Today marks the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in China.
June 4, 1989 and the events leading up to that moment are forbidden discussion in China. 37-years later the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will still target and seek the arrest of anyone who recognizes this monumental date in modern Chinese history. As a few readers will remember, this date also personal to me.
[New Photographs Here]
Through the years CTH has remembered this date, noting the importance of that moment not only in China but also in the rest of the world who were watching events, trying to understand the student protest issues and also learning about the country that was beginning to break into a much larger modern world from the other side of the Pacific.
Part of the interest in communist China was driven by watching what was taking place in Eastern Europe, the collapse of communism. Just five months after Tiananmen, in November 1989 the Berlin Wall came down, signaling the end to communism in Europe. These months were fascinating for curious American Gen Xers who were witnessing an inflection point in history between two generations – and they could sense it.
For myself, June 4, 1989, also represented an awakening as I listened to several media broadcasts talk about the Chinese government response to Tiananmen as a “hard-right crackdown.” No, that didn’t make sense. On the left is bigger government, totalitarianism. On the political right is smaller government. If the government was shutting down freedom and liberty protests, that’s bigger government – not smaller.
So, in reality, what I was witnessing was a “hard-left crackdown.”
…. But the media kept repeating, “hard right,” as if repeating it over and over was going to make reality bend in a different direction. They said it so much it was almost like they were trying to convince themselves. I began thinking about things. I kept my mouth shut and my ears open. I began questioning things that were presented to me. Suffice to say, I began waking up.
They looked like me.
Well, not like me per se’, but that thing in their eyes looked just like mine.
The banner in front of them read, “Liberty or death.”
They were a long way away.
I did not know them, but this was my tribe.
On the other side of the water, my tribe was trying to achieve the same thing.
Millions of Eastern European Gen-Xers also hopeful.
Big hair, same music, similar clothes but different languages.
It was like people from the same tribe who had been scattered all over the globe suddenly standing up in unison.
It was 37 years ago tonight when the Chinese government sent the Mongolian Army into Tiananmen Square to crackdown on the mostly student protestors.
It is against the law in China to recognize today, memorialize the dead, or even speak publicly of this bloody anniversary. Few people know the short and long-term political ramifications to this event which extended far beyond the borders of China.
Many people are familiar with this image:
However, not as many people are as familiar with the wide shot.
That’s some serious courage right there.
The June 4th, 1989, anniversary holds a great deal of personal significance for those who witnessed the events. Many of us remember exactly where we were as the first reports started to leak out.
Few people know that most of the regular Chinese military refused orders to open fire on the protesting crowd. Hundreds of young Chinese military soldiers actually formed lines around the mostly student activists in an effort to protect them.
Chinese military general Xu Qinxian refused orders to deploy troops against the Beijing protests in May 1989. He was stripped from command of the elite 38th Group Army and imprisoned for five years.
The Chinese government eventually bypassed the regular army and instructed the Mongolian military divisions who carried out the orders.
No one really knows how many were killed, and even the families of the fallen were too scared to speak publicly.
Those who were lost live on in whispered memories of lore.
So many.
So young.
We remember.
…Then the tanks came….
“On June 4, the world marks 37 years since the Chinese Communist Party ordered its troops to attack thousands of peaceful demonstrators in and around Tiananmen Square. Chinese students, workers, and other civilians who lost their lives had gathered to exercise their natural rights and demand democratic reforms and accountability for corruption. We remember their lives and honor their legacy. No amount of censorship can erase the past. Those who sacrificed to uphold their unalienable rights of free expression and peaceful assembly will be vindicated someday.”
~ Secretary of State Marco Rubio, June 4, 2026
There are very powerful people who love to crush us in the same way
🙏 unceasingly
We might just shoot back though
Might?
They already started with two practice runs: J6 and covid.
Of course you could also consider Ruby Ridge and WACO. And don’t forget about what they tried to do at Charlottesville.
The left loves destruction. They are experts at destroying.
J6, COVID, election fraud and illegal immigration and lawfare.
AND CONTROLLING!
I often wondered about the total silence after that photo was shown. The MSM went totally dark on that. Yet the Beirut, Lebanon we saw massive coverage a half decade earlier. That was the turning point for me with MSM! I was becoming the dot connector bigly! Being a Vietnam vet and seeing history first hand was the actual beginnings and how that conflict was reported! Remember “Tricky Dickie” did a China visit after that conflict. Again very little was reported. Thank you Sundance for those pics we never saw! I was a “teenie bopper” member in my younger age. The hippie era.
The Ho Chi Minh Trail (main supply line for the Vietnam Conflict) for our enemy started in China and went to Hanoi (now Ho Chi Minh City).
I was in the ASA (Army Security Agency, the forerunner of the NSA) My specialty was the PDJ (Plain de Jars) part where 5 intersections joined the Trail. Very little was written about that part of history.
I had meant to include Saigon with Hanoi, forgive that error on my part as I was typing faster than my mind was recalling!
Welcome home Brother.
THANK YOU for your service, Pa.
My 2 Vietnamese daughters are especially grateful!
BTW, Ha Noi is still Ha Noi (in every way imaginable).
As far as the locals are concerned, Sai Gon is also still Sai Gon (never HCMC).
Back in 2016, we were in Sai Gon during Tet. The Rex Hotel had a large display of
tables arranged for the military to come in for lunch, after their planned tribute to HCM.
We actually expected to see many, many military…, but that did not happen.
Only 10-12 stood in front of the statue and saluted HCM.
As that happened, the rest of the Vietnamese did their very best to pretend to not notice.
That evening, we had tickets to a Tet party on the rooftop of the Rex, to watch the
fireworks and enjoy a meal and entertainment. My daughter an I noticed that there was a
shiny, new Escalade parked *right behind* the statue of HCM, in the pretty manicured grass.
Pretty sure that some of the Americans that we met that evening were the folks who
parked the Escalade. Hmmmm….
p.s. The rooftop of the Rex had the 5 o’clock club, where each evening (at 5), the Generals would
hold a press conference, during the Vn War.
I mean they would love to do the same to us.
We must never give in
“…they would love to do the same to us…again”…’Rona….
China will ALWAYS BE CHINESE.
The COVID lockdowns are a reminder that State-control and social order are the two premier elements in this culture.
The Middle Kingdom has five thousand enduring years of demonstrated historical performance of this dictum. 🙁
My only problem with this piece is that the “narrow shot” does not correspond to the “wide one.” In the former, four are crammed into the camera view; in the latter, only three. It is fairly easy to see how the fourth was photographically inserted: very different from the others on close inspection.
Nonetheless: this was a monumental action on the part of the Chinese people, which was crushed. But not forever.
When we speak of “the ‘unstoppable’ CCP,” we should re-remind ourselves of the Truth about Communism: “that it never actually works.”
• The greatest Communist experiment, “the USSR,” was abandoned by its followers.
• Cuba is about to make the same discovery – at long last.
• For China’s present masters, it is only a matter of time – and, I predict, “very soon in coming.”
“Communism,” like “Marxism,” is an “–ism!” Which translates to being an aberration against “actual human social rules that actually work.”
“China’s masters” continue to control their limited media. Therefore, they can conceal. But it is still there. And it’s coming.
In the ancient history of “China,” it will soon be declared that “the CCP” was only a blip.
Maybe the close-up shot was taken after the first tank stopped and the rest stacked up behind it. Then there’s the telephoto effect. Looks legit to me..
I concur, the close up is after the first tank stopped and the rest stacked up behind it.👍🏻
You might want to check what is in the hands of the protestor in front of the 1st tank in all of the pictures.
Without the Democrats and RINOs the CCP would still be living in huts. Communism never works. What happened was the transfer of our wealth and manufacturing to the CCP. The populace is still poor.
They have made a complete mess of China worse than before. More polluted in every sense, the slaughter of millions of girls, the killing of minorities, and the rampant spread of disease. One Child….No Future.
None of their numbers are accurate. The waste of resources and money is staggering. Ghost Cities. Tofu construction.
And these crazy Democrat/Communists here want us to look the same as CCP Land.
Terry, yer ignorance of facts is hanging out, the Chinese are very industrious people, and would have advanced even without Dims and Rinos helping them. China today is a first world nation in ever aspect , except for freedoms, I know, I’v been over there.
The contrast between when I first visited (1984) now is mind boggling. At that time, there was no refrigeration, even in the large cities. I spoke enough Mardarin to ask for a “cold drink”, but was only given room temperature drinks. There was no plastic. Container materials were either glass or clay. Glad I went back then; would not go back now.
Lack of Plastic was the main reason there wasn’t much garbage pollution back then.
I was also there pre “Modernization” and agree with you, no desire to go back now.
Went back in the mid- late 90’s when “Modernization” had just started and it was very clear it was leading- *fast*- to a total sh*tshow. The plastic bags, trash, etc had already started clogging up waterways, etc.
All the beautiful old buildings demolished for badly built highrises, etc etc. etc.
That was when I said, I am never coming back here again. I don’t even want to see what the outcome here will be. ugh.
Yogurt was purchased in these beautiful little clay containers. When the local residents finished their snack, they went around to the back of the shop and smashed the containers into a large pile of rubble. These broken pieces of clay were then recycled into more containers. I kept mine as a souvenir that I still have today.
And every train station (and Other Public Places) had a huge vat of boiling water, where you’d go with your jar and fill it up with clean drinking water.
Women sat on the sidewalk outside the stations crocheting Plastic Jar Covers that would stretch over your jar you so you could carry your jar of boiling water w/o burning yourself. I still have mine. It says Beijing in Chinese characters on it. Got it in…Beijing!
Someone I knew went to Russia around that time and said they didn’t have disposable cups. So in the Red Square after much walking you could purchase a beverage but you had to drink it quickly out of the cup it was served in that you just watched a total stranger drink out of moments before and that individual returned the cup to the seller who promptly refilled it without washing and gave it to you to drink out of. There was a long line of people waiting for their chance to drink as well so you had to drink fast.
Very true. Moscow anecdote from early 1980s: One day I felt like having an orange. A vendor was selling oranges from the Caucasus out of a cart on the sidewalk near the apartment complex; so I joined the line to get an orange. As I neared the orange cart, someone bought the entire supply of oranges, the cart, and even the sign displaying the price of the oranges. He pushed the whole lot down the sidewalk about a half a block, took out a magic marker, upped the price on the sign by a few kopecks, and was open for business. The line moved with him without complaint. Well, here I am in the heart of the communist paradise and I see capitalism in its purist form. So, wanting to gage a reaction from those in the line, I began to rant in Russian about this disgusting display of capitalism when a grandma hit me with her purse and shouted, “Shut up, you damned Italian!” Moral: capitalism is acceptable in communist countries; Russians considered Italians to be fanatical communist ideologues; and, I bought my orange.
Oh how interesting. I lived in Italy in the 70’s when -unbeknown to me before I left the US- they were in the middle of a commie mess in some cities.
Marches all the time, no rentals, everyone on strike all the time, running out of currency to the point where Bus Token were taken as money in many shops.. I did not know that word of that had spread far and wide, to USSR of all places.
Great story!
I’d rather drink out of my own jar, like the Chinese did. LOL.
‘China today is a first world nation in ever aspect , except for freedoms…’
Have you noticed how the US/aligned nations are moving to emulate the part about “except for freedoms” ?
“in the long history of China, CCP will be a blip”. Perhaps the CCP will be a blip, but in the entirety of China and even of the world, 95+% of human existence has been under totalitarian or strong man rule. Even “democracy” of ancient Greece and Rome was “yes or no” on the chosen candidate.
While we say we like Putin as going against the globullists and resisting the woke west intrusion into Russia, he wasn’t exactly elected “democratically”.
Before criticizing Russian “elections”, answer us this, was Biden “democratically “ elected”? What about Obama who clearly was not born in this country, yet he was elected in violation of the constitution. The citizens of the United States are given a choice of candidates by two parties who, in reality, are two wings of the same corrupt system. Is that democracy?
Keep it down… people will see we aren’t all we think we are. It’s a massively overgrown production we choose to believe in.
Is that the same as Pretending?
What is bandied about as “Democracy” is really about greasing the skids for more Socialism and its inevitable end into totalitarianism.
The United States of America was founded as a republic, not a democracy.
“Democracy” is two wolves and one sheep voting on what’s for dinner.
Democracies are bad.
Specifically, our government is a constitutional republic with federalism, checks and balances, and popular sovereignty built in.
The purpose of our government is to protect the God-given liberty of the individual, in accordance with the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.
When a UniParty Deep State functionary uses the word “democracy,” you can bet your bottom dollar that he means “the right of government to control the lives of the people for their own good.”
They are the wolves, we are the sheep, and we are the dinner menu. That’s democracy.
Tiananmen Square is the natural outcome of “democracy”-whether it’s in China or the United States.
I often use the term democracy’s make dictatorships; people will look at me as if I am speaking a foreign language.
“Democracy” is a meme carried about by communist-aligned democrats and unipartyists who use the word with the objective of having others associate the word with their party name. The meaning is totally different, but in the Hegelian dialectic that they all ascribe to, knowingly or not, the usage of the word is intended to cause an association with “democrat.”
Anyone who calls this country a “democracy,” or uses the phrase “our democracy,” should be immediately ignored – because anything that follows is dialectic bullshit.
MAO and the evolved PRC seized on Communism and its western backers as a response to the KMT and Sun Yat-sen’s American-inspired approach to civil order.
China has to manage over 50 diverse ethnic groups. Communism was the means to unify the country under central control, something the KMT could not achieve, with a body count in the tens of millions as the cost.
The CCP has evolved into a distinctly Chinese flavor, where traditional enterprise and market forces are governed under central control.
I can go into any exhaustive list of their challenges, but you cannot deny that the CCP has lifted China out of poverty and made it one of the top three economies over the last 50 years.
Conversely, the KMT has done rather well with its tenets in Taiwan, though it is fraying.
China will be China and the entire world needs to deal with that! 🙂
“CCP has lifted China out of poverty “.
This is false. A transfer of wealth via offshoring western manufacturing lifted China. The west lifted China, not the CCP. Left the their own devices the CCP would still be riding bicycles.
I don’t disagree. I was going to mention Kissinger/Nixon opened China to the western banks followed by the offshoring effects of globalism in the 80’s/90’s. The CCP played (us) using Globalism and Euro-trash banking.
Social Order and Central Control……..
That’s why our POTUS is reordering finance and trade. Our Great Sovereign Nation got taken to the cleaners! 🙂
China’s only success is how well it steals from others (the United States etc.)
Once there is nothing left to steal they’ll implode.
That’s the classic success story of communism.
The only way to win is to keep your wits and values strong until you outlast the thieves. Only then can you rebuild what you lost from scratch until the next time communism rears it’s ugly head again.
That wasn’t Communism, that was millennia of doing business the Chinese way. There is no Marquis of Queensberry rule observance or common moral grounding in China. They are a very practical people and observe playground rules in business. They want to eat and win at any cost.
America’s greatest edge is our God-Given Individual Sovereignty. No other nation offers the opportunity for humans to achieve at the highest individual levels of creativity and productivity because we allow the human spirit to fulfill God’s gifts.
I am not a Sino-phile. I am a Sino-Realist. 🙂
Let’s be honest. China didn’t “steal” from the US. The US gave it all away. China didn’t even have to ask.
It’s why I voted for Trump in ’16. He was the first US politician to state that truth out loud.
China had approx 100 years of being dominated by Europe and the US as the Qing government was unable to protect its land and people. Japan took the opportunity to supplant China as the dominant power in East Asia. When a government fails it leads to localized rebellion which in China manifested as a civil war. Even with Japan as a common enemy it was impossible to achieve any kind of national unity. Of course throughout its history, rebellion by various warlords was the norm in China, but typically the central government put the rebellions down, or the government was subsumed into the rebellion (for example, as Yuan was replaced by Ming).
While we can get into intellectual debates over the meaning of “communism” as applied to China, I think it might be more useful to view from the historical context rather than political economy theory. I think the over-arching goal in today’s China is “Hanification” — elimination of all other ethnicities and rewrite Chinese history as the story of the Han. Of course some like the Uyghur aren’t so easy but others like the Manchu I would argue are largely gone.
Well, if you want to go there…..
Great thoughts, Scott! My memory is not what it was, but the Manchu dynasty was the Imperial face of “contemporary” China to the western world for 300 or so years.
Sun, Mao, and Chiang Kai-shek were Han, and represented the rise of the majority ethnic group to assert their equities over minority Manchu rule in the 20th century, restoring their ethnic “autonomy” with two distinct visions of a contrarian non-imperial structure after nearly 1800 years or so since their own imperial system.
If you want to go historical, China falls into the same model as Rhodesia, South Africa, Iraq, and others where the majority sects/tribes were artificially subjugated by minority regimes and rose to power at the expense of minority groups. Tibet is my favorite example of a less than benign ruling vision for the Han stewardship of China.
Thanks! Modeling Sino analysis on Han rule offers interesting discussions and perspectives and pops the hood on the dizzying, MYRIAD domestic challenges Xi faces internally as he puts forth the Dragon-Panda-Winnie the Pooh face to the world . 🙂
PS: The Chinese don’t call the Western occupation the CENTURY OF HUMILIATION for nothing! 🙂
There is clearly a time lag between the two shots. So, yes, the four tanks in front of the brave man have come to a halt in photo, but in the wide angle view they are still moving forward. Thus, the two images were taken at different times.
Tiananmen happened again on January 8 and 9, 2026. It happened in Iran. The mass killings there of unarmed protesters, by the tens of thousands, recalled Tiananmen Square. This time, our President and his allies responded militarily. It has been only five months, but already there are deniers, claiming it didn’t happen, that we were duped. Yes, there is evil in the world, and it must be confronted always. When the human rights of a people halfway around the world are denied, we lose our rights as well.
With the second most serious revolt against the CCP in Hong Kong so conveniently nipped in the bud as was Trump’s reelection by the amazingly well timed accidental release of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Even investor Kyle Bass noticed that Hong Kong coincidence.
China’s championed for WHO director general Tedros, former member of the Marxist/Maoist party in Ethiopia, a country that owed China $12 billion in loans, had been installed in the summer after Trump’s inauguration for his first term.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Must Resign. Now.
US House COVID committee determined that the WHO acted on behalf of the Chinese CCP during the COVID crisis
Dr. Robert W. Malone
Dec 03, 2024
https://www.malone.news/p/who-director-general-tedros-adhanom?utm_source=publication-search
China, knowing that the US had been involved in the development of the virus, knew there would be a huge cover-up in the West for any “accidental” release. High ranking Chinese military personnel had previously written a book where they say that they suspected that the original 2003 SARS outbreak in China had been a bioweapon attack against China.
I am not ‘a subscriber’ because I have so little time to read..
BUT I did just recently subscribe to Dr. Robert Malone’s Substack and I highly recommend everyone do this.
It’s worth the time, it’s a good one.
Those of us “old China Hands” remember 百花齊放 百家爭鳴 (Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend) 1956-57. The “Hundred Flowers Campaign” of Mao’s “encouraged” criticism of the CCP in order to build a more perfect socialist world…right. Hundreds of thousands of intellectuals, etc., came forward to criticize and then either permanently disappeared or became new railroad builders/settlers in the Kansu Corridor and Sinkiang AR. I remember at the time of Tiananmen reminding people about the Hundred Flowers and the subsequent rise of the Red Guards ten years later. I said the Tiananmen protests would not end well. People scoffed at my warning saying China was different because now “the whole world was watching.”…right.
Thank you so much, Sundance for putting beautifully accurate words to that 1989 ‘inflection point’ and calling out the endless cognitive dissonance inherent in MSM non-coverage of these topics. Am also reminded of when the Blue/Red (free/commie) map colors convention was quietly flipped in the late 1990s-early 2000s. Coincidence? I think not.
America was founded, and has been sustained by such action as was found in Tiananmen Square.
The sacrifice of the few to save the rights of so many!
I recommend that anyone who wants an insider’s view of Communist China, look up Xi Van Fleet on YouTube.
Who is Xi Van Fleet? She’s a Virginia mom who fled the China Cultural Revolution and who slams critical race theory as being communist. Xi Van Fleet likens CRT to China’s Cultural Revolution which saw Mao Zedong instigate a genocidal purge with anywhere between 500,000 and 20 million casualties. She became famous on the internet in 2021 when a video was posted of her making a 60 second speech to the Loudoun County VA School Board criticizing their leftwing curriculum that included CRT. Recently she’s been the “hot interview” for a variety of conservative streaming video shows. Even Mike Rowe had her on his popular show.
I watched her on Dad Saves America – it’s a very comprehensive interview, goes over 2 hours..
Mike Rowe’s “The way I Heard It” interview of Xi Van Fleet is worth watching as well.
Xi has such a fantastic sense of humor that I started laughing at the thought I had of getting together Xi and Roseanne Barr for a show, or sit-com, or biddy trip movie.
Agree. I’ve seen it. IMHO Mike is a good interviewer because of his background. Hes always been a doer, not just a talker.
But I thought the particular interview linked above is a bit more comprehensive and addresses more aspects than were discussed in Mike’s interview of Xi.
I’m sure you are correct, I only wanted to highlight that Xi Van Fleet did not allow the CCP to destroy her spirit or her love of life and laughter.
Yes, Mike Rowe is certainly an interviewer who can bring out that quality in his guests. I watched his interview of Xi and he did keep it more conversational than John Papola. Papola focuses more on probing issues and facts as a video journalist. I would recommend Mike’s interview for those who prefer the lighter type of interview yet still included a lot of facts and history. It’s shorter, too.
It has infiltrated Minnesota FOR SURE!!
MUST WATCH “Minnesota Mao” at 7:00pm CDT on You-Tube, starring Tim Wennie Wanker Walz.
-Alpha News and Liz Collin, world premier.
Critical theory is Marxist, but it isn’t communist as it isn’t based on the concept of economic class.
That attempt to differentiate the two terms was tried decades ago.
Communism is simply an application of Marxism. CRT is another application of Marxism. China couldn’t use race because it’s largely a one race nation. And they never criminalized racism so that it could be made a point of societal division.
Where using economic class doesn’t work, a different dimension that describes two classes must be identified.
America offers too many paths to move upwardly from poverty to wealth, so economics wouldn’t work. But because the former history of race segregation, that was the perfect dimension to divide society.
The timing was very perfect for the communist opportunists who embedded themselves into the USA. Desegregation happened about the same time as the anti American propaganda began to be taught in earnest in American universities.
Then after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Russian Federation was formed. Pro-communist propaganda spread and captured the Democrat Party. The rest is well documented recent history.
Marxism is behind Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. Marxists know their ideology will never be accepted by people who are independent minded and able to use critical thinking. So they have to be isolated and somehow turned into pariahs from the masses’ perspective.
Mostly I travelled in the rural provinces that were just developing. CNN was broadcast in the hotels. In the main cities the CNN ads with the Man standing in front of the tanks would automatically be blocked. In the rural provinces it was manual. Every now and then the truth would come out and you would see him in front of the tanks sometimes the whole thing sometimes just for a second.
The Truth. The Treehouse.
Although not at the scale of Tiananmen, some beaches in Iran repeated this type of massacre back in January of this year…Further, never forget the many Christians massacred around the world…All are in the same vein…
God Protect and Bless them all…
Also in June of 2009, Iran’s rulers butchered the young people; Obama did nothing, said nothing.
I thought he sent them billions on pallets of cash.
You are right! He DID do something!
Those young people thought Obama would support them.
Communism brings death.
Communism is contrary to the intended order of our Creator.
Death is a feature, not a bug and points to where it truly originated. It was always anti-human.
But death is the relief they wait for.
Communism makes peoples lives on earth a brutally long hellish existence that is so bad -death is the finally the end of the struggle for millions.
This is certainly not how life is supposed to be.
Overall, I think it’s the right thing to do to fight Communism, I think much of our trouble today is because we stopped doing this because our politicians wound up seeing the benefits of Communism here in America.
We should have been throwing the traitors out decades ago.
And hopefully we remember who was the jerk who declared the Cold War was over?
ahhhhhh, Papa Bush, the same guy who declared a New World Order??????
And then his son called “Dubya” took us into the War On Terror -and we can see how that all worked out for us with the Patriot Act, named to add even more insult to us.
Roughly half of our population belongs to a party that is now a terrorist group with the other party enabling their plans- despite the fact that we keep trying to vote NO.
The tank-column picture bothers me. Everyone sees it as a single guy stopping 20 tanks via the strength of his conviction, and never think it through past that. But none of the 19 tanks behind the front one had to stop for this guy. They could have all gone around him if that was what they were after. It was an arranged photo-op. How did they get cooperation?
“…arranged photo-op.”…? For whose benefit, exactly? That doesn’t make any sense.
The Chinese military is not trained to make independent decisions or ignore previous orders.
More likely, the Chinese army officials on scene in the unfolding political drama didn’t have the personal chops to change trained behavior and simply go around the man standing in their way.
Neither their training nor their experience allowed for that kind of departure from norms, which was follow the tank in front of you.
I’m guessing that Chesty Puller of the USMC had some applicable one-liners that would come to mind for any Marine facing a dilemma like the one faced by the second tank.
You forgot your “sarc” tag.
Read Sundance’s post again. There were many Chinese soldiers that were not okay with just mowing the people down. That’s why they had to get the Mongolians to do it.
Not a unique event in the greater history of things unfortunately, that of getting foreigners without ties to the local community to do the dirty work.
Machiavelli even wrote about the rationale behind such actions by the ruling class(es).
He was just asserting his priority to cross in the zebra stripe crosswalk. The tank driver recognized that and stopped. 😉
American tank column would do exactly the same. You don’t break formation because you are inpatient. That guy kept himself in front of the lead tank as it maneuvered to pass him by. Eventually he climbed on top of the tank. Pretty sure they killed him, but like much that day, not100%.
So if we were invading, say, Gaza, and a single Palestinian civilian stood in front of one tank, we’d just admit we lost that battle? We’re going to need a lot of tanks.
I remember watching this iconic image broadcast on CNN in a Florida DMV while renewing my driver’s license.
There are some that think the release of the Wuhan Flu was coordinated with the Deep State and CCP.
The People of Hong Kong were demanding Freedom in 2019. The Democrats were demanding the end of Trump.
A convenient leak of a flu and the press blows it up as the 1918 flu. CCP floods the internet with people dropping over like flies.
Hong Kong Freedom Crushed. President Trump is Overthrown.
Coincidence? Nah.
A brutal reminder of Satan at work to destroy the truth and justice. We pray that one day CCP falls completely to the truth and God.
That saying: “Socialism is very easy to vote for, but you’ll wind up shooting your way out of it”.
THIS is what that means; Tiananmen Square..
POTUS GHW Bush Was Complicit ALONG WITH SoS James Baker –
( ” they ” WANTED the LABOR and MARKET imo )
i Remember Sitting Up ALL NIGHT with Nightline and Ted Koppel with the Feeds GIVEN U.S. thru the television
i WAS ACTIVE DUTY at the time in the Coast Guard and Still in New Orleans getting Transferred to Elizabeth City
ie.
News Feeds and Other Various Video from 1989
Archive.ORG Videos
[video src="https://archive.org/details/dvd-transfer-141/VTS_01_1.mp4" /]
China – June 4th, 1989.
America – ???? – don’t claim to know the date, but it’s not far off if the never-Trumpers and RINO’s get their way. Much sooner if the Left, MSM, and Democrats do. But it is coming. It isn’t hard to see.
The narrative engineers in the West must wish they had the power of the CHICOM Party.
Here’s an example I just pulled from Google:
“The Gateway Pundit is an American far-right digital media outlet that is widely characterized by researchers, fact-checkers, and mainstream news organizations as a distributor of falsehoods, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories.”
But ABC, MSNBC and all the rest are solid news sources!
My husband and I just finished watching a movie (available on YouTube) called The Blue Kite. It is about how an average Chinese family was affected by Chairman Mao’s changes to the culture. It is also a very personal story about a little boy who loses a father, then his stepfather, and a loving uncle. The local Communist committees first suggested that people be allowed to criticize the CCP. So when a man actually did criticize the Communist party he was exiled away from his family where many died!
Later there were struggle sessions in which the goal was to point the finger at one or more people, then arrange a kangaroo court-like event, following which the person would be carried away on a stretcher if he would not go with those organizing the session voluntarily.
The people of China as portrayed in this film, were quite willing to go along with the government. They all wanted to be model citizens, yet they gradually found themselves wondering why the government made so many contradictory statements and why exile was deemed necessary. Ultimately the message of the movie was the anti-human nature of the CCP and how destructive Communism was to individuals, families, and the entire nation of China.
There are also a good many photos of the event here:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/exclusive-never-before-seen-1989-tiananmen-square-massacre-photos-released-6042652?utm_source=rtnewsnoe&src_src=rtnewsnoe&utm_campaign=rtbreaking-2026-06-04-1&src_cmp=rtbreaking-2026-06-04-1&utm_medium=email&utm_content=access0&est=j4WXQckM%2F2qzYN5rkfgeXFbNJ6Y902vQYJ0MNpnaxaRvfmpxFQkiVes4QD3e6f6OD29%2BBw%3D%3D
Oh boy do I ever remember this time well. I was scheduled to go spend a few years in Taiwan and China in just a couple months- August 1989.
Had many Chinese friends in the US . They were the first batch of students from the PRC who were allowed to leave China and come to school in the US. We were all glued to the TV, which, fortunately, covered it non-stop. IIRC, they even cancelled the last show of the season of “Dallas” that year so they could keep up with the nearly 24 hr./day coverage of Tiananmen.
When the “rat out a neighbor/family member for involvement/sympathy towards” hotline phone # was announced by the PRC gov., overseas Chinese students across the US organized to keep calling the number 24/7 to jam up the line and shut it down.
When I got to PRC, the Army still seemed to be decidedly “of The People” for the next few years. I doubt it’s still like that now, but it was very refreshing at the time while traveling thru China.
A couple years later, (Dec. 1989) , I was in Taiwan and the Romanians were executing their Communist Dictator, Ceausescu. My Taiwanese roommates were just as glued to the TV for days by that event and the protests leading up to it as we in the US had been by Tian’anmen.
Yeah, it was quite a time to be alive.
When I spoke with Chinese people about the Military and their great “for the People ” stance, they explained to me that most who joined only joined because they were starving and needed the free food the Army would supply.
IOW, they didn’t join because they agreed with the State.
I think that is the case in many countries, probably far more than we know now that I think about it.
Many likely see it as the only way to have somewhat of a stable existence -which may mean simply eating on a regular basis.
I highly doubt that North Koreans are in their own military because they are so supportive of the Rocket Man.
Yes, I remember.
And yet TPTB welcomed Chy-na into more and more international trade.
Has that nation’s totalitarian government really changed much, even after nearly 40 years???
I would say,
Very Little.
And helped them build up their Industrial Base, Factories, etc. that quickly began producing the most *horrific* air pollution I’ve ever seen in my life>>>> all the while screaming “Pollution causes Climate Change! We must shut it all down! Climate Change is our biggest Danger!”
You can’t make this stuff up.
If there ever was proof that the “Climate Change ” thang was/is a big lie, it’s them screaming “No More Climate Changing Pollution!” while simultaneously paying China to cause more pollution than the world’s ever seen, before or since.
The same massacre (est.at 45,000) happened in Iran 5 months ago, on January 8-9, 2026. I hope we remember those who died for freedom 37 years from now. Thank God for our Constitution and the 2nd Amendment!
On February 28, 1947 our ally Chiang Kai Shek turned the machineguns on the Chinese people (Taiwanese/Fujianese) in Taipei, slaughtering about 25,000 and imprisoning an unknown number. The Taiwanese thought that they would be in charge after the Japanese defeat, but Chiang’s KMT had a different plan. Chiang was our pal, so there was little reaction. SF Chronicle reported 200 killed, if I recall.
It’s significant that this very deliberate statement from Marco Rubio is issued less than a month after President Trump was in Beijing. That’s powerful timing.
“On June 4, the world marks 37 years since the Chinese Communist Party ordered its troops to attack thousands of peaceful demonstrators in and around Tiananmen Square. Chinese students, workers, and other civilians who lost their lives had gathered to exercise their natural rights and demand democratic reforms and accountability for corruption. We remember their lives and honor their legacy. No amount of censorship can erase the past. Those who sacrificed to uphold their unalienable rights of free expression and peaceful assembly will be vindicated someday.”
~ Secretary of State Marco Rubio, June 4, 2026
Thank you, Sundance!
You put it so well, that recognition of “our tribe” – it’s giving me those chills – thinking about those faxes that were showing up over here as the students that survived were desperately trying to get the word out through whatever American fax numbers they could find =
and in all those months after Tiananmen Square, then-President George H. W. Bush was working behind the scenes not to help carry on that fight but rather, to placate the CCP-PRC, as far as I can see, on behalf of all those American investors who were freaking out about losing their shirts if their new factories got shut down.
Many of us who are from Vietnam know what this is about and we remember.
Many of us whose families sacrificed their lives against the communists remember.
I try to explain to people who hated the Vietnam war that just because it wasn’t your fight doesn’t mean it wasn’t someone else’s.
Many Vietnamese didn’t want to be ruled by the communists.
Maybe that war could’ve been settled before it started, maybe not?
I will always honor the men and woman of the US who sacrificed themselves in that war.
My father, an American G.I. Who served in Vietnam from 1967-1970 cries when Vietnam fell.
I will never let the communists win.
God bless the USA.
I had an uncle who served in Vietnam, he was a door gunner in the Marines and like many who returned from that “police action” he was spit on and treated poorly. He drank himself to death and my mother was the one who found him in a attic after a week of 90° heat.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Anyone who thinks “that can’t happen here” is not paying attention.
We know that the American left wants us imprisoned and dead. They have said so. Out loud. Many times.
We also know that the Professional Republicans will do absolutely nothing to defend us. They loudly have said so, in word and deed, many times. They are useless.
President Trump has inserted himself between “them” and us. Satan’s armies are fully at war against our President for the purpose of getting to us.
Remember that the next time you are “peeved” about something concerning our President.
President Trump, blessed by Almighty God, is fighting the “tanks” so that they won’t get to us.
May God continue to bless and protect President Trump.
I agree, and they telegraph it every day. They tell us straight out that they want to ruin everyone who supports MAGA with lawfare and every other means they can get their hands on. The next time there is a commie in the White House, it’s inevitable that Civil War 2.0 will be here, because they will take the J6 persecutions nationwide. They come out and tell us this every single day.
Like a Treeper said a couple days ago on another topic if I could give you 1000 thumbs up I would
“Anyone who thinks “that can’t happen here” is not paying attention.”
July 28 1932 – Bonus War. Over 40,000 WWI veterans and their families were camped in DC demanding Congress pay them the WWI bonuses they were owed but had not received in the 14 years since the end of the war. Hoover ordered Douglas MacArthur (Dwight Eisenhower was an aide to the general) to clear the site, claiming communists were leading the demonstration and that this was tantamount to an insurrection. The vets and their families cheered the troops as they approached thinking they were there to support them. Instead of supporting them, George Patton ordered a fixed bayonet charge against the vets and families routing them and burning their possessions.
Jade Helm – 2015. Just a special ops exercise to deal with uneasy overseas civil environments (as if Americans can blend outside of the US). No, JH was practicing what Army Chief of Staff Odierno, Marine Corps Commandant Amos, and Special Ops Forces Adm McRaven wrote in their Strategic Landpower white paper: “master the human domain.” The strategy has a direct and immediate application to civil unrest in the US. “Land operations have a uniquely significant role, in both peacetime and conflict, in addressing human factors. This assertion rises from the recognition that: 1) the Army, Marine Corps, and Special Operations Forces significantly contribute to the activities central to influencing the “human domain” short of war, such as peacekeeping, comprehensive military engagement, security force assistance, building partner capacity, and stability operations; 2) in conflict, the same forces are those most intimately and closely involved with the human networks – friendly, enemy, and neutral — that comprise the “human domain”; and 3) strategic success or failure most often occurs within the land domain, especially in the shared space between humans and the land, and potentially in the shared space between humans and the cyberspace domain.”
“. But the media kept repeating, “hard right,” as if repeating it over and over was going to make reality bend in a different direction.”
U.S. media does the same thing, especially in regards to 2020 election results and 01/06/2021 or anything else it deems politically dangerous to the democrat party line.
The news media doesn’t really report on anything. It opines. It spins. It constructs story-lines for advantage, it gaslights, it perverts the consensus about reality out of existence, it just plain lies. — James Kunstler
You never hear any Hard Left do ya??? The Left has moved soooo far Left, then have the audacity to point out how far right we are when it’s the Left moving farther Left!
I will never forget that man in a suit standing in front of that line of tanks, right before the CCP made him disappear.
Without some truck drivers from Canada, that would be us, today. Look around, remember the few who stood with you, refused to get injected and realize that our own flesh and blood chose the media over us. They lined up to get Fauxi’s kill shots.
I wonder if that is the grand finale before Tulsi leaves???
How is it that the Chinese people had the military and the civilians united against their communist government through civil disobedience and they still lost?
They didn’t have the military, and they didn’t have all civilians. Certain elements of the military were sympathetic to the protestors for a while. But in the end the hardliners won out, and those who were found to have sympathies toward the protestors were punished severely. And many civilians sided with the government all through it. There was no unanimous united stand against the communists.
Thank you, Sundance, I remember that day quite well. I will never forget it either. In the aftermath, I was able to give some help to one of the leaders who escaped China and made it here. I’ve always been happy I did that. On this anniversary, I find myself dismayed by what is going on in Iran. I’m not sure how this quagmire will end, but I fear it will not end well. I trust the current Iranian régime not at all. I don’t think it is possible to reach a negotiated end to this nightmare. However, we currently have the best President we’ve had in a very long time, and I hope his fifth-dimensional chess playing will be successful and end this war in our favor. If anyone can do it, President Trump can. The problem is, can anyone do it without boots on the ground? Somehow, I doubt that, but he’s our leader and I’m standing with him while praying hard.
The university I graduated from in the mid-1980’s hired a Marxist professor of economics as a counterbalance to the mainstream Keynesian and Monetary economists already on the faculty.
This guy was deep into the nuts and bolts of Marxist economic theory but believed that ‘scientific collectivism’ could be successfully implemented without violence and without suppression of free speech.
In late May of 1989 this man traveled to China with the aim of supporting the Chinese student protestors in their quest for gaining free expression in their country.
He was in Tiananmen Square on June 4th and personally witnessed the slaughter of the students. Needless to say, this guy barely escaped with his life.
When he got back from China, he recounted his experiences during the protests and what happened on June 4th. Some of the Chinese students had quickly escorted him away from the square before he, and they, could be shot.
It should be no surprise to anyone that even after personally witnessing the slaughter, this man saw no reason to reject his belief in Marxist economic theory.
Was this numpty teaching at UW Madison by any chance?
sheesh.
True definition of “You can’t fix stupid”.
well, because it wasn’t the “right” set of people implementing it, right?
I saw the start of this Lefty BS in the late 60’s when I was contemplating collage or trade school after I graduate HS. I saw the best option as a State college or a good Trade school, I ended up choosing the latter in Electronics Technology. That has served me well!
Also: today is Killdozer remembrance.
Thank you for this sobering expose of the massacre. Just as The Holocaust of WWII, we must never forget!
Remember Bush 41 feigned outrage for the cameras following the massacre, while sending envoys to Beijing to map out China’s integration into US and global trade before the blood had dried, clandestinely, until after the shock and outrage died down. By the time he left office China was set up to become a peer-rival with the rapid consolidation of US industry from a flood of Antitrust waivers approved (AG Bill Barr’s DOJ memo outlining guidelines) and subsequent hollowing out of American industry relocating to China.
Bush 43 then gave China Most-Favored Nation status weeks into his new administration.
Remember, patriarch Prescott Bush showed his treasonist hand *during* WWII, trading with the enemy until 1943 when he was revealed to be “Hitler’s Banker.” Assets seized but later released with the help of his Dulles family friends. Who even scrubbed Prescott’s treason from public view allowing him to be elected as US Senator from Connecticut less than a decade after being Hitler’s Banker.
With his treasonist legacy alive and kicking today in the cast of Cornyn’s, Cheney’s and Thune’s.
Tiananmen Square Massacre should’ve been a turning point for global liberty, freed from tyrants, as Sundance described the mood and vibe of the world that Gen X’ers witnessed.
Instead the Bush’s and their global benefactors (Rockefeller’s, Rothschild’s, etc) saw opportunity. Knowing that human slavery is the most profitable, efficient economic model ever – for those atop it.
The story and lesson of the Tiananmen Square Massacre must be the betrayal of western liberal values, *real* capitalism (not crony, monopolistic immitations), individual freedom, liberty that western leaders pivoted to following the faux outrage they postured for the cameras immediately after.
Poppa Bush threw the Chicoms a life preserver.
God protect all freedom loving men and women. The arc of the universe bends slowly, too slowly, but it bends toward freedom. Man was not made to ridden, booted and saddled by tyrants.
Alpha News has a new video, Minnesota Mao. Premieres June 4, 2026 at 7:00 pm CT.
https://minnesotamao.com/
Exposing America’s Maoist Governor
A crowdfunded documentary. And a cutting look at the strange connections between Governor Tim Walz—aka “Minnesota Mao”—and Chairman Mao Zedong, the former dictator of the Chinese Communist Party.
Based on interviews, archival footage, books, news, social media, and other sources, with more than 300 references.
https://alphanews.org/minnesota-mao-how-to-watch-the-upcoming-documentary-from-alpha-news/
“Along with the connections in the documentary itself, Liz Collin explained that the June 4 release date is also significant.
“June 4 is the day that commemorates the atrocities of the Tiananmen Square Massacre—and the anniversary of Gov. Tim Walz and his wife Gwen.”
What type of bush league authoritarian communist regime, resorts to using military force against its own people, without first staging a Fedtrapment- complete with embedded saboteurs to justify the use of force?!
It’s both insane and terrifying to think about it like that. In that the USG could train the CCP the best way to manage a peaceful protest. SMH
You’re mistaking the teacher for the student.
Doctor Who Conquered Roulette (NYT)
@optnjh
My wife is a Tiananmen Square Student Protester as the protests started to escalate, her father, who barely survived Mao, warned her and her friends stay away from the Square the “government will kill you” he said!
They actually laughed and said “Chinese don’t kill Chinese” the only reason my wife is alive is she lived at Tiananmen Square and she was in high school so she had to go home that night that they started killing people.
Her Grandmother told her to stay away from the window where she was watching the flashes and heard gunfire from the massacre telling her “they will shoot you” so she moved. Then the soldiers walked down her street and shot anyone looking out the window they killed a kid they killed an old lady they killed a couple of guys.
They took my father-in-law, who was an intellectual in a technical area, and made him and other intellectuals watch the killing and told them they would be next if this didnt stop and spread the word.
I was in Hong Kong, didnt know my wife, and just got my visa to go to Beijing and woke up that morning with tanks on the street-I decided not to go to a country on the verge of civil war…funny the people who arranged it were mad I didnt go until the Tiananmen Square Massacre…and these were people who escaped Mao…they too believed “Chinese don’t kill Chinese” until the Tiananmen Square Massacre exposed that Lie!
I remember those days in 1989.
And I also remember being confused by the terminology in the press (remember when we had newspapers?).
If something was “bad” it was called “far right,” in the comminist USSR, or communist China, or elsewhere.
It was weird to see communists described as the “far right.” It still is.
The Iranian people have gone through something very similar recently.
Tiananmen Square massacre as as a “hard-right crackdown” = The events on January 6, 2021 as a “hard-right insurrection.”
Bullshit everywhere, every way you look.
Hmmm, I recall hearing years later that the protests were funded by George Soros. That’s why Soros has been forbidden from China ever since.
I don’t believe that to be true because I have read that he used to frequently go to China for “business”. He may have funded the protests but he was never banned from visiting.
I believe you are correct. He is not officially banned in China or other countries but his presence in any country might have consequences. Thailand still has an edict for his arrest if I’m not mistaken for his role in the Asian currency crisis that started with his actions on the Baht.
Yeah, Tim Walz was there, and to this day celebrates the event to coincide with he and his wife’s anniversary date.
MUST WATCH! TONIGHT ON YOU-TUBE AT 7:00 CDT, “Minnesota Mao” starring Tim Walz. -Alpha News and Liz Collin.
Make It Go Viral!!
Walz should resign
You spelled, “go to prison” wrong.
The last time I visited China was 2008 — before the Olympics.
I had some tearful conversations (in an open space) regarding that horrific event with several citizens.
Sad, sad, sad… 🐲
Charlottesville, Va 2017
ASTRO TURF bought and paid for by SPLC
Used as excuse for FBI domestic terrorist programs. The Big Lie.
Summer of Love…..AntiFA is Marxist paid professional violence.
Tell me why AntiFA is allowed to exist?
Think about the parallels and the lies…..J6.
“The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. Marchers included members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and far-right militias. The organizers’ stated goals included the unification of the American white nationalist movement and opposing the proposed removal of the statue of General Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville’s former Lee Park.”
Also the anniversary of Killdozer. 🙂
You Minjin painting I ❤️
Pink Floyd “Us and Them.”
“In my work, laughter is a representation of a state of helplessness, lack of strength and participation, with the absence of our rights that society has imposed on us. In short, life. It makes you feel obsolete, which is why, sometimes, you only have laughter as a revolutionary weapon to fight against cultural and human indifference.”
Painter Yue Minjun