Talk:Tiananmen Square protests of 1989

WHY ARE YOU COWARDS NOT ADDING ONE OF THE MOST ICONIC IMAGES OF THE 20TH CENTURY - WHERE IS THE UNKNOWN REBEL

THE *****FREE***** ENCYCLOPEDIA RIGHT? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.67.101 (talk) 07:59, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

If you own the copyright to the image and would like to upload it to Wikipedia for free usage, then please do so. Editors cannot just upload any photograph, regardless of how iconic you perceive it to be, unless the owner of said photograph releases it for wiki use. The irony of calling other people cowards while you hide anonymously behind your IP is unconstructive, especially in light of your IP's repeated vandalism of various articles. — Wrathkind (talk) 03:48, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I really doubt the copyright owner is more concerned with his dues than preventing the power of this profound image from being suppressed and hidden from the world by the Chinese.

Am I the only one that senses censorship by the Chinese government in these articles? People are always trying to delete that picture from articles even the "Tank Man" article for Christ's sake, either it's people that are blinded by a strict obedience copyright laws or Chinese WikiSleepers both contemptible but I think I know which it is.

Rise up Wikians! Rise up! Fight for FREE knowledge. Not watered down chinese secrets.

If you want to see the picture added to this article so badly, please contact the people who hold the copyright for that image and convince them to give Wikipedia the right to use the image for free. There is no "Chinese conspiracy" to have this or any other image "suppressed and hidden from the world": it is not included here only because Wikipedia is not in the habit of arbitrarily breaking copyright laws just because its editors suspect that a copyright holder might not be "concerned with his dues".Ferox Seneca (talk) 22:55, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Your doubts about the copyright owner's concerns bear no weight unless you speak for the owner. Your contempt for strict obedience to copyright laws does not change current policy. Feel free to review the guidelines regarding non-free content, and direct your complaints to the talk pages regarding its criteria and rationale. — Wrathkind (talk) 12:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Note the image is included in Tank Man under our non-free content policy, which is strict and does not allow it to also be included in this article. Dcoetzee 00:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Error in quotation of Kristof's figures

Nicholas Kristof (Reference [5]) is quoted twice in the text of the article. The first quotation is incorrect, giving figures of 2000 soldiers & policemen and 1000 to 3000 civilians killed. The second quotation is correct. The figures he gives in [5] are "about a dozen soldiers and policemen were killed, along with 400 to 800 civilians" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.176.41.251 (talk)

Article re-work

The general guidelines over at WP:Article Size state that 60kb is probably a good upper limit for comfortable reading. The article, prior to my trimming operation, was at over 150kb, which puts it only 20kb below the article for World War II. I am of the view that a large reduction of content is necessary to adhere to WP:SUMMARY and just for the reader's ease, and we can consider splitting off details to sub-articles. My objective, tentatively, is to reduce the article to 120kbs, which will mean some seemingly heartless deletions, trimming of quotations, and consolidation. Anyone who would like to provide feedback, keep me in check, or want to defend the article's current length is welcome to comment. Colipon+(Talk) 21:52, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

This trimming is a good idea, because the article is not only too long; it is poorly written. There is already a sub-article, Reactions to Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, that can accommodate condensed versions of the "Reactions", "International reaction", "Impact", "Continuing issues", and "Cultural references" sections. Shrigley (talk) 23:43, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, if you don't mind helping me with the copy-editing... it would make the task twice as easy. :) Colipon+(Talk) 23:53, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

While I generally support the idea of trimming the article down a bit, I think that you misunderstand the 60KB limit in WP:Article Size. That limit is for the readable prose size, not the total article size, which includes tables, references, mark-up code and other stuff not counted in the readable prose size. Currently, the total article size is 132KB, while the readable prose size is 77KB, according to this script. So, the article is over the 60KB limit, but not hugely over. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 05:08, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

You are correct, JT. So my goal of reducing it to around 120kb would effectively reduce the readable prose down to about 65kb, which is quite ideal imho. A lot of information is still missing from the article, but there is also a lot of redundancies. In the end it is a balancing act. Colipon+(Talk) 06:13, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

For the most part, I agree with the trimming, but I would prefer if the lead was more detailed. For example, Deng Xiaoping's market reforms, which is covered in the body paragraphs, deserves a brief mention in the lead.--Beijingdemocracy (talk) 00:43, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your edits. They look quite good. The part about Deng losing prestige is almost always overlooked by 'western media'. Although, I don't think ledes should be overly convoluted. We can discuss some more comprehensive changes later. Colipon+(Talk) 05:13, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Reports of progress

I want to maintain active documentation here of the major changes that I'm making to this page. So far I'm glad to report that since I took up the knife and scalpel three days ago the article size has been decreased from 153kb to 132kb. The bulk of the material that I cut mercilessly came from the section on "Forbidden Topic" and "history erased", which were essentially two sections talking about the same thing. I axed the bulk of the content about the 20th Anniversary - there is an entire article for that. I retained two or three sentences about it only as a summary of the government's contemporary views as it relates to the protests. I have also cut significant sections from the "background" section, and grouped it under more logical headings. I have also purged a large number of external links, per WP:EL. Events like this one arouse a lot of emotion and there is a tendency to overlink - to share everything that any individual finds valuable in reflecting his/her point of view or emotions. I copy and paste the EL list below, because I believe some of the ELs can be used as reference documents later on. But they belong to the references or bibliography sections, not in EL.

Reading through the article, I also feel that the middle section is clogged and badly structured. Many intervening events are not given due weight or simply not addressed at all - such as Gorbachev's visit and Zhao's Asian Development Bank speech on May 4. (Before my first edits to this article even the April 26 Editorial was not mentioned at all). The article also lacks nuanced analysis on the decision-making process of the Chinese leadership, even though many documents have surfaced in recent years to shed light on exactly what happened, icnluding Li Peng and Zhao Ziyang's diaries. Corroborating the two gives a very good idea of the actual course of events. Colipon+(Talk) 15:47, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

The external links are archived here as follows:

External links

• Condolence Book for Victims of Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 June 4th
• Origins & Consequences of the 1989 Massacre – Parts ONE, TWO & THREE from the World Socialist Website
• Hong Kong Alliance In Support Of Patriotic Democratic Movements Of China
• Eyeballing Tiananmen Square Massacre – Photo Gallery
• Tiananmen Square Massacre – slideshow by The First Post
• Eyewitness account of events on the night of 4 June
• Eyewitness account of the massacre from a Marxist's Perspective
• Human Rights in China's Section on 1989 Democracy movement
• The Gate of Heavenly Peace – Feature-length Documentary
• The Myth of Tiananmen And the Price of a Passive Press Columbia Journalism Review
• Continuing the Revolution is Not a Dinner Party – a Marxist-Leninist analysis of the events
• Secret recordings resurrect Chinese PM’s criticism of Tiananmen crackdown – Radio France Internationale
• "The Tank Man", 2006 PBS documentary
• BBC report about Tiananmen Protests
• BBC's "Witnessing Tiananmen: Clearing the square" with eyewitness accounts of Tiananmen
• The U.S. "Tiananmen Papers" – US Perceptions of the crisis
• The Virtual Museum of China '89
• Tiananmen Square, 1989 The Declassified History
• Victims of 4 June Massacre
• "Tiananmen: Love Squared", an educational romantic comedy on the subject.
• "Uncivil Society, or, Orientalism and Tiananmen," 1989, an academic article on the meaning and politics of Tiananmen.
• Booknotes interview with Harrison Salisbury on Tiananmen Diary, October 15, 1989.
• Booknotes interview with Shen Tong on Almost a Revolution, December 16, 1990.

Picture of Mao

I have removed the reference to three students from Hunan vandalizing the picture of Mao from the "protests escalate" section of the article. It does not seem to fit into the themes or chronology of the article, and is relatively anecdotal in nature. I am open to putting it back if there is a suitable way to fit it into the context of a later section. Please respond to this if you disagree. Colipon+(Talk) 00:40, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

PLENTY OF PROPAGANDA IN THIS ARTICLE

This event must be one of the most misunderstood and misreported of all time. The article here states that people were unhappy with corruption following Deng's free market reforms- this is true and the main reason for the demonstrations, the students wanting to reinstate original revolutionary socialism. Regardless of Western media coverage few of them were asking for Western multi-party democracy and most knew nothing about it. The article then fudges all this by somehow saying the government wanted to stop the reforms- this is confused garbage and doublespeak. It was Deng's government that was trying to Westernize and the PROTESTERS were trying to stop it: Western media coverage was disgusting, co-opting the protest to say how bad the government was when the West was simply afraid of its modernization and huge potential competition. The students were AGAINST capitalism because of inadequate monetary controls as Western investers moved in to build factories and line pockets because the socialist financial structures couldn't handle capital properly yet. The protesters almost won as over the next few years the Maoists returned to power and Deng was forced out, fortunately returning again with the help of the military to make China the pillar of the world it is today. Had the students really thrown out the government they had no clue what to do with power and millions would likely have died as the country disintegrated. The only question is why Deng couldn't have used other methods for clearing the square, such as water canons. Sean McHugh Feb 2nd 2012

Actually, if you read through the 'causes' section, I think this article presents a fairly nuanced perspective on everything. It says that there were elements that wanted democracy and there were elements that wanted a return to Maoist style communism. As yet it still does not recognize the loss of Deng's prestige and his ideas following the protests. Thankfully we have resources like Zhao's book that presents a much more accurate picture than stuff written by Western journalists. Also, if you have suggestions, please point out the passages in question so and how you propose we change it.

Also, the Square was cleared peacefully. The consensus from US embassy documents, journalists, and eyewitnesses is that almost all the shootings took place in western Beijing near Mixidi. Colipon+(Talk) 14:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Asia Times Estimate

"By Chinese standards, 7,000 dead is, if not a bloody blip, something along the magnitude of the show of state force inflicted on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing and other cities in 1989." - http://atimes.com/atimes/China/NB25Ad01.html

Include a table of breakdown by city?

Also follow-on protests: A Canadian caught listening to Neil Young music in the United states was tortured, maimed and burglarized. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.22.68.67 (talk) 10:08, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The Asia Times estimate of 7,000 dead is for Syria. The Asia Times then says that this number is "along the magnitude" of that for the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. That's a vague estimate for Tiananmen, so I don't really see putting it in the article. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 06:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Tank Man

Tank Man is an iconic figure that entered the international psyche through the Tiananmen Square protests. The image is extremely powerful and is the symbol of the Chinese democracy movement. However, I hesitate to place too much emphasis on this man in the article dealing with the protests as a whole. I have taken it out of the 'chronological' section of the article because it belongs more fittingly in the 'impact' or 'cultural references' section, since for all intents and purposes he did not have much of an effect on the protests per se, but is more of an ex post facto media phenomenon. Moreoever, the article is already over the recommended length, with large chunks of the chronology still missing. Per WP:SUMMARY, we can lay out the basic narrative for Tank Man and let the user consult the "main article" should they be interested in finding out more. Two paragraphs, in my view, is more than sufficient to discuss this matter. Colipon+(Talk) 02:24, 29 February 2012 (UTC)