“No, I won’t engage in the critical analysis of my sources. My view on this heavily politically charged historical event is definitely not influenced by western bias, and even if it was, it doesn’t matter, because constantly unpromptedly bringing up something that happened 36 years ago isn’t political, it’s just a fact.”

Dude, literally, please, go to my original comment detailing the sources of your article, and answer on a point by point basis what’s wrong about my comments on the SPECIFIC sources of YOUR OWN ARTICLE.

Nah, it just happens when you actually research a topic and critically examine the events and the sources, instead of uncritically swallowing propaganda based on a single source of politicians from TERF-Island, sorry I mean Great Britain,

It is an iconic picture

If by “iconic picture” you mean “out-of-context, manipulative, anticommunist, CIA-sponsored atrocity propaganda”, then yes, it’s very iconic in the NATO countries (show this to a Latin American and see if they know what it is).

feeling the need to argue and bending over backwards to defend China

Mate, you brought up the topic, not me. I initially started a conversation on precisely the picture you posted, because most people in the west see it out of context and believe that the protestor was trampled or arrested, instead of harmlessly walking away. You’re the one spreading anti-china propaganda and, when confronted with the reality of the specific picture you sent, you deflect and send an article with 100 pictures of the event.

Thanks for completely ignoring my analysis of the sources of your “have you seen this, you filthy commie?” article. Kinda proving that you’re arguing from vibes here and not from material evidence.

Has anyone spoken to him afterwards? No? Why’s that?

Because he’s an anonymous dude only known from a low-res video that absolutely doesn’t allow for identification?

Massacres outside the square don’t count

You’re being purposefully obtuse. I explicitly said that the degree of repression was probably overboard and unnecessary, and a dark episode in Chinese history. You’re literally ignoring my reasonable points and arguing against strawmans, while refusing to do the bare minimum analysis of the sources of your material

This literally shows exactly what I’m saying… There are pictures of tankman climbing the tank to have a chat with the crew…

Regardless, I’ve compiled all of the sources from the article:

A doctor at the time said

a radio announcer reported the

Or, even worse:

a secret British cable from the time alleged that

So essentially: either “source: trust me bro”, or “source: external actor from a geopolitically opposed nation”. Would you be taking “a secret Russian cable from the time alleged that” with regard to, e.g., police repression in BLM protests?

Lmao especially at the main (and last) source from the article:

Freedom House, an independent organization dedicated to promoting freedom around the world

Like, how is this not an obvious CIA front organization? Are you actually that gullible? It’s literally “freedom eagle burger institute”…

British ambassador to China Sir Alan Donald wrote a secret diplomatic cable

Again with the western sources. This is laughable, and the fact that you would even consider this serious makes you so pathetically gullible that I’m this close to giving up talking with you, but let’s go ahead.

The former ambassador explained that his account stemmed from personal conversations from a “good friend” in China’s State Council

“Bro I swear, a Chinese official whom I won’t name told me all of this the same day, I swear bro. It doesn’t matter that my country is an anticommunist capitalist regime with clear motives to make up atrocity propaganda as it’s done many times in the past, just trust me bro”. What a fucking joke of a source.

Anyway, all of this isn’t to say there was no violence in the Tiananmen protests. Protesters were indeed killed by the army, I’m not arguing against this, I literally only talked about the tankman picture before.

But, as your picture evidence proves (there are literally burnt tanks and murdered soldiers in the pictures), this isn’t because “le evil seeseepee authoritarians against peaceful wholesome 100 protesters”. The article actually contradicts the western press reports at the time, which confirmed that the military violence against protestors happened outside the Tiananmen square, proving that your article is mostly manufactured western anticommunist propaganda.

The violence started from the protestors against the military, and the military responded. I’m not claiming the response was appropriate, limited and not brutal, I am not really aware of the numbers and I honestly don’t care much to know, they dwarf in comparison with the hundreds of millions of lives that China saved through the land collectivisation policies in the Mao times, the accessibility to decent healthcare, and the decolonisation of China.

Bonus point: funny how there is a widespread availability of HQ pictures from a 1989 protest and the victims of state violence in China, but we live in 2025 fully into the smartphone era and there isn’t a single shred of photographic evidence of the famous so-called “Uyghur genocide”

“Oh no, the evil tankies are here to give facts against my CIA-manufactured sinophobic propaganda :(”

Please, answer: have you ever watched the entire thing?

Clue: peaceful protests in the entire western world achieved nothing for the past half a century. You had the massive Greece protests, the Gilets Jeunes in France, the 15-M in Spain, the Occupy Movement in the US, the BLM protests in the US too, the anti Iraq war protests all over Europe… None of them achieved anything meaningful. The EU and US are NOT democratic.

For hell’s sake have you ever seen the entire video from which the picture was extracted? The guy literally stopped the tanks, had a chat with them, and walked away unharmed.

Sure, you have a point, just wanted to remind people that western European countries enacted many genocides to similar scale than Nazi Germany (or greater)

Was he, though? How many millions did he murder in the manmade Bengal famine?