epepke said:
China seems to have the same public relations firm as cats and Ronald Reagan. No matter what heinous acts they pull, they are instantaneously forgiven and forgotten. Right now they're doing some serious saber-rattling at Taiwan, but no, no, they're no threat to anybody. And there were no, I repeat, no Chinese at all who ever bore any responsibility for North Korea.
I remember when Tienanmen Square happened. I remember all the scientists at my workplace sending faxes to China because otherwise they would not have heard about the massacre. But no, no, the same people who will kvetch endlessly about Fox News think China's just peachy.
I can't even count the times I've heard that China was just poised to become a world economic powerhouse, and then they go and do something stupid. But two milliseconds later, all the hype is back again.
You would have condemed Abe Lincoln too eh? Tiawan is apart fo China. If a group of people in Hawaii began moves to leave the union do you think the US woudl let them? This president was already established in "Americans bloodiest war", the anwser is no.
Norhter Ireland anyone?
Why are people suprized that a country won't let minority intersts takeover a part and remove itself from union?
Also, about Tienanmen Square, do you know the entire detials?
The Chinese had been protesting in China for 6 or 7 days and were refusing to stop. They disrupted Gorbechev's visit and were requesting an audiance with the Chinese administration.
Chinese leadership eventually met with the leaders of the protests on live national Chinese television and fielded question and suffered all number of insults. They were all sitting together in the same room with these protestors, etc and these protestors were allowed to say anything they wanted to the leadership live for everyone to see.
After that the protestors still refused to stop protesting. They had shut down major parts of the city and due to the fact that they were also fasting they were starting to require medical attention.
The government then decided that they had to to something to make the people go home.
What do you think the US would do today if 100,000 protestors shuch down DC for a week during a visit from a foreign leader? Do you think the US would currently use any violence to make the people leave? Do you think the protestors would be given live airtime to sit in a room with Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld and ask them all kinds of questions? Do you think that Bush woudl personally come to the protest adn walk among the people and talk to them like the Chinese leaders did, who broke down in tears in the middle of the crowd? They were crying for the condition fo the people, but they still demanded that they coudl not continue to just stay there, they had to leave to restore some order.
They were allowed to entire ruin the visit from Gorbechev. Nothing was done for 6 days while they totally altered the plans for Gorby. They thoughthtat once he was gone they would go home and it would be over, but they didn't.
They had even agreed to open talk and continue to work with the leaders of the protest after it was over to work on reform, but they just kept refusing to leave.
When the army finally came out, what actually happned was that some protestors killed a member of the Chinese army first, and then fighting broke out between members of the army, some fighting against the others, and then finally the acts that we all knwo happened.
The protestors got first blood though.
Again, if a 6 day 100,000 man protest took place in DC and the protestors killed a members the security in a riot do you think that someone would get killed in America? I think so. About half the people killed in Tienanmen Square were soldiers BTW.
People in America were killed for less, Kent State, don't forget.
Are you going to condem America because of Kent State, which was a much smaller protest, yet reacted to with much greater force? What about the riots in New York during the Civil War when the army came in and killed many? Going to condem us for that?
Tienanmen Square has been a complete misportrayal of events by Western media, and that's a fact. I'm not saying that because I like China, I don't, but the fact is that it didn't happen the way our news said it happened.
Edit: To add, here is teh transcript of the televised meeting betwen the protestors and the leadership:
http://www.tsquare.tv/chronology/May18mtg.html
Note that the student protestors say:
all want to see whether our own government is still our own government. In fact, herein lies the problem. This is the first point. Second, comrades, we all are fighting for communism. To save one life is already a job of prime importance, let alone saving thousands of lives. Many of our students have fainted. We are all people of good conscience.
The protestors, unlike what is popularly portrayed in the US media, were all PRO-COMMUNISTS!
It was a protest FOR communism. The issue at hand was democracy, they wanted to ensure democratic control in teh country, but they were not anti-Communist, they were pro-communist.
