We all know the Tiananmen Square story.

There was a brutal crackdown by the Chinese government on peaceful pro-democracy protesters in June 1989. Thousands of unarmed civilians were massacred by the military.

Except that, well, the official story is not true.

There was no massacre.

What went down was far more nuanced than simply YellowManBad. In other words, there's context that matters—though it's hard to navigate through all the Western, anti-China propaganda.

Was there a crackdown?

Yes.

Was there a massacre?

No.

So, the question is: What actually happened?

The problem is this: as far as can be determined from the available evidence, no one died that night in Tiananmen Square.

A few people may have been killed by random shooting on streets near the square, but all verified eyewitness accounts say that the students who remained in the square when troops arrived were allowed to leave peacefully. Hundreds of people, most of them workers and passersby, did die that night, but in a different place and under different circumstances.

The Chinese government estimates more than 300 fatalities. Western estimates are somewhat higher. Many victims were shot by soldiers on stretches of Changan Jie, the Avenue of Eternal Peace, about a mile west of the square, and in scattered confrontations in other parts of the city, where, it should be added, a few soldiers were beaten or burned to death by angry workers.

— Jay Mathews, Columbia Journalism Review (2010)

In other words, the protests were a series of student-led demonstrations, backed by Western intelligence (specifically the CIA), calling for political and economic reforms.

Haven't we seen that before?

Tiananmen Square, 1989 — Revisited

/2018/05/TianAnmen-1.png Imagine it’s midsummer. Students from Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Radcliffe, Columbia, Vassar, Smith, Brown, Wellesley, Cornell, Dartmouth and Penn are demonstrating outside the White House and flooding the Washington Mall with Dolce & Gabbana hoodies. They’ve been there for six weeks and, as their number has grown, their mood has darkened: corruption has triggered another downturn, there’s a crime wave and rampant inflation threatens employment prospects and the National Merit Scholarship program has been canceled. Student leaders–some sponsored by a shadowy Chinese NGO, and recently returned from Beijing–say the failure to prosecute bankers is evidence of criminal conspiracy and government

The Unz ReviewGodfree Roberts

The number of students partaking in the protests quickly grew to over a million.

Which is a lot of people.

The government initially tolerated all of it but eventually sent in troops and tanks to forcibly clear the area. This resulted in—surprise surprise—some violence, mostly from the students who were victims of, what Mattias Desmet describes as, mass formation.

Herd mentality.

Groupthink.

Free-floating anxiety.

By the way, regarding the famous 'tank man' photo, have you ever seen the video?

As you can clearly see, the protester stood in front of the tank, which then attempted to move around him. The protester blocked it again, then climbed on top. Why?

Excellent slideshow

Matt Ehret, from The Canadian Patriot, wrote an incredible piece in which he debunks the propaganda and gave me a slideshow which I highly recommend watching.