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The top voted comment from basically the same thread in 2017 [1] does a good job of presenting a point of contention in a relatively neutral fashion: from the

The top voted comment from basically the same thread in 2017 [1] does a good job of presenting a point of contention in a relatively neutral fashion: from the /u/aleyan: > The figure was given in a secret diplomatic cable from then British ambassador to China, Alan Donald. > Mr Donald's telegram is from 5 June, and he says his source was someone who "was passing on information given him by a close friend who is currently a member of the State Council". Here we have a telegram by a guy (British Ambassador) who heard from a guy (unknown) who heard from a guy (unknown State Council) facts about the events of the day prior (massacre was on June 4th). Where did the unknown State Council official get his estimates from; were those official or just something he heard and repeated (and when did he get them)? Initial estimates of disasters are often quite wrong; here they were produced in game of telephone in a day or less; and they are not collaborated by any evidence we have now. I rank the quality of new evidence as low. Rumors repeated in old official telegrams are still rumors. I expected BBC to have reported more critically. Alan Donald is still alive; BBC could have asked him if he received any updates to that first number that he trusted more. I also have to fault BBC for it's phrasing around Donald's source. At first reading it sounded like Donald's source is an unnamed member of the State Council who is a close friend of the Ambassador. After reading BBC's sentence a carefully however; it sounds like the Donald's source is a person who is a friend of an unnamed member of the State Council. This ambiguous sentence is deceptive. EDIT: I see vote count moving up and down on this comment making me think it is controversial. If you disagree with my doubts on the veracity of this story, write a comment. Maybe I missed something. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15993956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15993956

CharlesColeman 7y ago
The solution to this problem is for the PRC to open up their state archives and allow thorough on-the-ground historical investigation of these events.
- tepidandroid 7y ago
  One must consider the fact that any conclusions drawn from state archives or on-the-ground investigations will be seen as biased one way or the other. Any evidence which exonerates the CCP will be accused of being manipulated CCP propaganda. Any evidence hinting otherwise will be accused of being pro-West fabrications. "Independent", multinational investigations are not immune either, for instance in the case of Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency inspections [1]. All you end up doing is preserving the status quo. With the dearth of physical evidence, an objective conclusion will likely remain out of reach. Something definitely happened, and something bad. But to the extent of grinding up the bodies of 10,000 civilians into meat patties and hosing them down the drain bad? It is likely that we will never know the answer to that. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/22/nuclear-watchdog-iran-iaea https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/22/nuclear-watchd...
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    > With the dearth of physical evidence, an objective conclusion will likely remain out of reach. Something definitely happened, and something bad. But to the extent of grinding up the bodies of 10,000 civilians into meat patties and hosing them down the drain bad? It is likely that we will never know the answer to that. I disagree. These events are still within living memory, so most of the actual people who were tasked with suppressing the protests and cleaning up afterwards can still theoretically be interviewed. Given the scale and brutality, at least some of them likely feel shame for participating and would testify honestly help clear their consciences (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/world/asia/china-tiananmen-square-massacre.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/world/asia/china-tiananme...). Many others may have hidden diaries or other records (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/world/asia/tiananmen-square-protest-photos.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/world/asia/tiananmen-squa...). These events also happened in a dense urban area, so there were many uninvolved witnesses. If the political situation allowed all these accounts to be collected and cross-checked, I think we'd know these answers.
dmix 7y ago
From the linked UK cables (NSFW): > STUDENTS UNDERSTOOD THEY WERE GIVEN ONE HOUR TO LEAVE SQUARE BUT AFTER FIVE MINUTES APCS ATTACKED. STUDENTS LINKED ARMS BUT WERE MOWN DOWN INCLUDING SOLDIERS. APCS THEN RAN OVER BODIES TIME AND TIME AGAIN TO MAKE QUOTE PIE UNQUOTE AND REMAINS COLLECTED BY BULLDOZER. REMAINS INCINERATED AND THEN HOSED DOWN DRAINS. Wow, I've never read this before. I have a really high tolerance for this type of stuff but his was still shocking. Particularly how they brought in a mostly illiterate military unit from a rural area, blocked them from hearing news for 10 days, and told them it'd be filmed as part of a TV show. They also shot ambulances trying to help in addition to other soldiers from other units(? it's not clear what SMR troops means, possible a local police force). https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/UK_cable_on_Tiananmen_Square_Massacre https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/UK_cable_on_Tiananmen_Square_... Edit: SMR seems to be Shenyang's military regiments who initially went in unarmed to try to scare the students. Shortly after that failed they were immediately followed up by the armed attacking forces (27th unit from Shanxi, the rural area mentioned above). The Shanxi shot and ran over any "straggler" Shenyang units who were near the protestors. "27 ARMY USED BECAUSE MOST RELIABLE AND OBEDIENT. SOME CONSIDERED OTHER ARMIES WOULD ATTACK 27 ARMY BUT THEY HAD NO AMMUNITION"
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > Edit: SMR seems to be Shenyang's military regiments I think SMR actually means "Shenyang Military Region": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_Military_Region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_Military_Region Geographically, its southern border is not too far from Beijing. According to Wikipedia Shanxi province was part of the Beijing Military Region, and is also not to far from Beijing itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Military_Region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Military_Region
C1sc0cat 7y ago
The ambassadors secret diplomatic cables are not "just" some guy
scarmig 7y ago
"some guy" is, in this case, a British Ambassador. There's no particular reason for him to fabricate this story (in fact, it has the potential to make his job much tougher), and a proper historian could dig through other communications and see how prone to exaggeration he is. My gut instinct is that the cable is more or less true, in the sense that he's reporting claims from a source he's identified as someone he trusts ("THIS SOURCE HAS PREVIOUSLY PROVED RELIABLE AND WAS CAREFUL TO SEPARATE FACT FROM SPECULATION AND RUMOUR."). The person providing the information is a bit trickier. Chinese politics have always had a bunch of different factions fighting for influence (despite how Western media portrays it as some Orientalist absolute monarchy). Whoever provided the information was likely trying to undermine some faction or another. Perhaps someone from Foreign Affairs trying to undermine some PLA-affiliated faction or another. That'd be trickier to analyze.

CharlesColeman 7y ago

The solution to this problem is for the PRC to open up their state archives and allow thorough on-the-ground historical investigation of these events.

tepidandroid 7y ago
One must consider the fact that any conclusions drawn from state archives or on-the-ground investigations will be seen as biased one way or the other. Any evidence which exonerates the CCP will be accused of being manipulated CCP propaganda. Any evidence hinting otherwise will be accused of being pro-West fabrications. "Independent", multinational investigations are not immune either, for instance in the case of Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency inspections [1]. All you end up doing is preserving the status quo. With the dearth of physical evidence, an objective conclusion will likely remain out of reach. Something definitely happened, and something bad. But to the extent of grinding up the bodies of 10,000 civilians into meat patties and hosing them down the drain bad? It is likely that we will never know the answer to that. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/22/nuclear-watchdog-iran-iaea https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/22/nuclear-watchd...
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > With the dearth of physical evidence, an objective conclusion will likely remain out of reach. Something definitely happened, and something bad. But to the extent of grinding up the bodies of 10,000 civilians into meat patties and hosing them down the drain bad? It is likely that we will never know the answer to that. I disagree. These events are still within living memory, so most of the actual people who were tasked with suppressing the protests and cleaning up afterwards can still theoretically be interviewed. Given the scale and brutality, at least some of them likely feel shame for participating and would testify honestly help clear their consciences (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/world/asia/china-tiananmen-square-massacre.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/world/asia/china-tiananme...). Many others may have hidden diaries or other records (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/world/asia/tiananmen-square-protest-photos.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/world/asia/tiananmen-squa...). These events also happened in a dense urban area, so there were many uninvolved witnesses. If the political situation allowed all these accounts to be collected and cross-checked, I think we'd know these answers.

dmix 7y ago

From the linked UK cables (NSFW): > STUDENTS UNDERSTOOD THEY WERE GIVEN ONE HOUR TO LEAVE SQUARE BUT AFTER FIVE MINUTES APCS ATTACKED. STUDENTS LINKED ARMS BUT WERE MOWN DOWN INCLUDING SOLDIERS. APCS THEN RAN OVER BODIES TIME AND TIME AGAIN TO MAKE QUOTE PIE UNQUOTE AND REMAINS COLLECTED BY BULLDOZER. REMAINS INCINERATED AND THEN HOSED DOWN DRAINS. Wow, I've never read this before. I have a really high tolerance for this type of stuff but his was still shocking. Particularly how they brought in a mostly illiterate military unit from a rural area, blocked them from hearing news for 10 days, and told them it'd be filmed as part of a TV show. They also shot ambulances trying to help in addition to other soldiers from other units(? it's not clear what SMR troops means, possible a local police force). https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/UK_cable_on_Tiananmen_Square_Massacre https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/UK_cable_on_Tiananmen_Square_... Edit: SMR seems to be Shenyang's military regiments who initially went in unarmed to try to scare the students. Shortly after that failed they were immediately followed up by the armed attacking forces (27th unit from Shanxi, the rural area mentioned above). The Shanxi shot and ran over any "straggler" Shenyang units who were near the protestors. "27 ARMY USED BECAUSE MOST RELIABLE AND OBEDIENT. SOME CONSIDERED OTHER ARMIES WOULD ATTACK 27 ARMY BUT THEY HAD NO AMMUNITION"

CharlesColeman 7y ago
> Edit: SMR seems to be Shenyang's military regiments I think SMR actually means "Shenyang Military Region": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_Military_Region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_Military_Region Geographically, its southern border is not too far from Beijing. According to Wikipedia Shanxi province was part of the Beijing Military Region, and is also not to far from Beijing itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Military_Region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Military_Region

C1sc0cat 7y ago

The ambassadors secret diplomatic cables are not "just" some guy

scarmig 7y ago

"some guy" is, in this case, a British Ambassador. There's no particular reason for him to fabricate this story (in fact, it has the potential to make his job much tougher), and a proper historian could dig through other communications and see how prone to exaggeration he is. My gut instinct is that the cable is more or less true, in the sense that he's reporting claims from a source he's identified as someone he trusts ("THIS SOURCE HAS PREVIOUSLY PROVED RELIABLE AND WAS CAREFUL TO SEPARATE FACT FROM SPECULATION AND RUMOUR."). The person providing the information is a bit trickier. Chinese politics have always had a bunch of different factions fighting for influence (despite how Western media portrays it as some Orientalist absolute monarchy). Whoever provided the information was likely trying to undermine some faction or another. Perhaps someone from Foreign Affairs trying to undermine some PLA-affiliated faction or another. That'd be trickier to analyze.