laowhy86

What Do Chinese People Think About Tiananmen?

Added 2018-06-06 14:24:45 +0000 UTC

Hey Laowinners!

So it was the anniversary of the Tiananmen square massacre two days ago, and I often get asked, what do Chinese people think of what happened there?

First off, it is important that most schools or people won't even acknowledge what happened there. The slight chance that people do know what happened are under the impression that students/radicals attacked the government/army, and had to be dealt with, but the casualties were minimum.

The few who do know what really happened, and feel remorse or sadness about what happened know that search results on the topic are, of course, blocked by the great firewall of China.

There are tricky ways around it, like instead of using the blocked search result of 6-4 (June 4th), Chinese people will use 6-34, or 6-3+1. However, like I said, these people are in the minority.

I found that people who deeply care about issues like democracy, or the faults of the government in China are typically the social outcasts. The people who learned enough English to want to escape normal Chinese society in a way. When these types of students spoke out in class, they were typically ignored by their classmates.

There was a rumor going around at the time of the incident that Deng Xiao Ping (the much celebrated leader at the time) had to make the call. He would either continue his reforms and let the student protesters win with their symbol of democracy, and institute the democratic shift for China, or roll out the tanks and kill this notion of freedom for good.

We all know what happened.

The spirit of change was forever done. And apathy makes sure it stays that way.