Category Archives: China: Peace or War?

Tiananmen Square, China: Remember

CNN: Tiananmen Square timeline

April 15, 1989 – Hu Yaobang, a former Communist Party leader, dies. Hu had worked to move China toward a more open political system and had become a symbol of democratic reform.

April 18, 1989 – Thousands of mourning students march through the capital to Tiananmen Square, calling for a more democratic government. In the weeks that follow, thousands of people join the students in the square to protest against China’s Communist rulers.

May 13, 1989 – More than 100 students begin a hunger strike in Tiananmen Square. The number increases to several thousand over the next few days.

May 19, 1989 – A rally at Tiananmen Square draws an estimated 1.2 million people. General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Zhao Ziyang, appears at the rally and pleads for an end to the demonstrations.

May 19, 1989 – Premier Li Peng imposes martial law.

June 1, 1989 – China halts live American news telecasts in Beijing, including CNN. Reporters are prohibited from photographing or videotaping any of the demonstrations or Chinese troops.

June 2, 1989 – A reported 100,000 people attend a concert in Tiananmen Square by singer Hou Dejian, in support of the demonstrators.

June 4, 1989 – At about 1 a.m., Chinese troops reach Tiananmen Square. Throughout the day, Chinese troops fire on civilians and students, ending the demonstrations. An official death toll has never been released.

June 5, 1989 – An unidentified man stands alone in the street, blocking a column of Chinese tanks. He remains there for several minutes before being pulled away by onlookers.

History.com

Tiananmen Square History

While the events of 1989 now dominate global coverage of Tiananmen Square, the site has long been an important crossroads within the city of Beijing. It was named for the nearby Tiananmen, or “Gate of Heavenly Peace,” and marks the entrance to the so-called Forbidden City. The location took on added significance as China shifted from an emperor-led political culture to one that was governed by the Communist Party. . . .

On the 20th anniversary of the massacre [June 2009], the Chinese government prohibited journalists from entering Tiananmen Square and blocked access to foreign news sites and social media.

Still, thousands attended a memorial vigil in honor of the anniversary in Hong Kong. Ahead of the 30th anniversary of the event, in 2019, New York-based Human Rights Watch published a report detailing reported arrests in China of those associated with the protests.

The 1989 events at Tiananmen Square have also been highly censored on China’s tightly-controlled internet. According to a survey released in 2019 by the University of Toronto and the University of Hong Kong, more than 3,200 words referencing the massacre had been censored.

Tiananmen Square Censorship

It wasn’t until 2006 that Yu Dongyue, a journalist arrested for throwing paint at a portrait of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square during the protests, was released from prison.

On the 20th anniversary of the massacre [2009], the Chinese government prohibited journalists from entering Tiananmen Square and blocked access to foreign news sites and social media.

A famous statue at the University of Hong Kong marking the Tiananmen Square massacre was removed late on Wednesday [December 22, 2021].

The statue showed piled-up corpses to commemorate the hundreds – possibly thousands – of pro-democracy protesters killed by Chinese authorities in 1989.

The “Pillar of Shame” Tiananmen Memorial at Hong Kong University – officials removed it in December 2021

It was one of the few remaining public memorials in Hong Kong commemorating the incident.

Its removal comes as Beijing has increasingly been cracking down on political dissent in Hong Kong.

The city used to be one of few places in China that allowed public commemoration of the Tiananmen Square protests – a highly sensitive topic in the country. . . .

“The dissident Fang Lizhi, holed up at the United States Embassy in Beijing, in 1990, to avoid arrest after the Tiananmen crackdown, composed an essay titled “The Chinese Amnesia.”

“About once each decade, the true face of history is thoroughly erased from the memory of Chinese society,” he wrote . . . .

“This is the objective of the Chinese Communist policy of Forgetting History. In an effort to coerce all of society into a continuing forgetfulness, the policy requires that any detail of history that is not in the interests of the Chinese Communists cannot be expressed in any speech, book, document, or other medium.”

New Yorker, 10/02/23

Is QAnon the Future of North Carolina Education?? It’s On The Ballot!

Enforcing school discipline can sometimes mean imposing tough penalties.

— Writing something 50 times on the board?
— Time-outs?
— Detention after school?

Michele Morrow, communicating

Naaah. Wishy-washy liberal mush. Michele Morrow, who hopes to be elected state superintendent of public instruction, says it’s time to get serious about public schooling in North Carolina:

— How so? Maybe by boycotting the public system? Morrow prepared to run the North Carolina public schools by homeschooling her own kids, so they never spent a  day in them.

— Or what about by joining a coup? Morrow was in the crowd at the U. S. Capitol on January 6 2021 as part of the drive to “Stop the Steal.” Morrow told the Raleigh News & Observer that “I broke no laws . . . I damaged no property. I did not enter the Capitol Building.”  Maybe. But she also posted a video from there declaring “We are here to ensure that President Trump gets four more years.” (Aka= overthrow a lawful election.)

Continue reading Is QAnon the Future of North Carolina Education?? It’s On The Ballot!

Two by Dyer: A Just War In Gaza? And China: Is A Slow Future of Fizzle Underway?

Gwynne Dyer —

#1- Just War and the Gaza Strip

 December 5, 2023

Augustine of Hippo

“If you (Americans) were OK with us killing 5,000 children, you are OK with killing 10,000 children,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli diplomat who helped negotiate the Oslo peace accords in the 1990s. That’s what Israeli diplomats really think of US policy, he says.

This implies that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) both dismiss US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s strenuous warnings about the need to avoid high Palestinian casualties in the renewed bombing as just so much hot air.

Continue reading Two by Dyer: A Just War In Gaza? And China: Is A Slow Future of Fizzle Underway?

U. S. & China are new Competitors in an old, obscure, but important island dispute

A tug of war between China and America in the Indian Ocean

Saltwire: Atlantic Canada News Service — Sept. 6, 2023

The Chagos islands, with Diego Garcia, Indian Ocean

Most of the international community regards the Chagos Islands as belonging to Mauritius, from which they were detached in 1965.
Henry Srebrnik, a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island, provided the following opinion article.

Is the sun about to set on Britain’s control of the Chagos Islands? This archipelago of around 60 islands can be found halfway between East Africa and Southeast Asia. They are over 1,500 kilometres south of India, and even further from Mauritius, from which they were detached in 1965.

The Chagos group is currently governed by London as the British Indian Ocean Territory, but most of the international community regards it as belonging to Mauritius.

Also at stake is the future of the indigenous population, the Chagossians, who were expelled from their homes in the 1960s and 1970s. For decades, Britain has blocked them from returning to their islands. For what reason? And why has this become the centre of a power struggle between the United States and China?

Unlawful occupation Continue reading U. S. & China are new Competitors in an old, obscure, but important island dispute

Gwynne Dyer: The Secret Life of BRICS

What’s BRICs? Does it Amount to Anything?

Gwynne Dyer, August 31, 2023

What’s BRICs? Does it Amount to Anything?


YOU can expand the curious organisation called the BRICS, but you can’t define it. In fact, it’s hardly even an organisation: no headquarters, no secretariat. Even the (British) Commonwealth and la Francophonie have more substance: at least they share a former oppressor. Yet the BRICS are expanding.

Continue reading Gwynne Dyer: The Secret Life of BRICS