New story emerges of an infamous massacre | csmonitor.com - The Diigo Meta page

• 31 Jul 06
  

  Kevin Wen

  china

• 21 Feb 06
  

  Joel Liu

  an emerges infamous massacre new story

  • Standard histories such as that by Yale's Jonathan Spence, as well as the recent groundbreaking "Tiananmen Papers," suggest that Chinese soldiers did not fire on students before they left the square in the early hours of June 4, 1989. But in popular references, most recently in the first paragraph of a major retrospective wire story this week stating that "thousands were killed in Tiananmen Square," the myth persists. A massacre did take place in Beijing 15 years ago, eyewitnesses say - just not in Tiananmen.
  • Many journalists and observers had earlier strolled three blocks to the Beijing Hotel for a relaxed dinner. By June 3, in fact, the Tiananmen story seemed in a lull, and many reporters were pulled back to Tokyo or Hong Kong. Just weeks earlier, 2 million people were arriving each day to China's most sacred public site. They were reacting to the imposition of martial law and the dismissal of reform leader Zhao Ziyang, who was sympathetic to the students, and who among other things appeared to favor the policy of glasnost that was changing the Soviet Union.

Page Comments

• 
  Kevin Wen on 2006-07-31
  15 years ,64

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