China Daily Acknowledges Tiananmen Massacre ... For Three Weeks

Posted by 中国愤青
August 28, 2007

别忙活了，现在的中国已经没有人再听信美国人的蛊惑，人心思定！当时的那伙人上台还不知道要怎么祸害中国呢，俄罗斯就是鲜明的例子。美国就是披着羊皮的狼，伊拉克不是明摆的例子！

Posted by Anonymous
August 28, 2007

从美国开始的呼吁抵制北京奥运的波浪涌到欧洲，最近还抵达了以色列。所有人都对中国感到愤怒：右派怒，因为它是由共产党执政的；左派怒，因为中国资本主义改革的成功；“西方世界（及其弟子以色列）”怒，因为中国如此不同，黄皮肤的、有威胁力的。西方有时恨日本，有时恨中国（常常取决于两者谁更强一点），他们不能接受那些大多数居民从来没听说过“十戒”以及耶稣在耶路撒冷受难的国家的成功。

　　所有这些混合在一起激起反中国浪潮：有道理的和纯属虚构的，还有数不清的半真半假的、一知半解的、未经验证的陈词滥调。一切发生在中国的邪恶――腐败、造假以及环境污染――都肯定是“共产主义政府”和“政权制度”的错（只有在开明的西方，我们才有能力区分罪行和一个作为整体的国家之间的差别）。

　　每一种陈词滥调都是可接受的，甚至不需要最起码的事实检验。在任何情况下，那些“黄种人”没有润滑良好的公关机器，因此我们可以畅所欲言而无须承担诽谤诉讼的风险。

　　批评家并不理解中国社会的复杂性。中国社会正经历巨变，其变化是人类已知的最迅速和最广泛的。中国的环境污染可能令人震惊，但别忘了发达工业化国家把它们的污染工厂搬到中国的土地上。而且和欧美公民相比，一个中国公民的污染有多少呢？

　　中国的低工资可能令人哀叹，但我们也要注意到最近几年的迅速提高，以及工人权利的改善，包括那些在城市的“临时工”权利的改善，这些都发生在我们眼前。中国巨大的经济差距可能引起暴怒，但我们也有必要想想这个政权付出巨大努力改善村民的生活，而且近年来它已经在农村基础设施投入巨资，并取消农业税。

　　关于来自中国的假冒伪劣商品的报道可能是可信的，但值得指出的是，中国专利和发明数量的增长，以及对版权保护力度加大。要成为一个繁荣社会，中国显然还有很长的路要走，但它在最近几十年极大地改善了千百万人的生活，这是没有哪个国家可比拟的。多点了解中国不会伤害到任何想写中国的人。

　　有时候，这是无知、单纯的问题；有时候，这是愤世嫉俗的偏见。当法伦（Mia Farrow）和斯皮尔伯格（Steven Spielberg）呼吁中国不要援助达尔福尔的大屠杀，人们也许会问：你自己的国家又怎样做？那伟大的美利坚合众国，它的武器扩散犹如中东的瘟疫，它摧毁了巴格达，它的机枪轻易地流入什叶派和逊尼派民兵之手。美国和它的公民有权对别人进行道德说教吗？

　　哦，我忘了。毕竟，美国人是白种人，因此他们有资格以民主和基督的同情之名发言。真遗憾，中国人太不相同了，因此总是有罪的。

Posted by Anonymous
August 28, 2007

That's not a acknowledgement,The china blog always hava big talent in assault china through small things

Posted by Mainlander
August 28, 2007

The second article is an excellent post. Congrats to whoever who posted it. It's such a pity I do not have time to translate it in its entirety for I'll away in HK, Southern China & Seoul for assignments. Can someone do that for the benefits of the monolingual English readers?

Getting a bit tired of this blog 'coz censorship is alive & kicking. So much for accusing China of obstructing freedom of speech while one practises the same thing regardless.

Posted by Lijah
August 28, 2007

I'd just like to point out that, while people like I speak and read english here as it is a blog run by an english-language magazine, this does not mean that we are "monolingual english". People are not automatically monolingual because they happen to not speak Chinese.

English is not my first language. It's my 3rd language, after my two native languages.
I'm sincerely sorry I didn't have the opportunity to learn Chinese in school, but I'm sure the teachers unfortunately found no time for it between the dutch, french, english, german, and later spanish classes. Most of the latter two I've forgotten by now, but at least I tried. That's not bragging, it's standard "high school" followed by "college" in my country.

Also, I agree with you that there is no so-called "freedom of speech" in many western countries, but where is the censorship in this blog post exactly?

Posted by z
August 28, 2007

The "excellent post" in comment 3 is a translation of this opinion piece by Yuri Pines at Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/896908.html

Posted by Anonymous
August 28, 2007

Not long before my college exam, a chagrining event happened. NATO(North Atlantic Treaty Organization) leaded by America bombed some Chinese reporters in South Lebanon. As the president of USA then was Clinton, so my whole class stopped classing and find pictures of Clinton everywhere, put the pictures in the trees, blackboards, and walls, then we scratch on these pictures to express our revenge. We even planed to start a procession which was stopped by our Class teacher in the end. Our Class teacher persuaded us to back to the classroom, and said that he really understand our feeling, but what can strikes do? We have our government to deal with this event, and all you guys needed is to study hard as the college exam is coming, you should convert your feelings into bigger motives to study harder and harder. I remember one of my classmates who called himself war party didn’t agree with our teachers and suddenly stood up and tried to argued with him, but was finally stopped by other students. So our loving country strike was cracked down.

Posted by John Smith
August 28, 2007

"the monolingual English readers" ?

Would people who know Italian, Spanish, French German and English be counted as "Monolingual English reader" ?

I am amazed at how knowledgeable you are.

Posted by John Smith
August 28, 2007

"so my whole class stopped classing and find pictures of Clinton everywhere, put the pictures in the trees, blackboards, and walls, then we scratch on these pictures to express our revenge."

Throwing darts at and burning pictures of US presidents is quite common in the US. That's been the case for centuries ? What is the big deal ?

Posted by John Smith
August 28, 2007

The question really is: Why 12 hours ? It took 1.3 billion people 12 hours to notice that ?

Posted by John Smith
August 28, 2007

While we are at it, here is another smearing champaign against China by US press:

湖南逾100萬人吃假鹽 (11:35)
2007年8月28日

湖南省衡陽市今年破獲三宗非法經營假鹽、私鹽大案，達78噸，初估該市可能有100多萬人在吃沒有加碘的假鹽。
廣 告

盜販假鹽如此猖獗氾濫，是因為利潤高達7倍，甚至超過販毒。警方還發現有鹽礦職工參予其中。

《中國青年報》報道，衡陽是湖南的重要產鹽區，位於市區東郊的湘衡鹽礦，在當地是非常有名的企業。不過，衡陽市內假鹽、私鹽販賣情況卻十分嚴重。

I suspect China is filled with US spies.

Posted by John Smith
August 28, 2007

Oh, I forgot. Since only 1 million people is affected out of 1.3 billion. This is a small thing for China. There are many more where these 1 million people came from.

Posted by Lijah
August 28, 2007

Haha, yeah, looks like I can suddenly read chinese after all. No need to "translate" for me anymore.

I do wish mr Pines would be more specific in his article about the great leaps forward that China is making, though. It is a great shame that he is so specific about the supposed flaws, and not so specific about the improvements.

I would like to know more about China, but mr Pines is not enlightening me with his retoric. Don't tell me "this thing is good", tell me "this thing is good because..."
So what, specifically, is happening to help the people? If you inform the westerners of this, surely they will have less arguments and such!

It's also very childish of him to insinuate that the western world hates China for religious reasons. What? Maybe his country does, but religion in my country is not really relevant enough anymore to be the basis for any kind of hate. Mr Pines would love to blame christianity, but he overestimates its current influence vastly.

I do not see hatred of China in the people in my streets, by the way. I do not know why this mr Pines and the people on this blogs keep claiming this. Have you come over here, to my country, yourself to verify this hatred of the Chinese? No, you haven't. Otherwise, you wouldn't be saying "it is so". Chinese immigrants that come here are so very polite, hard working, always they learn the local language!

I'm also very tired of the "yeah, well, you can't criticize anything because you do things wrong too" argument.
Firstly, it's more often a reporting of the facts that some Chinese insist on seeing as criticism. It's strange that they would see criticism where it usually isn't even implied. Anything can and will go wrong, anywhere. There is no criticism in having a natural disaster, for example.
Secondly, by following this logic, everyone everywhere should shut up all the time, and no progress would be made. I could now say, "mr Pines, you may not criticise me with this article, for you have done wrong as well". Ridiculous. Nothing would be discussed.

Also, the Oxford dictionary definition of racism is apparently:
• noun 1 the belief that there are characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to each race. 2 discrimination against or antagonism towards other races.

What Spielberg was doing (and I do not agree with him) is politics, not racism. He disagreed with a geovernment, and decided not to be a part. However, much of mr Pines' article is racism, according to this dictionary. he blatantly generalises both the "Westerner" and the Chinese! How bizarre.

Posted by Anonymous
August 28, 2007

Lijah,

Don't know which country you are refer, but in USA, there is no much hatrd of China existing on the street. The main hatrd are in US Congress and Main media.

Posted by Robert Elliott
August 28, 2007

Austin, A great follow-up to this story would be to find out who these Censors are and find out if anything has happened to them for missing this. Have they been fired or imprisoned or what? Completely unbelievable that the Chinese people haven't risen up in mass to end this "evil empire", communist tyranny, once and for all.

Posted by John Smith
August 28, 2007

"Completely unbelievable that the Chinese people haven't risen up in mass to end this "evil empire", communist tyranny, once and for all."

There are at least two reasons I can think of just off the top of my head:

1. All Chinese love their government and the way they are governed now.

2. Precedence. Rising up against any government takes guts. Sun Yat-sen was the only one stupid enough to try the impossible, and live to talk about it.

Posted by Yadgyu
August 28, 2007

Are anti-Chinese protestors going to talk about Tiananmen Square for infinity?

The truth is that it did happen so long ago. People have to learn how to move on and stop bringing up the past. Those people who died cannot be resurrected. The protestors are fearful of China and Tiananmen Square is the only thing they can hold onto these days.

If the Chinese citizens can learn how to move on, the rest of the world can. Young Chinese kids today do not care about yesteryear's atrocities. They care about getting money and being left alone. Let Communism be.

Posted by Not Impressed
August 28, 2007

"1. All Chinese love their government and the way they are governed now.

2. Precedence. Rising up against any government takes guts. Sun Yat-sen was the only one stupid enough to try the impossible, and live to talk about it."

2/10 for idiotic statements, stereotypes and suggestion of impossability.

Are you serious? or is this sarcastic. I highly doubt you can speak for what all chinese people feel. If this is some weak attempt at some sort of propoganda you need to go back to troll school, you might want to outsource it to some of the new earthies over here in the states, or republicans, they make much more believable trolls.

Posted by John Smith
August 29, 2007

Yadguy:"Are anti-Chinese protestors going to talk about Tiananmen Square for infinity?" No, just continue till Chinese stop talking about Nanking, and all the unfair treaties China signed in the last two centuries.

If China don't want to talk about an incident that was only 18 years old, why should they talk about incidences centuries old ? That's almost "for infinity".

Posted by John Smith
August 29, 2007

"Are you serious? or is this sarcastic."

Guilty on both counts. I am seriously sarcastic, and cynical as well. Congratulation on picking these up.

Posted by xiaonanhe
August 29, 2007

Yadgyu,
You said:
Are anti-Chinese protestors going to talk about Tiananmen Square for infinity?

The truth is that it did happen so long ago. People have to learn how to move on and stop bringing up the past. Those people who died cannot be resurrected. The protestors are fearful of China and Tiananmen Square is the only thing they can hold onto these days.

If the Chinese citizens can learn how to move on, the rest of the world can. Young Chinese kids today do not care about yesteryear's atrocities. They care about getting money and being left alone. Let Communism be.

Sorry for posting the whole thing, but please explain to me why Chinese want to forget about history when it comes to Tiananmen, but remember it again when you mention the Japanese?

Btw, thank you very much for your postings John Smith, you are a prince.

Posting in this comments section is often quite like talking to a stone, but how can one acheive sainthood or satori without trying the impossible?

I only hope for every nationalist bigot on here, there are a hundred other openminded people, western and Chinese

Posted by Yadgyu
August 29, 2007

"Sorry for posting the whole thing, but please explain to me why Chinese want to forget about history when it comes to Tiananmen, but remember it again when you mention the Japanese?"

This is because the Japanese have yet to apologize to China. Japan barely wants to admit that they used Chinese "comfort women" during WWII. But yes, maybe it is time for the Chinese to forget about WWII atrocities and focus on how to beat Japan economically.

In today's world, money should be the only thing that matters. Economic warfare and economic strength will be the nuclear weapons of this century.

Posted by John Smith
August 30, 2007

"This is because the Japanese have yet to apologize to China. Japan barely wants to admit that they used Chinese "comfort women" during WWII. But yes, maybe it is time for the Chinese to forget about WWII atrocities and focus on how to beat Japan economically."

Did the CCP apologize the Tiananmen massacre ? If not, all people in the world has great reason for talking about it.

But you were wrong about Japan not apologizing. I think they make it a habit of apologizing for their action during WWII everytime their prime minister holds a press conference.

May be it is time for the world to stop interfering with what China is doing, and just seat back and enjoy the comedy.

Posted by Yadgyu
August 30, 2007

"May be it is time for the world to stop interfering with what China is doing, and just seat back and enjoy the comedy."

EXACTLY!!!

Posted by Rice_22
September 2, 2007

Mr. John Smith, saying sorry while repeatedly visiting shrines honoring war criminals and erasing the atrocities from their history textbooks is not really apologizing.

Tiananmen and Nanking is different. The facts concerning Tiananmen is still muddy and vague, the estimates of death as well as who fired the first shots are different with each source. Most of us Chinese has heard of the 'Tank Man', of your various jokes about tank treads vs students, and of censorship of the incident.

Thing is, China has changed, mostly for the better. The most recent aniversary of Tiananmen has the relatives of those that died in that tragedy hold candles in the air to honor the dead (students and soldiers). For the first time since the incident, a mother was allowed to place flowers at where her son had died. You may cry, 'the very fact that this is only allowed recently shows China's totalitarianism'. However, the candlelight at that fateful night illuminates China's change from the past, how far the government has stepped away from the panicked one in June 1989.

Have you heard about that? I doubt it. However, I agree that you should just leave us alone, we don't want to be involved in a political mess like the war of terror.

Posted by runescape money
November 13, 2007

Thing is, China has changed, mostly for the better. The most recent aniversary of Tiananmen has the relatives of those that died in that tragedy hold candles in the air to honor the dead (students and soldiers). For the first time since the incident, a mother was allowed to place flowers at where her son had died. You may cry, 'the very fact that this is only allowed recently shows China's totalitarianism'. However, the candlelight at that fateful night illuminates China's change from the past, how far the government has stepped away from the panicked one in June 1989.

Have you heard about that? I doubt it. However, I agree that you should just leave us alone, we don't want to be involved in a political mess like the war of terror.

Posted by push
December 31, 2007

FUCK,don not always say China is a stressful country .surely you don not know china . don not alwys use strange eyes to look others.we need epual ,peace,honour.and we hope we can get on well with this world ,by push

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January 7, 2008

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