Only a few hundred people died, not thousands. And some people may have been armed! So it’s fine to kill scores of people.
“Some people” aka insurrectionists were not maybe armed.
These insurrectionists bombed and killed soldiers. And THEY. BOMBED. FIRST.
There is no maybe in this scenario just as much as there is no maybe in the Jan 6th insurrection.
What were these other soldiers supposed to do that are trained to fight and protect their country?
Just stand there and take some more?
What is the proper response according to you when a group of terrorists bombs a military convoy?
The tanks were driving away and didn’t kill anyone this time
They didn’t kill him because he posed no threat unlike the terrorists that bombed their convoy.
End of story.
This is just the other bullet points again! I’m sure if more armed rebels entered the capital it would have been incredibly messy and people would have died. And killing a ton of people, regardless of why, is a failure of government. Conflating one violent protest with another and then saying “America Bad so China Fine” is inane.
What were these other soldiers supposed to do that are trained to fight and protect their country?
Just stand there and take some more?
What is the proper response according to you when a group of terrorists bombs a military convoy?
You edited your post so I’ll reply again:
The test, which America and China both repeatedly fail, is having professional law enforcement and soldiers kill their own citizens. This is one of the most utter, final failures of government. There are plenty of options besides killing people, and when you take up arms and swear oaths to protect your country, and then kill citizens of your own country, you break your oath.
Your argument fails because there’s no need to actually intercede and halt protests. In the case of the pro-democracy movement crushed by the PLA in June 1989, martial law and attacks on protesters had begun en masse 2 weeks before the massacre. There was a steady escalation of violence leading up to the riots in early june. So the idea that the protestors “struck first” (even if that is a justification, which it isn’t, is false. The facts, which aren’t in dispute, were that the anti-corruption policies implemented to answer the complaints of the protestors were well-received, and further reforms were desired by everyone, not just the student protestors. Everyone except the local officials who were at risk of losing their positions by a government overhaul from authoritarianism to democracy.
The protest could have continued to be disrupted the way they already were before the massacre:
Through wiretaps and arrests
Through planted dissenters sowing chaos in the student’s ranks
Through rubber bullets + tear gas, and other nonlethal methods
Instead, even though 300,000 people were protesting that period, the actions of an interim commander who acted on poor discipline and leadership, directly lead to at least hundreds, and possibly thousands, of his own people, in a small section of the city. That is a spectacular failure, and the end of a certain degree of human autonomy in China.
This is coming from someone who actually thinks China is leading the world in many ways. I do genuinely believe that China is actually less corrupt than many other nations, and the high degree of social cohesion in-country is something that gives them strength. Like I said in my first post: lots to admire, but this ain’t it.
“Some people” aka insurrectionists were not maybe armed.
These insurrectionists bombed and killed soldiers. And THEY. BOMBED. FIRST.
There is no maybe in this scenario just as much as there is no maybe in the Jan 6th insurrection.
What were these other soldiers supposed to do that are trained to fight and protect their country?
Just stand there and take some more?
What is the proper response according to you when a group of terrorists bombs a military convoy?
They didn’t kill him because he posed no threat unlike the terrorists that bombed their convoy.
End of story.
This is just the other bullet points again! I’m sure if more armed rebels entered the capital it would have been incredibly messy and people would have died. And killing a ton of people, regardless of why, is a failure of government. Conflating one violent protest with another and then saying “America Bad so China Fine” is inane.
You edited your post so I’ll reply again: The test, which America and China both repeatedly fail, is having professional law enforcement and soldiers kill their own citizens. This is one of the most utter, final failures of government. There are plenty of options besides killing people, and when you take up arms and swear oaths to protect your country, and then kill citizens of your own country, you break your oath.
Your argument fails because there’s no need to actually intercede and halt protests. In the case of the pro-democracy movement crushed by the PLA in June 1989, martial law and attacks on protesters had begun en masse 2 weeks before the massacre. There was a steady escalation of violence leading up to the riots in early june. So the idea that the protestors “struck first” (even if that is a justification, which it isn’t, is false. The facts, which aren’t in dispute, were that the anti-corruption policies implemented to answer the complaints of the protestors were well-received, and further reforms were desired by everyone, not just the student protestors. Everyone except the local officials who were at risk of losing their positions by a government overhaul from authoritarianism to democracy.
The protest could have continued to be disrupted the way they already were before the massacre:
Instead, even though 300,000 people were protesting that period, the actions of an interim commander who acted on poor discipline and leadership, directly lead to at least hundreds, and possibly thousands, of his own people, in a small section of the city. That is a spectacular failure, and the end of a certain degree of human autonomy in China.
This is coming from someone who actually thinks China is leading the world in many ways. I do genuinely believe that China is actually less corrupt than many other nations, and the high degree of social cohesion in-country is something that gives them strength. Like I said in my first post: lots to admire, but this ain’t it.