An alternative view of the Tiananmen Square incident

While most of the websites I visited this past week offered a brief tribute to the events in Tiananmen Square 20 years ago, one columnist presented a radically different view. Justin Raimondo writes for Antiwar.com and is often brutally outspoken about matters that others treat with caution or deference. Here are excerpts from his essay on June 8:

To begin with, what was the uprising about? What demands were the students – and most of them were indeed students, rather than ordinary workers and peasants – intent on pursuing to the end? The initial protests were over reductions in student subsidies. As an economizing measure, the government decided to drastically cut student allowances, while China’s generous foreign scholarship program, which enabled many students from Africa to study in Chinese universities, was continued, in spite of the cutbacks.

This outraged the fiercely nationalistic Chinese students, who, in the winter of 1988, used it as an excuse to rampage through the living quarters of African students, injuring 13. What began as a lynching miraculously turned into a "human rights" protest, as 3,000 demonstrators showed up in Nanjing, where slogans such as "Kill the black devils!" mingled with demands for "political reform."

From Nanjing, where the movement originated, anti-African demonstrations spread to other cities, notably Shanghai and Beijing. A major motivation behind the demonstrations was apparently the success African students had with Chinese women. That the anti-African riots were the prelude to the Tiananmen protests, the spark that started a roaring fire in the center of Beijing, was evidenced in the slogans and banners raised by the students in the square, such as "”No Offend Chinese Women” [sic]...

Gathered together in Tiananmen Square were all those elements who were dissatisfied with the Chinese status quo and who had some special cause – reductions in student subsidies, the lack of free speech, "preferential" treatment for foreigners, the suppression of cults such as Falun Gong, the increasingly pro-market orientation of the Chinese Communist Party (which had recently voted to allow big businessmen to become members), the absence of democratic elections, Africans hitting on "their" women, etc., etc. Western reporters edited out those grievances that didn’t fit their narrative, and television coverage focused on the most dramatic visual in sight, the statue of the "goddess of liberty" that arose in the square.

The rest, as they say, is history – except that it isn’t.

As Western commentators, including the American secretary of state, weigh in on the occasion of this anniversary, none have so far mentioned the initial reaction of the Chinese government. To hear them tell it, the students gathered in Tiananmen and the regime promptly marched in, crushed the rebels, and forbade forever more any discussion of what occurred.

This is complete nonsense. To begin with, the reaction from the government was initially support for the students, as indicated in the state-controlled news media, which ran front-page stories praising them as heroes and patriots – and this went on for weeks.

Much more at the link, especially re why the demonstration resulted in violence. I have no expertise in this area or regarding this event, and have no idea whether Raimondo is justified in his view or not. I offer the excerpt and the link as a thought-provoking variance from what most blogs posted this week.