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How did Tank Man change the world forever?? Here in China, hardly anybody has ever seen the picture or heard of him. Unfortunately, he seems to be just a good c

• petewailes 15y ago
  He changed how the West perceived China forever. He might not have changed things in China itself, but that picture has helped influence foreign policy ever since. It raised the profile of human rights abuses in China, along with the whole Tiananmen Square incident, which has been on the agenda of every Western government since.
  • yaix 15y ago
    Yes, as I say, the photo is great for campaigning. Only a few years later, half a million people was massacred with knifes(!) in Rhuanda, and nobody in the West really cared. So, the photo didn't really change anything. Its just good to lobby against China. And talking about the "Tiananmen Masacre", only 20 years before that, the same thing happened in Mexico, and the West had no problem celebrating the Olympic Games a week(!) later, only 1 Kilometer(!) away from the place of the crime. The Mexican Gov't of the time used Snipers instead of tanks, though. Look up "Massacre of Tlatelolco". Ironically, human rights abuses at that time where actually declining, having seen a peak towards the end of the Mao regime.