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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 6/4/25: Will History Rhyme? [1]
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Date: 2025-06-04
36 years ago today was the Tiamanmen Square Massacre.
Nobody ever found out who this hero was.
The CCP panicked and opened fire.
Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s impending state visit on May 15 invigorated the protests. Some protestors initiated hunger strikes to increase pressure on the government. Foreign media that arrived to cover the visit turned their attention to the protests and heightened international—especially Western—awareness of the protesters and their demands. The crowds in the Square grew beyond students to include a broad segment of Chinese society, from workers to ordinary citizens from Beijing and beyond, and reportedly exceeded one million in number. Gorbachev’s visit occupied Chinese officials’ attention until his departure on May 18. On May 19, Zhao visited the protesters once more to make an emotional appeal for hunger strikes to end. The Chinese leadership imposed martial law in Beijing on May 20. The protests continued. On the night of June 3 and 4, the People’s Liberation Army stormed the Square with tanks, crushing the protests with terrible human costs. Estimates of the numbers killed vary. The Chinese Government has asserted that injuries exceeded 3,000 and that over 200 individuals, including 36 university students, were killed that night. Western sources, however, are skeptical of the official Chinese report and most frequently cite the toll as hundreds or even thousands killed. Similar protests that had taken place in other Chinese cities were soon suppressed and their leaders imprisoned.
The CCP has stifled memory of it to this day.
In the aftermath of the crackdown, the United States instituted economic and diplomatic sanctions for a time, and many other foreign governments criticized China’s handling of the protesters. The Western media quickly labeled the events of June 3–4 a “massacre.” The Chinese government arrested thousands of suspected dissidents; many of them received prison sentences of varying lengths of time, and a number were executed. However, several dissident leaders managed to escape from China and sought refuge in the West, notably Wu’er Kaixi. The disgraced Zhao Ziyang was soon replaced as party general secretary by Jiang Zemin and put under house arrest. From the outset of the incident, the Chinese government’s official stance was to downplay its significance, labeling the protesters “counterrevolutionaries” and minimizing the extent of the military’s actions on June 3–4. The government’s count of those killed was 241 (including soldiers), with some 7,000 wounded; most other estimates have put the death toll much higher. In the years since the incident, the government has generally attempted to suppress references to it. Public commemoration of the incident is officially banned. However, the residents of Hong Kong held an annual vigil on the anniversary of the crackdown, even after Hong Kong reverted to Chinese administration, until the country passed a national security law in 2020 that outlawed most political dissent in Hong Kong. After the new law came in effect, several former organizers of the annual vigil were sentenced to jail terms.
When the tanks come to our towns will we block their way?
I’m volunteering again tonight.
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