Date of 4 June remains one of China’s strictest taboos, with government using increasingly sophisticated tools to censor its discussion
There is no official death toll but activists believe hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed by China’s People’s Liberation Army in the streets around Tiananmen Square, Beijing’s central plaza, on 4 June 1989.
The date of 4 June remains one of China’s strictest taboos, and the Chinese government employs extensive and increasingly sophisticated resources to censor any discussion or acknowledgment of it inside China. Internet censors scrub even the most obscure references to the date from online spaces, and activists in China are often put under increased surveillance or sent on enforced “holidays” away from Beijing.
New research from human rights workers has found that the sensitive date also sees heightened transnational repression of Chinese government critics overseas by the government and its proxies.
This is just my personal experience:
~I was talking to a few young Chinese. They were after born after the massacre happened.~
“Why are Hong Kong people are so full of themselves and rebellious? They think they are better? (Derogatory comments…”, cheating among themselves, happily.
I couldn’t help and interrupted, “Some young promising Hong Kong students were murdered, beaten and kidnapped under the mainland China. You can’t blame them for not being defensive.”
Immediately they resorted to their memorised response, “Do you have any resources to back up what you said? The official death count was zero.”
Of course there was no “official” news resources. China suppresses the news media.
"It is the same as Tiananmen massacre. You won’t find any “official resources " but everyone knows people were killed.”
Another one retorted, “The official number is zero. What official resources you have to backup your claim?”
It was useless to talk anymore at that moment. I left. My encounter probably would be on their “report.”
Love the propaganda around this. Its very dramatic and all. But here in the west its held up as some big thing. The rest of the video never gets played.
You should(n’t) see the gruesome pictures. China is likely very happy that the tank man picture became famous when there were LOADS of other horrible images .
Especially this video where the ‘students’ hijacked a tank and fired it.
That video is really low res. Do you have any sources that prove that the moving object is a tank and that the people are students?
But honestly it doesn’t really matter because running over people because they are protesting a dictatorship is fucking gruesome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre
Demonstrators attacked troops with poles, rocks, and molotov cocktails; Jeff Widener reported witnessing rioters setting fire to military vehicles and beating the soldiers inside them to death.[178] On one avenue in western Beijing, anti-government protestors torched a military convoy of more than 100 trucks and armored vehicles.[179] They also hijacked an armored personnel carrier, taking it on a joy ride. These scenes were captured on camera and broadcast by Chinese state television.[180]
Good old peaceful demonstration strikes again. Luckily those students were not doing anything violent such as holding up a Palestine flag. Then the US media would tell us how violence against them is fully justified
Has anyone claimed that the protests were entirely peaceful? Of course some turn violent when you roll in with your army and riot police gun blazing.
And thanks for confirming that it wasn’t a tank.
There really are no excuses for the killing of dozens if not hundreds of civilians and protestors.
And the protests were entirely peaceful to begin with but of course China couldn’t let that continue.
The censorship of the event also speaks a great deal about who’s fault it is.
The protesters on the square did not get shot. The Western media confirms nobody of the peaceful protesters on the square got killed.
Violent rioters who stoned and burnt police did get killed. On day4. There weer already multiple police killed on day3. Even Western media acknowledges all of what I am saying happened.
The censorship of the event also speaks a great deal about who’s fault it is.
The amazing amount of misinformation being spread here says a lot more about how insane the Western brainwashing machine is.
Which western media?
Meanwhile Oklahoma telling kids the 2020 election was rigged under state law.
Tankies and whataboutism, name a more iconic duo (pro tip: you can’t)
You say whataboutism, I say hypocrisy.
Whataboutism is literally the appeal to hypocrisy fallacy. It’s a fallacy because the appeal is done in place of a proper argument that addresses the original issue. The very purpose of this fallacy is to distract from the original issue and to dismiss criticism without ever addressing it by bringing up something irrelevant to the topic at hand and accusing others of hypocrisy.
The point isn’t to distract, it’s to provide context so the accuser can’t create an inaccurate framing. The atomic unit of propaganda isn’t lies, it’s emphesis.
If every week, a right-wing German posted about how many gays Britain murdered, imprisoned, or castrated during the 40s, it would be borderline deceitful for other lemmy users not to provide the full context of what Germany was doing to gays at that time (and what West Germany continued to do until the 1970s).
Same deal when we get the occasional zionist talking about the plight of gay Palestinians. Yes, they have their own struggle, but there is a very specific and obvious purpose behind a zionist bringing it up.
You’re being dishonest. You didn’t provide any context or made any remark regarding framing or context. In fact, you made no argument at all. You just brought up an entirely irrelevant subject for the sole purpose to distract from the original issues and dismiss the criticism being brought up by appealing to hypocrisy. It’s literally the textbook definition of the fallacy.
Same deal when we get the occasional zionist talking about the plight of gay Palestinians.
This is a good example, you’re exactly like them in this case.
The subject is “whataboutism”, or when people bring up similar, but far worse things done by liberal institutions in response to supporters of liberal institutions accusing communists of doing bad things to show that the supporter of the liberal institution doesn’t actually give a shit about the event they’re crying about and is simply using it as a pretext to justify hostility against that communist state, victims included.
That’s a wild assumption you just made up based on literally nothing. But the fact that you need to make up such assumptions is ironic, because it shows that yourself are a hypocrite. You support these atrocities and the regimes who committed them and so you perceive people calling out these acts as unjustified “hostility” rather warranted criticism. Since you’re admitting that you don’t actually care about the atrocities being committed, that means the only purpose you would bring up anything to do with “liberal institutions” is to be fallacious, which is exactly the case here.
The entire purpose of bringing up entirely irrelevant subjects is to distract from the original issue and dismiss criticism. There’s no context, there’s no argument, there’s no point. You’re simply mad that the regime you support is being criticized and as a desperate attempt to divert attention away from the criticism, you bring up irrelevant topics and accuse people of being hypocrites for their criticism of the original topic… even that doesn’t negate the validity of their criticism whatsoever.
When people call you out on your fallacious argumentation, they’re telling that the logic you’re using is inconsistent. If you’re actually ignorant enough to not understand what the fallacies are or why they’re bad then that’s a different issue, but if you’re aware what they are and why they’re bad and still choose to be annoyed then that means you’re disingenuous. It means you’re arguing in bad faith from the get go, which is an indication that the beliefs you are trying to defend are flawed to the point where you can’t defend them on their own merits.
As an American I think it’s helpful to put this into some sort of perspective.
Things the US won’t forget:
- Tiananmen Square (thousands dead)
Things the US will forget:
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Korean War (3mil civilian dead)
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Vietnam War (2mil civilian dead)
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Iraqi War (1mil civilian dead)
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Violent overthrow of East Timor (widely considered a genocide)
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Violent overthrow of Afghanistan (twice, over 1 mil dead)
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Violent overthrow of Nicaragua
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Violent overthrow of Grenada
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Violent overthrow of Panama
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Violent overthrow of Libya
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Coup d’etat of Guatemala
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Coup d’etat of Iran
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Failed Coup d’etat of Syria
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Failed Coup d’etat of Indonesia
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Many failed Coup d’etat attempts on Cuba
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Coup d’etat of Congo
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Coup d’etat of Laos
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Coup d’etat of the Dominican Republic
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Coup d’etat of Iraq
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Coup d’etat of Brazil
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Successful Coup d’etat of Indonesia (1 mil dead)
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Coup d’etat of Chile
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Multiple Coup d’etat of Bolivia
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Coup d’etat of Haiti
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Multiple Coup d’etat attempts on Venezuela
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Coup d’etat of Palestine
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Mass civilian casualties, destabilization of many governments, people subject to a lifetime of torture without a trial, all under the War on Terror
This list could be so much longer, but I gotta get to work.
Add to the list the US support of the Israeli war crimes currently going on in Gaza. Just yesterday they vetoed a ceasefire and delivery of aid proposition in the UN.
This makes perfect sense, it’s one thing for Taiwanese and Chinese people to remember it but its absolute hypocrisy for the west to comment. Especially as they fund the genocide in Gaza and Western Liberals make excuses for it.
No, it doesn’t. Only people who are full shit use and defend this fallacy. People who have principles call out shitty behaviors and actions whenever they see them, that’s because principles are universal. If you selectively choose when to apply them, then you don’t believe in them.
If you acturally call out genocide and shitty practices wherever you see it than its being principled. If you only call it out when a “bad” country does its hypocrisy, and tbh I have seen people do the later far more often while claiming the former.
Tell me, when Western Europe plunders the global south to subsidize their social programs do you complain? Or when the Zionist Occupation slowly takes more land away from the natives? What about the western funded dictators committing genocide across the third world and selling their nations for scraps?
Do you acturally call for freedom, an end to the exploitation, or do you demand a compromise? Do you demand native Palestinians give up half their land to the occupation? Africans half their resources to Europeans? And dictators to kill half as many minorities?
When somebody supports said “bad” countries, they’ll view any instance of these countries being called out for any shitty actions as hypocrisy. What this actually shows is that these people are in fact hypocrites themselves. If they were principled, then they would’ve acknowledged the shitty actions of whatever country is pointed out and moved on. Instead, they go on they go on the brainless rants that are filled with fallacies to distract from the original issue and dismiss criticism, misinformation, and endless crying about how the country being called out is a victim for the atrocity they committed. These rants don’t change the reality of the issue being raised originally.
This entire post is about western governments who are currently engaging in genocide calling out an event in China that if you look at the proper context is bad but not an atrocity
No the post is about the Chinese massacre.
By all mean call out genocide but it’s not relevant in post.
Don’t try to dismiss criticism of one massacre and its continuous censorship by bringing up another massacre.
It’d be a bit like if China and it’s entire sphere once a year went crazy commemorating the Kent State or Haymarket Massacre. They wouldn’t be wrong to say these are bad things, but it’d clearly be in service of some ulterior motive.
Honestly, even with an ulterior motive, I see no reason they shouldn’t.
The thing is, only the US and West do this shit of constantly complaining about other countries and celebrating their historical tragedies every year. And it’s not a coincidence that they’re also the countries to invade and constantly engage in imperialism all around the world the most, and have the capacity to, with hundreds of military bases around the world.
It’s such obvious propaganda against foreign enemies, especially ones we want to fight. You think it would make it super obvious how propagandized Americans are, but they don’t see the hypocrisy at all because of that very propaganda.
What would be the point in China bringing up the Haymarket massacre or Kent state every year? And for that matter, what’s the point in the US bringing up the Tiannamen Square every year?
Glass houses indeed.
The US brings up its own horrible events all the time.
I learned about The Trail of Tears, the era of segregation, and of the KKK in my history class in America. We make conscious efforts to be aware of and criticize our own faults - as well as those of other nations.
There is currently LOTS of criticism of the US government for its participation in the massacre in Palestine. Claiming otherwise is lying. China is relatively unique in that it has committed atrocities, and refuses to allow anyone in its own country to acknowledge them. Both countries have done bad things. One country recognizes those facts and attempts to learn from them.
The US is not allowing criticism of Palestine. Not sure if you’ve seen the stuff happening in college campuses, job applications, the DNC where they didn’t allow a speaker, even local elections where foreign policy shouldn’t matter, etc. And it’s only going to get worse according to the 2025 plan, where it details additional attempts to shut it down. It’s also been downplaying other stuff in schools, such as the negative parts of slavery, Jim Crow, basically everything bad the US has ever done. The problem with our education system is that it depends a lot on which state, city, and even school you are from (private or public, charter or not, etc.).
The whole conflict about critical race theory and the Moms for Liberty stuff is all about them trying to roll these things back.
I agree their censorship is too high in China, though, but I think it’s a result of siege theory. Essentially they’ve seen the US do a million coup attempts and color revolutions in other countries, often successful, and so you if you’re a third world country you basically need a tight control of your press and elections if you want to resist US control. And I doubt seeing us fall to propaganda in the US from billionaire backed media organizations and foreign countries is going to encourage them to not censor though. Unfortunately, if anything, it will do the opposite.
Things the US will forget:
Korean War (3mil civilian dead)
Vietnam War (2mil civilian dead)
Iraqi War (1mil civilian dead)
Imagine thinking that the US has forgotten any of these when they’re a constantly pressure on the cultural zeitgeist even literal decades later. Or, for that matter, that the Korean War is in any way comparable.
Violent overthrow of Afghanistan (twice, over 1 mil dead)
Twice? Christ, tell me you aren’t talking about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Not to mention that the ‘overthrow’ of ‘Afghanistan’ the second time would rely on recognizing the Taliban, and not the democratically-oriented Northern Alliance which was fighting them at the time, as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
You could pick so many more things to criticize China for especially from its past, verifiable events, yet the west always picks Tiananmen Square, making sure to pick the image of the guy standing in front of the tank, but somehow always forgets to show the video of the guy climbing on top of the tank, asking soldiers to turn around to where the protesters are, and somehow forget mentioning that literally half the casualties were soldiers that were set ablaze. Even diplomatic cables at the time either leaked or declassified prove that.
The Tiananmen square massacre is a verified event. We literally have videos and pictures documenting the entire massacre. How much of an idiot do you have to be to believe low level Chinese propaganda about this being fake or a good thing?
So where are said videos of the massacre happening
I’ve seen images and footage put out by journalists. I’m just not bothered to re-locate them for the sake of a tankie.
Because they don’t exist. China is winning and you’re just a sore loser
Not contesting there was a violent crackdown, but didn’t the video for this moment end with the tank just stopping the entire time, the briefcase guy climbing onto the tank, then getting shuffled away by fellow civilians?
Everyday we see way worse shit happening on the streets of the US. Somehow the crackdown back then on anti-communist academics is an enshrined moment, but people on our streets getting arrested, detained, or killed is just business as usual.
And we also act like our country doesn’t call academics “indoctrinated”, beat the living crap out of both students and academics, and doesn’t want to kill them. Amazing.
No. The US is not currently outright massacring citizens.
Could it happen? Sure. Is it happening? No.
You’re actually delusional if you think anything like the Tiananmen square massacre is happening in the US today.
Its far worse, seppoland has actual concentration camps at the border and
secretplainclothes police disappearing people into torture prisons in foreign countries. Also funding, arming and running political cover for a genocide. Why just today it vetoed a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. And thats just whats currently going on off the top of my head.If we look at US history however we can find stuff like throwing a bomb on their own civilians and just one genocide after another.
Boy tankies will literally anything out of their ass to justify their false narratives.
No, the reality is that you cannot come up with any examples like this massacre so you’re trying to cope with any random thing you slap on. Come back to me when you have an example of the federal government giving direct orders to massacre anything that moves during a massive civilian protest (pro tip: you can’t).
Trying to argue that the US today is worse than China today or even back then, is the definition of arguing in bad faith. Just about every index and measurement shows that China is way more authoritarian, and to the CCP human rights isn’t even a subject of debate, it’s more like a loose guideline that should be applied selectively.
If you really want to get into history, then literally nothing in history matches the insane death toll of communist China. Mao is literally history’s biggest killer by a big margin, and his reign has resulted in the worst man made disasters ever. From illegally occupying to Tibet to putting the Uyghurs in “reeducation camps” to stealing islands in the South China sea from the Philippines to massacring civilians peacefully protesting to literal demicides to the worst man made famine in history, and so much more. Your ignorance on the history of China is expected, but also still embarrassing
For the record, unlike you mouthbreathers, I actually acknowledge the bad things the US has done and does, because I actually have principled. I know you don’t have any, otherwise you wouldn’t be showcasing yourself as a hypocrite and a clown for everyone to see in attempt to distract from a basic criticism of the Chinese government.
Come back to me when you have an example of the federal government giving direct orders to massacre anything that moves during a massive civilian protest (pro tip: you can’t).
You can’t just make up shit. The soldiers weren’t given orders to “murder anyone that moves” or else the tank would’ve run that guy over. Where did you get that? They just looked at each other for awhile. I don’t think anyone even died in Tiannamen Square itself. Battles happened in other parts of the city as soldiers defended themselves, though. It wasn’t peaceful like you said earlier, soldiers died. Not that I think every protest necessarily has to be, or should be, peaceful, but at least get the facts straight.
And of course similar things happened in the US. We bombed an apartment building. There was the Kent shootings, the Haymarket massacre, Whiskey Rebellion, the incident in Waco, the assassination of Fred Hampton, hell, cop shootings happen every year. Not to mention hundreds of years of slavery where who knows how many were killed.
And no, Mao is not worse than Hitler. Mismanagement leading to famines is bad and the Cultural Revolution went too far in some places, and China acknowledges those mistakes btw, but they don’t compare to the targeted genocides, holocaust, and wars of Hitler. And most of those things you said weren’t even Mao. Plus, the US has done all those things of illegally occupying places (that’s how we got a bunch of states like Hawaii or Texas, as well as territories later like the Philippines), we did more than re-education camps of Native Americans, we killed them all and are now helping Israel do their own genocide and occupation in the present day, we have basically taken over the sea in the whole world and kill people who don’t agree (like Yemeni civilians), and have military bases all over including places they don’t want us (like Guantanamo Bay in Cuba), and have massacred civilians protesting peacefully as I said above, and helped other countries do the same, and have people under-fed and poverty stricken in the richest nation in the world.
You say you acknowledge the bad the US has done and then ignore all of them to make it sound like China is the worst places to have ever existed, at the same time an ongoing genocide is happening facilitated by the US. All you’ve proved is you consume propaganda uncritically and without context.
The soldiers weren’t given orders to “murder anyone that moves” or else the tank would’ve run that guy over. Where did you get that?
Tank man stood in front of the tank on June 5th, the massacre happened on June 4th.
I don’t think anyone even died in Tiannamen Square itself. Battles happened in other parts of the city as soldiers defended themselves, though. It wasn’t peaceful like you said earlier, soldiers died.
What was that again about me making shit up? It sounds to me like you’re getting high off you’re own supply.
but at least get the facts straight.
You know what, that’s a good idea. Let’s get the facts straight, shall we? Go ahead and post your sources that actually support your claims. Shouldn’t be a hard thing to do if they’re facts like you say. I’ll be waiting.
And of course similar things happened in the US. We bombed an apartment building. There was the Kent shootings, the Haymarket massacre, Whiskey Rebellion, the incident in Waco, the assassination of Fred Hampton, hell, cop shootings happen every year. Not to mention hundreds of years of slavery where who knows how many were killed.
Lol you really had to do mental gymnastics to come up with any examples at all. I mean you had to go all the back to 1791 to the Whiskey Rebellion (if we’re going back that far then look up the Taiping Rebellion) to find something and then used the Waco Seige of the Branch Davidians cult as an example. The only relevant example you have is the Kent state shooting, and even that’s from 1970 and only 4 people were killed. Even then, I’m honest enough to acknowledge that this event was indeed bad and should be condemned.
And no, Mao is not worse than Hitler.
Highly debatable. Mao has a very good case to top Hitler. He killed way more people and he was just as ruthless. Mao tops Hitler as the worst dictator of the 20th century.
Mismanagement leading to famines is bad and the Cultural Revolution went too far in some places, and China acknowledges those mistakes btw
Somewhere between 40 and 80 million people died under Mao’s reign. That can’t brushed off with an “oopsies”. Also, China still hails this guy as a national hero even though his successor, Deng Xiaoping (who’s responsible for the Tiananmen square massacre), had to literally do a de-Maoization like Khrushchev did with de-Stalinization to save the country from collapse.
but they don’t compare to the targeted genocides, holocaust, and wars of Hitler
Don’t get it twisted, Hitler is one of the most evil men in history. There’s a reason why he reached infamy in history. I’m just pointing out that he wasn’t without rivals during the 20th century, and Mao is one of the very few people with a legitimate case as being the shittiest human of that century.
Plus, the US has done all those things
Wow, you are slow. It’s not a competition. The reason why I brought up those things about China was to demonstrate no matter what examples are brought up about the US, China has an endless bag of atrocities to match or even exceed. That’s not the point because nobody is arguing which country has the worse history, the point of contention was that the person that I replied to originally claimed that the US today is worse than China today when it comes to things like Tienanmen Square massacre and their examples had no relevance to their claim at all.
You say you acknowledge the bad the US has done and then ignore all of them to make it sound like China is the worst places to have ever existed
You don’t need to have a ledger of condemnations so tankies can be satisfied with their perceived proportionate amount of criticism being applied towards China or any country. If an event is worthy of criticism then it should be criticized, simple as. If you’re seething over people condemning an atrocity and drowning yourself in fallacies like whataboutism, then there’s a good chance you either support the atrocities or the entity responsible for committing them.
If you made a post about the Kent State shooting, for example, right now on Lemmy or anywhere else really, you’re not going to get a hoard of Americans or non Americans in the comments crying about “BuT wHaT aBoUt ChInA hYpOcRiTeS?!?”, they’re just going to condemn the event and move on… as they should. But when it comes to doing the same thing for a country like China or Russia, you will always get a hoard of tankies defending the reprehensible acts and crying hypocrisy… even though they themselves are hypocrites.
All you’ve proved is you consume propaganda uncritically and without context.
Ironic coming from you
Tank man stood in front of the tank on June 5th, the massacre happened on June 4th.
They’re always combined together. They’re considered part of the same event.
What was that again about me making shit up? It sounds to me like you’re getting high off you’re own supply.
Journalistic and diplomatic testimony at the time confirms this. It’s pretty accepted by people who were there, including Western journalists. This is one example of a journalist there for the Washington Post at the time who later wrote a piece regretting writing their article in such a way that contributed to the myth that people died in the square.
Lol you really had to do mental gymnastics to come up with any examples at all. I mean you had to go all the back to 1791 to the Whiskey Rebellion (if we’re going back that far then look up the Taiping Rebellion) to find something and then used the Waco Seige of the Branch Davidians cult as an example. The only relevant example you have is the Kent state shooting, and even that’s from 1970 and only 4 people were killed. Even then, I’m honest enough to acknowledge that this event was indeed bad and should be condemned.
I gave more recent examples too. The only reason I went back that far is to show that the US has been shooting at its citizens from the beginning. Keep in mind, China is a lot newer of a country than the US, so it feels fitting. When cou tries are newer, they are a lot more vulnerable to different conflicts and, sadly, these things can result as different factions fight it out. It’s only been around since about the 50’s. And 1970 isn’t that much older than 1989. You act like it’s ancient history.
Highly debatable. Mao has a very good case to top Hitler. He killed way more people and he was just as ruthless. Mao tops Hitler as the worst dictator of the 20th century.
Once again, Mao didn’t kill more than Hitler. Famines are not the same as purposeful targeted genocides. If you want, we can say that US Presidents are worse than both if you add every death resulting from every war, and every post-war famine, civil war, etc that the US has been involved with. You’d add up basically every death from everything that’s happened in all of South America and the Middle-East since the 50’s in there.
Not to mention that the numbers you quoted aren’t reliable. Their sources are dubious and usually CIA funded. Deng’s numbers are a bit more realistic at 16.5 million but still most likely exaggerated because of the downplaying of Mao’s legacy they were doing at the time, like you mentioned. US numbers are usually wild guesses and extrapolations.
And of course they still hail him as a hero. Even if policy-wise he wasn’t the best, he was still a great and successful revolutionary who freed them from an oppressive monarchy, brought them socialism, cut poverty, increased life expectancy, reduced mortality, increased the spread of education and healthcare, and led them on the path to where they are now as an extremely successful country. And yes, they were increasing life expectancy even while he was in charge.
And yes, the US is worse today. They are enabling a genocide. That’s basically the checkmate of atrocities.
Its not a competition, but the point is that these statements and propaganda always start as a way to encourage war and conflict with other countries. Every single time. It’s why China doesn’t celebrate the Kent massacre every year or the Civil War, or things like that that the US does. They don’t have military bases all over the world and aren’t constantly invading and occupying other countries, so they don’t really need the excuse to drum up propaganda as an excuse for war. And while China has a lot of negative points, that’s what makes the US worse that people in it don’t understand: it’s inperialistic nature.
They’re always combined together. They’re considered part of the same event.
Are you really dumb enough to not understand my point with the dates? You made the stupid argument that if there was a really a massacre then why isn’t the tank man dead. This isn’t the “gotcha” you think it is because it shows you don’t understand what happened. The Chinese government gave the soldiers the order to massacre the students protesting on June 4th, tank man and the picture of him happened AFTER the massacre on June 5th.
the myth that people died in the square.
So let me get this straight, your grand argument to justify this massacre is that the people weren’t killed in the square itself but right outside of it? Damn, you sure showed how innocent and glorious the CCP is with this zinger.
I gave more recent examples too. The only reason I went back that far is to show that the US has been shooting at its citizens from the beginning.
You literally had one single relevant example. Even if we take all the other examples you gave and ignore their validity for a second, they still had less deaths combined than the Tienanmen Square massacre.
Keep in mind, China is a lot newer of a country than the US, so it feels fitting.
No way somebody is dumb enough to think China, one of the world’s oldest civilizations, is newer than the US. China didn’t start in 1949.
And 1970 isn’t that much older than 1989. You act like it’s ancient history.
You don’t even know what the topic of conversation is, do you? If you scroll up this thread and read what the original point of contention is, then you’ll quickly realize that it’s about some idiot saying that the US TODAY is worse than China. You citing examples from 1791 to 1970 shows that you either have no idea what the conversation is about or your argument is so weak that you have go that far back to find anything.
Once again, Mao didn’t kill more than Hitler. Famines are not the same as purposeful targeted genocides.
Mao’s death toll is so high that his non famine deaths give the Holocaust’s death toll a run for its money. Let’s do some basic arithmetic:
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Chinese land reforms: 1 million - 4.7 million
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Government violence during the Great Chinese Famine: 2.5 million
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Anti-Rightist Campaign: 550k - 2 million
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Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries: 712k - 2 million
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Three-anti and Five-anti campaigns: 100k
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Cultural Revolution: 500k - 2 million
That’s bring us to: 5.362 million - 13.3 million
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_China#People’s_Republic_of_China_(since_1949)
So even if we exclude the famine, which we shouldn’t because those deaths are direct result of his policies, his death toll is still either half of that of the Holocaust at best or even higher the Holocaust at worst. When we factor the Great Chinese Famine that he caused, then he’s well and away the greatest killer in history.
If you want, we can say that US Presidents are worse than both if you add every death resulting from every war, and every post-war famine, civil war, etc that the US has been involved with.
Except we’re not going to say because that’s idiotic logic. First of all no, not a single American president comes even close to Mao’s death toll. Second of all, his death toll, like Hitler’s, is a direct result of his policies. These death toll figures don’t include deaths caused by wars. If we included the Chinese Civil war or the host of other wars that he involved in, then he might actually top 100 million death by himself. Thirdly, even IF we did include wars, what kind of clown counts every single death in wars, including the deaths caused be the enemies, as a part of the death toll? Not only that, but including subsequent events as well? That’s stupid.
Not to mention that the numbers you quoted aren’t reliable.
No, they’re extremely reliable. All the estimates are provided by independent research teams and well respected academics who’s full research, sources, and methodology are have been peer reviewed and are available to all who wish to see them. You just want to find any excuse to dismiss the figures because they don’t conform to your tankie biases.
Their sources are dubious and usually CIA funded. Deng’s numbers are a bit more realistic at 16.5 million but still most likely exaggerated because of the downplaying of Mao’s legacy they were doing at the time, like you mentioned. US numbers are usually wild guesses and extrapolations.
Do you actually think successfully arguing that the death toll is “only” 16.5 million is some sort of win? Not only is it sad that you think that, but it’s also a losing battle because that figure is well below what most academics estimate. There’s another thing, simply putting saying “US” or “CIA” in front of everything you don’t like doesn’t discredit the validity or accuracy of those figures or statements whatsoever nor does it make the association inherently bad. These assumptions exclusively exist in the empty minds tankies who think the rest of the world thinks like them, well they don’t.
People understand that despite all it’s flaws, the US is still a liberal democracy that actually has freedom of speech and freedom of the press. This means that academics in the US are extremely reliable because they’re independent researchers who can publish all their research without fear of manipulation or censorship from the government regardless of how the government wishes the results were or how they make the government look.
This isn’t the case in China because it’s an authoritarian country, and so research on touchy subjects is inherently unreliable because it all goes through the great CCP filter. Not to mention that the research on Mao’s astronomical death toll isn’t exclusive to US researchers. Academics all over the world have studied the same material and came up with estimates that are largely in the same range. So no matter what excuse you come up with, they simply won’t mean anything because you’re defending a position that contradicts reality.
successful revolutionary who freed them from an oppressive monarchy
What monarchy lmao? China has been a republic since 1912. I know tankies are ignorant, but do you seriously not know who the communists fought during the Chinese civil war? Because that’s astounding levels of ignorance.
brought them socialism, cut poverty, increased life expectancy, reduced mortality, increased the spread of education and healthcare, and led them on the path to where they are now as an extremely successful country.
Literally all of this is false. Mao’s policies were such massive failures that killed so many people and brought so much suffering that the country was actually on the brink of collapse. After he died, his successor, Deng Xiaoping, had to do a de-Maoization to help save the country. The Chinese economy under Mao was extremely small and stagnant, and China didn’t experience any real economic growth until Xiaoping started liberalizing the economy. In the late 70s and throughout the 80s, he introduced a series of reforms that allowed people to own private property, allowed foreign investment to flow into the country, created “special economic zones” where capitalism ran free, and allowed markets to exist again. Only then did China economic rise start to take off.
You can literally see this in GDP numbers:
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/chn/china/gdp-gross-domestic-product
And yes, they were increasing life expectancy even while he was in charge.
The country went through a genocide that killed 30 million people followed by a civil war that killed 10 million people. The life expectancy in China in 1945 was 33.4 years. Literally any sort of stability would’ve seen a rise in life expectancy. We saw the same thing happen in Russia, Germany, and bunch of countries who exited eras of brutal war. With that being said, Mao wasn’t exactly good for the life expectancy, you clearly see in the country’s life expectancy graphs when the famine happened as well as when his brutal massacres started slowing down:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041350/life-expectancy-china-all-time/
And yes, the US is worse today. They are enabling a genocide. That’s basically the checkmate of atrocities.
China is arming Russia’s genocide in Ukraine as well as committing their own genocides in TIbet and Xinjiang. So if we’re using mental gymnastics make the US indirectly supporting Israel count as enabling genocide, then China has a checkmate x3.
Its not a competition, but the point is that these statements and propaganda always start as a way to encourage war and conflict with other countries.
These atrocities are historical facts, not propaganda, and recognizing them isn’t going to start wars. What kind of idiot thinks that recognizing and condemning an atrocity like the holocaust is propaganda to start a war? If you ever get the self awareness to wonder why nobody likes tankies, this is why.
It’s why China doesn’t celebrate the Kent massacre every year or the Civil War
Nobody is celebrating this massacre you dimwit. People are acknowledging and condemning it because, unlike the US, the Chinese government denies the atrocities it committed and pretends this massacre never happened.
They don’t have military bases all over the world and aren’t constantly invading and occupying other countries,
Yes they literally are. Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, India, Tibet, and the list goes on and on.
And while China has a lot of negative points, that’s what makes the US worse that people in it don’t understand: it’s inperialistic nature.
Clearly, you don’t understand what imperialism is either because if you think China isn’t imperialist then you’re huffing something strong.
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you made a post about the Kent State shooting, for example, right now on Lemmy or anywhere else really, you’re not going to a hoard of Americans or non Americans in the comments crying about “BuT wHaT aBoUt ChInA hYpOcRiTeS?!?”,
China doesn’t have a penn state day, idiot.
Also china isn’t arming a genocide right now
China doesn’t have a penn state day, idiot.
Penn state? Wtf are you talking about?
Also china isn’t arming a genocide right no
Yes, they are. They’re arming Russia’s genocide in Ukraine and they’re also carrying out their own genocides in both Tibet and Xinjiang.
Can you quit doing holocaust trivialisation? Attrocities have been commited under every ideologies (wanna talk about Congo?). Nazis were the only ones with the explicit goal of ethnic purity
Jesus Fuck, you tankies are god damned children with your logic. More than one thing can be, and in fact are and have been and will be, bad while other things have happened that are also just as bad, if not worse, while not diluting other events, you get that, right? There is more than one atrocity you should be aware of throughout history and every government has been objectively fucking awful, stop sucking so much authoritarian dick. You fuckers are kowtowing cowards.
Can you quit doing holocaust trivialisation?
Pointing out other atrocities in history that are just as, if not more horrific, is not trivialization. The Holocaust is one of the worst events in history, no doubt about it. That being said there are other atrocities in history that have reached that levels in either ruthlessness, death toll, or both. Ignoring the other atrocities in history would just be us trivializing them.
Attrocities have been commited under every ideologies (wanna talk about Congo?).
Yes, they have, and yes, we should talk about them. Belguim’s atrocities in the Congo aren’t talked about nearly enough.
Nazis were the only ones with the explicit goal of ethnic purity
No, this is false. The idea of ethnic purity is something that has been around for a long time. The only unique thing about the Nazis was that they industrialized mass killings while carrying out their genocides.
“Never forget” is great and all but from a German perspective it seems to not be enough. It is much more important to make sure the same or very similar things do not happen again, not by China and not by any other nation. Otherwise you end up like we did here in Germany where decades of “never forget” lead to very similar sentiments being expressed by a new major party but since things are slightly different (e.g. the “never forget” was always phrased to be about Jews, this is more about foreigners in general) people seem to allow themselves to ignore them.
Germans should be critical of Israel then.
why?
Genocide
how are the 2 genocides similar to eachother?
You’re asking how two of the same thing are similar? Very strange. They share the same definition. They are similar in the ways that things with that label are similar.
Genocide: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.
All of that is similar.
