Talk:1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre

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)

What was the protest about?

Western media at the time dressed up the protest as a protest for democracy. But the reality was that the protest was an anti-capitalist protest, as was happening in western countries recently. Deng Xiaoping had been purged several times by Mao and the Gang of Four for being a capitalist roader. Deng was a capitalist. The protestors wanted to remove Deng the capitalist, as Mao had wanted. The protestors were thus anti-capitalist protestors and not pro-democracy protestors. 86.128.174.213 (talk) 01:30, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

What reliable secondary sources do you have to back up your claim that the protests were anti-capitalist? Without such sources, the article should not be modified to mention such a point of view. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 06:02, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

How does it compare to the anti-capitalism protests in Europe? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20243625 86.180.54.222 (talk) 01:16, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

The BBC page you provided cannot be used in this Wikipedia article because it says nothing about the 1989 protests. Please see WP:SYNTH. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 06:02, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Common sense my dear Watson, common sense. 86.136.200.108 (talk) 02:49, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:V, Wikipedia article content should come from reliable sources, not be based merely on an editor's personal opinion of what is common sense. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 05:46, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Any reliable evidence that it was anything but an anti-capitalist protest? 81.129.180.47 (talk) 02:09, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Please see WP:BURDEN, which says that the burden of proof in this situation is on those who want to add content about the protest being anti-capitalist. There is no burden of proof on myself or anyone else who is against adding that content. So, where are your reliable sources saying that this protest was anti-capitalist? -- JTSchreiber (talk) 05:34, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Efforts by Chinese Government to Sanitize this Article

I have seen over time this article increasingly sanitized (no longer a "massacre", they have been working to get that term removed for a long time now). "Nobody died in Tianman square" and now some bullshit about this being an "anti-capitalist protest". Hundreds if not thousands are believed to have been killed. This article is increasingly becoming Chinese revisionist history. Someone needs to keep an eye on this and realize that sock-puppets are everywhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.188.176.2 (talk) 15:08, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Evidence for your claims which amount to accusations of conflict of interest, which is a severe personal attack? GotR ^Talk 22:31, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

For those that are not so bent on erasing the history that I remember, regarding this massacre; a quick google images search for "Tiananmen Square Massacre" provides any required *evidence* that this entire article and it's title are in conflict of interest against: the facts, truth and history.Bsdxlr8 (talk) 04:30, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Shame on Chinese Wikipedia self-censorship

Dear all citizens from the world of freedom,

I am here to told you a horrible story about Chinese wikipedia registered users removing "unwanted" contents systematically such as "the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989" and "Tank Man" from the related articles, for example "Type 59 tank". In these articles they remove everything about Tiananmen or tank man, including links, pictures, or even just text, they won't let any wordings (such as "1989" or 64 which represnts "June 4") survive in these articles. Any content about June 4 had been removed recent years, and it seems no one would dare to change the condition.

In some cases, they even request for deleting the whole articles. For example, in the talk page of "Tank man" Chinese version, you can even see how they attempted to delete the whole article.

Here are just some of the notable examples. Recently they even tried to remove an article about Masanjia Labor Camp by laying "there is no report by western media." Then a guy added some links such as Huffington Post, Daily Mail and CNN. A user from China then questioned if The Huffington Post and Daily Mail of British "reliable sources of news". That Chinese user kept on saying "you should not write such article just after reading those bias reports" and "those are not reliable sources of News". That guy keep on blaming and another user from China also joined.

They also talk of removing wiki links about june four protest. They consider those adding or talking about june 4 as bad guys "damaging" the Chinese wikipedia.

Sorry for the inconvenient I caused, as all links I post are all Chinese only. I just hope to raised the attentions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.118.51.245 (talk) 10:50, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

We Have Been Lied To

Go to Chinese Google and search tiananmen square massacre and tank man. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.193.44.88 (talk) 13:23, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Interesting that this has the the hardliners labelled as conservatives instead of calling them the hard left.

For example, would we also call those of the hard Christian right in the united states *reformers* because they want to change government policy and restrict all abortion, and label the liberals who oppose them as *conservatives*? of course not. I'd suggest it is unwise to label all those who wish to retain some aspect of the status quo as conservative because it can confuse the issues.

I also find it odd that this article declares that these protests were about inequality caused by market reforms and rich people flaunting their wealth, rather than about obtaining the right to participate in politics and freedom of speech (aka democracy). it seems the acknowledged leader of the protests, Fang Lizhi, disagrees completely with Wikipedia's assessment.

Is this page about history, or is it propaganda?

Tank Man

That image in the infobox should be removed per Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2011_April_12#File:Tianasquare.jpg. --HNAKXR (talk) 02:07, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Neutrality Discussion

I am astounded at the egregious bias so rife and evident in this article. Many claims are unreferenced, in addition to the fact that only one perspective and one narrow, pelage-of-a-viewpoint are represented in the article. On the relevant Wikipedia page, I am instructed to, after placing the neutrality tag on the page, to outline which areas I feel are unrepresentative. This particular area is actually the entire article. I do not feel such a slanted and skewed article has a place on Wikipedia. QatarStarsLeague (talk) 23:38, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with QatarStarsLeague, this article is very biased:

- There's no mentioning of the US embassy wire released by Wikileaks that supports the Chinese government's account of events.

- There's an inflamatory photo of machine guns, but where are the photos of violent rioters attacking unarmed soldiers and charred bodies of dead soldiers?

- http://www.bearcanada.com/graphics/china/tam001.jpg

- http://www.bearcanada.com/graphics/china/tam002.jpg

- http://www.bearcanada.com/graphics/china/tam003.jpg

- http://www.bearcanada.com/graphics/china/tam004.jpg

- Right, show a photo of machine gun, but does not mention declassified NSA intel stating the troops sent to restore order and clear the square were initially unarmed.

Bias bais bais, very sad to see wikipedia being exploited like this to perpetuate propaganda. Facts stated above (wikileak wires, declassified NSA intel, public domain photo from China with no copyright restriction in US) came from Google and can be publically verifed.

Bobby fletcher (talk) 00:08, 5 June 2013 (UTC)