eli5: what is the context and the full story of the man infront of a tank video/picture
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I’m going to add to what others are going to tell you, because I think context is important:
**1) Students as a force of political power in China**
The student body in China (historically students and scholars being one of China’s major political powers) were making increasing demands against China’s government in a pro-Democracy movement.
China’s leadership basically begged the student leadership to back down, saying the protests were becoming too unruly.
China’s student leaders refused to back down, after a combination of other measures to appease or suppress them failed, and so military force was deployed. Leaving these parts out makes it seem like central Chinese leadership just tankrolled peaceful student protests just because.
**2) Additional context – The Government Protecting Itself & Its “Legitimacy”**
While China and its people may seem suppressed, and ***they are***, China is historically an incredibly unruly place to be. There’s a saying I heard loosely translated from a Chinese proverb, “Those in Beijing don’t care about what the people are doing in Shanghai.”
Basically, while China has a very strong **central government**, it has historically had much, much difficulty unifying all of its provinces, who often work and function very independently and give zero shits about each other. This is combined with a culture where you are seen as foolish if you don’t take advantage of others’ weaknesses and ways to cheat or win even if it is unfair.
Social movements to China are not a joke in terms of the impact they can have. Look up how its leadership has been overthrown in modern times and the exchange of powers prior to the modern era. China is strong-armed because China is terrified of being overthrown and delegitimized. It treats Taiwan this way for the same reasons. It conveniently is never mentioned in pro-Taiwan posts on Reddit (I love Taiwan but again, context is important), but modern Taiwan came about from the exiling of the opposition party to the CCP during the Chinese Civil War. To this day Taiwan still calls itself a “Republic” of China in its official name. (Although in english it’s just known as Taiwan now.)
Yet another movement that China suppressed for the same reasons was a spiritual / tai chi movement that was allegedly becoming a bit cult-like.
To the Central Chinese Government, there can only be one ruling ideal that is common amongst all Chinese – and that is the party itself, otherwise, it may cease to exist.
Recently, sources have challenged long-standing beliefs about that narrative. There were protests all over China that day. There were protesters in Tianamen. Protesters did die that day. Government officials did open fire in Tianamen that day. But according to recent sources online, the idea that protesters died in Tianamen that day is based largely on the testimony of one BBC reporter who later walked back the claim.
And, some online sources hold, the democracy that protesters wanted was closer to the Barefoot Doctors and Iron Rice Bowl of pre-Deng China than to, say, George H. W. Bush. Allegedly, many protesters were waving copies of Mao’s little red book and protesting the so-called capitalist roaders of the post-Mao era.
Maybe a stupid question, isn’t the job of the army to protect their people, if people protest against their own government, shouldn’t the army protect them and go to against the government as well?
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