After seeing a megathread praising Mao Zedong, an actual mass killer, and a post about a guy saying “99% of westerners are 100000000000% sure they know what happened in ‘Tiny Man Square’ […] the reasons for this are complex and involve propaganda […],” I am genuinely curious what leads people to this belief system. Even if propaganda is involved when it comes to Tiananmen Square, it doesn’t change the atrocities that were/are committed everywhere else in China.
I am all for letting people believe what they want but I am lost on why one would deliberately praise any authoritarian system this hard.
Can someone please help me understand why this is such a large and prominent community? How have these ideals garnered such a following outside of China?
EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has responded! This thread has been very insightful :)
Homie, there is still a line of tanks in that video you just linked.
I’m old AF and saw shit sir happen in real time.
No hate(and America is likely worse given our history) by you gotta be objective!
Unarmed police vs. violent students?
I am asking you honestly, does that sound probable?
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There’s pictures of the police and their vehicles burning, and there’s video of the tanks stopping until the road is clear. If there was evidence that the tanks ran over some people and evidence that there was violence from the government side before June 4 then I’d change my tune for sure. I don’t have a problem with admitting when a socialist country does something wrong[1], and as I said I’m already critical of the fact that the CPC had allowed things to reach this point in the first place. But I’m not going to denounce them for things that I have no evidence for.
Not to an American, I guess. But if the evidence showed something different I would let you know.
Here’s a simple trick: check the density of citations in a summary of the “Tiananmen Square Massacre” from a source that claims that a massacre actually did take place and more than a thousand people were killed. Then check the density of hard evidence (first hand accounts, pictures and video) referenced by the comment I linked originally. When the narrative is that the CPC massacred a thousand+ innocent people, you’ll likely get 3 pictures and a few quotes. When the narrative is that there were skirmishes between students and the government that led to a few hundred people killed on both sides, there’s a mountain of evidence.
For example, China invaded Vietnam to punish them for stepping into Cambodia to fight the Khmer Rouge. This was a completely unnecessary invasion and China should have absolutely never supported the Khmer Rouge. They also supported the Western aligned side in several conflicts in Africa and Latin America purely because they wanted to impede the Soviets. There are some legitimate reasons why they opposed the Soviets which is getting a bit into the deep lore of 20th century Communist history, but none of them justify using the Global South as their pawns and aligning with capitalist empire. IMO, even if the Tiananmen Square Massacre had happened, this would still be the worst thing the PRC ever did ↩︎
Hey homie, you’re the one that said “massacre” twice.
I was trying my damnedest to avoid that word.
You said it. No accusations. Just feel you should be aware.
I’m using the word deliberately to refer to one narrative.
You saw him get run over?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen that footage
:)
feel free to elaborate, otherwise I think this is a Mandela effect
No, you’re right. I’ll admit my memories may be propaganda.
But come on homie, you can’t be fans of xi & Putin.
I am not fans of either of them, nor am I fan of any other world leader.
That doesn’t mean I’m going uncritically accept every propaganda narrative that the country I live in pumps out about its state enemies.
Well said.
For what specific reason do you think it’s laughable to be a fan of Xi Jinping? I mean, I don’t think it’s useful to view major world leaders in a simplistic lens like that, but for your average Joe that doesn’t have time to develop a very complex understanding of geopolitics, is it really so foolish to identify Xi Jinping as being generally good?
Like if you look back 2000 years at some historical figures like the Gracchi brothers in the Roman Republic. They’re complicated and there’s a lot of discourse about them, if they were altruistic or if they were opportunists, their personal participation in slavery, patriarchy, all the bad stuff. But the broad strokes is that they were popular reformers who did some things that were massively beneficial to the Roman workers. Would you look at a high school or undergrad student that looked at the Gracchi and said they’re a fan like they’re crazy?