| Username |
Post |
| tabasco |
Posted
on 03-Jun-04 10:51 PM
june 4th
today marks the 15 th anniversary of the student movement in china, brutally suppressed by the chinese authorities exactly 15 years ago.
a big protest has been planned today here in hong kong where the freedom of hong kong itself is being questioned these days. slowly mainland authorites are tightening their rope in the name of patriotism and treason. virtually hong kong is the only place where they can still conduct peaceful protest but for how long, thats still in question.
hope history doesnt repeat again.
long live the martyrs.
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| tabasco |
Posted
on 03-Jun-04 11:23 PM
. its the commemoration not a protest. apologies
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| Kurikuri |
Posted
on 03-Jun-04 11:25 PM
Yeah, and the same is in store for Nepal.
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 04-Jun-04 10:31 AM
Its Tian An Men (3 characters- heaven, peace, gate)- the gate of heavenly peace. And what happened there 15 years ago is definately not a good thing, but was it necessary? I think it was. Otherwise, China today would be in a huge mess- just like our Nepal is today. Deng justified his actions on the telivised speech immediately following the incident. Search for it in your library, you will understand the reasons for what the leadership did in 89, and those are legitimate reasons. Some of them are:
1. Deng wanted to give continuity to the reforms, and in the absecne of a strong governmnet, it would have been impossible.
2. Deng didn't want China to go through the bitter experience of Cultural Revolution again.
3. China would have broken apart like the USSR
These are some of the reasons. But most importantly, one has to udenrstand one thing:
The protestors ween't protesting for the Western Style Democracy, so to say, it was a "suppression" of democracy movement is wrong.
Regarding HK, I think the whole thing has been clearly stated in the 1983-84 agreement between the UK -China "HK Handover Agreement".
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| tabasco |
Posted
on 04-Jun-04 11:11 AM
. if
i might not be as familiar about chinese politics as you are but still i dont believe that the killings of hundreds if not thousands of students is justified with the points you have raised here.
regarding Hk thing as far as i know, chinese govt. had agreed not to make any significant change in the system atleast for 50 years. if thats so why was article 23 proposed and later had to be withdrawn? if they are so committed to Hk hand over agreement why is the fear amongst the Hk residents and the mass protest on july 1st 2003?
regarding my first posting, i have sympathy for all the people who were killed and i dont think you have to justify their killing as a chinese govt. spokeperson
peace
have a nice holiday
:)
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| tabasco |
Posted
on 04-Jun-04 11:15 AM
* all those
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 05-Jun-04 06:46 AM
Dear tabasco,
Before you go on to call me "a chinese govt. spokesman", let me made a few things clear to you:
1. I have been studying Chinese History from the late Qing Era to the present (from the Taiping Tian Guo, treaty port and HK-to-the-British period to today) for the last 6 years, and I am still learning, without being influenced by anyone.
2. All my knowledge of China, Chinese History and Chinese Politics comes from, surprisingly enough, American Professors and Western Scholars (Arthur Rosenbaum, Emily Chao, Jonathan Spence, John King Fairbank, Andrew Nathan, Han Suyin, Wllian Hinton, Jonathan Huang, Philip Kuhn and others).
3. To understand what really happened in 89, you have to know at least the last 50 years of Chinese history. If you try to isolate the incident, then you will go nowhere. At leaast 50 years, because you are not someone studying History and Politics, otherwise I would have suggested the Fairbankian approach to understanding China and its History and believe me, his appraoch is to look at the Chinese pre-history to understand what is happening today.. (yeah, all those boring Qin, Han, Wei, Song.. reading) :-)
So what really happened:
This is an interestuing issue. Many books/articles have been written and nobody knows for sure what really happened. Of course, I am not saying nothing happned, but noone knows for sure. Even Cristoff, a NY TIMES correspondent, who was in China then, and who wrote about it all, seems confused as to what really happened. Furthermore, a Newsweek article that appeared 2-3 years after the incident, says that the western journalists who were in China to cover the Sino-Russian Summit grossly exaggerataed the fact. And the author of that article makes a very good excuse: Well, everyone was running here and there and tha blurred my vision/view.. and this guy was reporting for the Newsweek!
When Carma Hinton interviewed the people involved later, they too didn't know what really happened. Look, when you try to understand something like the Tian-An-Men, you have to take the both sides-the state and the protestors- views into account. The Protestors didn't really know what they were protesting about, although may later agreed that they were protesting for the reforms within the Party (like Wang Dan), whereas some still remain confused (like Cai Ling).
Now, if you ask me or anybody in China who knows the last 50 years of Chinese history, he will say, the state did the right thing. China had just recovered from the disaster of the Cultural Revolution, and people didn't wnat to go through another revolution. With the reforms in economy, people wanted jobs, money and a good life, and taht's what they want now. The western media likes to romanticize the protests, because that's how they sell their papers and serve the interests of those who fund them. For the west it was a great movement, and couldn't have come at a better time, however for China itself, it wasn't great and it wasn't something that people were expecting. So, one more advice to you: to understand the event unfolding in China, do not read newspapers, just go to the museums and read the history books.
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 05-Jun-04 07:29 AM
me made =make
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| tabasco |
Posted
on 05-Jun-04 07:53 AM
. first i didnt want to offend anyone,it was just a remembrance to what happend 15years ago. secondly, i am sure you know/should know much more about chinese history than i do. last time i read history was in "nepal parichaya" :) regrading your suggestion about visiting museums, i ll make sure i do when i am in beijing :) i hope you ll give me a guided tour :) regarding books..ya i will when i have time and you know time is luxury these days :D
chill out for now with a tsing tao
"china's offical beer"
:)
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 05-Jun-04 08:01 AM
hahah its not Qing Dao, its Wu Xi, the official beer of China.
Here's a deal: I'll show you Beijing Monuments and Museums, you show me around Chung-King next week, huncha?
Regarding history books, you can read all the westren authors and many of them Harvard-Yale-Columbia profs., and disagree even more with the Newspaper reports.
right now chilling with Yanjing :-).. Why don't you chill out with a bottle of Tiger or Guiness.
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