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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
“Whataboutism” can occasionally be an honest critique of a spurious argument.
When it’s just a link on it’s own, it’s almost always cover for hypocrisy.
Wow. Fascinating. Thanks for the link.
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.
I can critize and dislike the US involvement in Korea, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, AND the Tiananmen Square massacre.
I can rank which ones killed more people, but no one should be committing any crimes against humanity like these regardless of scale
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
the Tiananmen Square Massacre,
yep, tankies gonna tank.
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.
Least braindead Marxist
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.
Buddy, fuck right the hell off. The USA is not the only country with free media. Small countries do it too. Al Jazeera is quartered in Qatar, and is critical of both the USA and China. China enacts the Great Firewall because they’re power-hungry, not because they want to fucking stay safe, and they are not in any regard a third world country.
Al Jazeera is a terrible for you, but a great example for my point. It never mentions things critical of Qatar ever. It’s good for news about other stuff, like Palestine, which the US media is likewise horrible about covering. It’s why nobody here knew about the situation there until October 7th.
I know your question is rhetorical, but hypothetically China could do that with the aim of whipping up their population into hating the American government more, making them more willing to swallow local authoritarianism and foreign imperialism framed as national defense. That’s basically what the US is doing in the current arrangement, only reversed.
Agreed, dont throw stones from glass houses
The implied issue with that phrase is you risk your own glass house being pelted, correct? The glass house, in this case, being atrocities each government is implicated in?
I’m fine with all the atrocities being called out. Otherwise, how do we learn not to do them anymore?
I want to belive that people here genuenly call out atrocities everywhere but they dont, if you personally call out evil in every place it resides then I respect you.
Yep that’s exactly my point, the US is doing Whataboutism when it issues these PR stunts to condemn Chinese atrocities.