China’s other massacre
Long before Tiananmen, there was an even greater bloodletting that remains largely unknown in the West
Every year, around this time, the Western media observes a peculiar ritual. On June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and their suppression by the government, CNN or BBC will send some cub reporter to stand in the square, sweat dripping down their face from a combination of nervousness and the unforgiving heat of the Beijing summer. They’ll start to recount the history of what happened on that day and on cue, some stern-faced police officers in dark shades and plain clothes will arrive to shut them down.
This formulaic bit of theater is usually accompanied by a series of retrospectives on every news channels, complete with the obligatory footage of tanks rolling in and the iconic image of the fearless man with grocery bags in his hands blocking their way. On the day of the anniversary and at least a week before, there will be a full-court press in the print media of articles and interviews with Chinese exiles. The Chinese government doesn’t publicly acknowledge what happened, so the Western media commemorates the event twice as much to compensate, it seems.
The Tiananmen Square protests loom so large in our narrative about China almost to the exclusion of…
