Beijing. I don't know what that means to you.
Anyway, after doing this "research" I kinda figured that most people in my social circles don't want to hear it, even though the information is very publicly available. So why bother bringing it up in normal conversation? The best you're doing is probably excluding yourself from any conversation.
I still have the names of the journos, parties etc. in question if you want, as well as various links. I am just a little drunk and haven't opened up the document.
I am approaching this in as good faith as possible.
I think this is misleading. The people who were encouraging violence were not leaders of the student movement. From what I understand there were a number of different groups with different goals in the square, but the majority were young people who wanted an end to market reforms that were causing strife and a return to a more communist economy. My understanding is that there were also a substantial number of people who were advocating for more relaxed, permissive social norms and who believed that the social conservativism around things like public affection, dating, casual relationships, dress, and music were not in keeping with communist values.
The group of CIA backed students who attempted to initiate a violent confrontation was very small, and from what I understand they basically bullied their way to the PA equipment and took it over. They were not popular and many people were confused by them, but apparently the students were unsure what to do with them. At any rate they had little if any influence and their attempt to start a color revolution failed miserably. Shortly after they tucked tail and fled to the USA as part of a CIA operation.
Some additions - The majority of PLA soldiers in the area were unarmed, and from what I understand relations between the students and the PLA were positive throughout. There are a lot of stories of them all singing songs together and sharing food. The vast majority of the PLA soldiers had no weapons at all, not even riot control gear or helmets. They were just there in their uniforms. When the students were finally told to leave they did so in good order. I think there may have been some use of riot batons, but if there was it was very minor and the vast, vast majority of the students left peacefully.
The fighting was apparently between relatively small numbers of insurgents and PLA soldiers. As the PLA in the area were initially unarmed the first deaths were PLA soldiers who were ambushed in their trucks and APCs by insurgents with molotovs and burned alive. It took a while for armed PLA units to arrive and engage the insurgents. The ~300 deaths number is agreed on by the Chinese government as well as a number of western observers and researchers.
I did a deep-ish dive on primary and secondary evidence for the time. Still have it in a google doc that could turn out an article.
I think the tl;dr is that the popular narrative (especially in Australia, where I live) is that the CPC bulldozed 10,000 protesters at Tiananmen Square with tanks in 1989 because they were protesting against the communist party. Guts squishing out of treads. The narrative obviously paints Australia's largest export partner as hideously evil (and by association every socialist project. Whether or not you accept this, a lot of Australians do).
My own research (sorry, I hate this term, conspiracy theorists ruined it) has uncovered a few things that are publicly available that throw shade on this narrative:
Anyway, after doing this "research" I kinda figured that most people in my social circles don't want to hear it, even though the information is very publicly available. So why bother bringing it up in normal conversation? The best you're doing is probably excluding yourself from any conversation.
I still have the names of the journos, parties etc. in question if you want, as well as various links. I am just a little drunk and haven't opened up the document.
I am approaching this in as good faith as possible.
thank you. you should share the document here because sources are important.
I'll share the bits when I get home tonight. Being drunk and fat tonight
Also worth mentioning, the leaders of the student protests fled China and many work on Wall St now.
I think this is misleading. The people who were encouraging violence were not leaders of the student movement. From what I understand there were a number of different groups with different goals in the square, but the majority were young people who wanted an end to market reforms that were causing strife and a return to a more communist economy. My understanding is that there were also a substantial number of people who were advocating for more relaxed, permissive social norms and who believed that the social conservativism around things like public affection, dating, casual relationships, dress, and music were not in keeping with communist values.
The group of CIA backed students who attempted to initiate a violent confrontation was very small, and from what I understand they basically bullied their way to the PA equipment and took it over. They were not popular and many people were confused by them, but apparently the students were unsure what to do with them. At any rate they had little if any influence and their attempt to start a color revolution failed miserably. Shortly after they tucked tail and fled to the USA as part of a CIA operation.
Thanks for the context. I'm going off who Western journalists deemed the "leaders" but it would only make sense that they'd give them undue spotlight.
Some additions - The majority of PLA soldiers in the area were unarmed, and from what I understand relations between the students and the PLA were positive throughout. There are a lot of stories of them all singing songs together and sharing food. The vast majority of the PLA soldiers had no weapons at all, not even riot control gear or helmets. They were just there in their uniforms. When the students were finally told to leave they did so in good order. I think there may have been some use of riot batons, but if there was it was very minor and the vast, vast majority of the students left peacefully.
The fighting was apparently between relatively small numbers of insurgents and PLA soldiers. As the PLA in the area were initially unarmed the first deaths were PLA soldiers who were ambushed in their trucks and APCs by insurgents with molotovs and burned alive. It took a while for armed PLA units to arrive and engage the insurgents. The ~300 deaths number is agreed on by the Chinese government as well as a number of western observers and researchers.