Eighteen years ago today the Tiananmen square massacre took place. Even Bush Sr and Thatcher condemned it. Since then we have seen an unremitting attempt to bring China into the fold despite the still highly dangerous human rights situation.
Rupert Murdoch led the way moving his businesses into China. Google agreed to censor itself, Yahoo was accused of giving information to the Chinese authorities leading to the conviction of a Chinese journalist. Cheap labour has been used in China to help the West increase the ever-growing discarded piles of cheap and useless things.
The Olympic committee awarded the 2008 Olympics to the same city in which the massacre took place, with at one point a suggestion that the beach volleyball could be played in an artificially created court in Tiananmen square.
None of the major UK papers apart from the financial times appear to be mentioning it today. This is nt to say they are not mentioning China. They are talking about Chinas new green energy plans or about a stock market wobble but they are not mentioning the events surrounding the photo above.
I have some questions about this… is everyones memory getting shorter because of all the TV they watch? Or would certain people prefer to have China inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in? Do things like Tiananmen Square not matter to people anymore?
There is at least one group of people to whom it still matters.
as long as you play be their economic rules, they give less than a shit what you do.
Answer is yes: things like Tiananmen Sqaure do not matter to people anymore. Unless by “Tiananmen Square” you mean “mall”.
Good post though.
graeme says…
**as long as you play be their economic rules, they give less than a shit what you do.***
you havent been paying attention graeme, china is the exception to the above rule, its practically underwriting the us economoy right now but its also uncle sham’s current favourite bogeyman.
far from being ignored by the “humanrights” crowds, china has been the focus of their campaign for years,
http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/97/0502/ed1.html
every yr this time since 1989, someone like chris cox of the “cox report” fame [notoriety?] http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg18958.html
as well as bloggers like michael, would be reminding the world “dont let china forget tianamen”.
i for one find it puzzling that a “massacre”
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20040915gc.html
that happened in “big bad china” two decades ago still elicit such emotion every yr this time, but a massacre which took part merely three months ago in democratic india [the good guys]
http://www.countercurrents.org/nandigram-cpiml230307.htm
get hardly a peep from the humanrights crowds, especially the yanks.
as a matter of fact, the “butcher of nandigram” got an invitation to washington to “to hear about the political and development aspects of his success”.
go figure.
denk, i wasn’t aware of that happening in india but i have read many things arundathi roy has had to say about the indian neocon and almost hindu-fascist government is up to. i also studied the indian system for a term at uni. i for one would never say great things about them. i will read your links and get back to you.
michael,
here is the invitation to washinton,
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/apr2007/beng-a21.shtml
here is chris cox pontificating on tiananmen
http://www.hfienberg.com/cox/tiananmen_6-2-04.htm
there are more where he come from
i am not convinced by gregory clark. he seems to have rather a chequered history.
the incident in india is certainly horrible. one incident however, does not excuse another.
michael,
at the very least, i would say what happened in tiananmen was pretty murky, with the yanks saying “unarmed students massacred by troops”, while the ccp says, “troops crack down on agents provocateurs who incite mob violence”.
no, i brought up the nandigram case not to excuse tiananmen whatsover, just to highlight the yanks hypocrisy. for example, their arms embargo on china cites tiananmen as a prime rationale, but they have no qualm inviting the perps of nandigram massacre to washington for a big party.
btw , there was another massacre one week ago,
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/05/indian-troops-deployed-to-tourist-state.html
do you see any outrage coming from the yanks, i doubt its even reported in their msm.
tks for your time.
bye for now.