Not many are aware that we have two Chinas (People’s Republic of China & Republic of China)! If you are not already aware then this piece of text will change the way you have been looking at “People’s Republic of China”.
Look at the below picture: the unknown rebel who defied a column of tanks
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, commonly known in China as the June Fourth were student-led demonstrations in Beijing in 1989. More broadly, it refers to the popular national movement inspired by the Beijing protests during that period, sometimes referred to as the ’89 Democracy Movement. The protests were forcibly suppressed after the government declared martial law. In what became known in the West as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, troops with assault rifles and tanks killed at least several hundred demonstrators trying to block the military’s advance towards Tiananmen Square. The number of civilian deaths has been estimated at anywhere from hundreds to thousands.
Take a pause and try reading the last paragraph once again “Civilians protesting against government corruption, lack of transparency and freedom of speech at Tiananmen Square were killed in 100s and 1000s by Military using assault rifles and tanks”.
The violent military response and the scale of bloodshed that ensued was followed by a further clampdown that saw the widespread arrests of protesters, the expulsion of foreign journalists and the censorship of media coverage of the event, including banning the image of a man stood in front of a column tanks, dressed in a white shirt and holding a shopping bag.
The image of Tank Man quickly became a powerful symbol of both the bloody events of 4 June 1989 and of non-violent resistance, but the identity of the ‘unknown rebel’ and his fate remains unknown. Many people in China are still unaware of his existence and only a handful of photographers were able to record the event without having to destroy their materials.
That tank man appeared gutsy right? Man standing in front of column of tank?? Well wait and now decide with the below picture
The man blocked the path of the tanks, even as they gunned their engines. He climbed onto the first tank, pounded on the hatchet, and appeared to speak to the soldiers inside. When he stepped back down in front of the tank, two men ran into the street and pulled him away. The confrontation became one of the most enduring images of the pro-democracy, anti-corruption protests that swept China that spring and summer.
Speculation continues to circulate about Tank Man’s fate. Thousands of Chinese nationals were detained and imprisoned for their involvement in the protests, some of them kept in jail for almost their entire lives. Others were executed. No one has been able to determine whether Tank Man was among them.
A report (link in Chinese) cited a Hong Kong professor who said the man was a friend of his and an archaeologist from Changsha who had come to Beijing to protests. According to the professor, the man eventually escaped to Taiwan where he worked at the National Palace Museum. (The museum in Taiwan denied the report.) Others believed he was executed.
But it seems at least as plausible that the man disappeared back into his normal life. If he had left the country, he would have been free to speak out, according to Canadian journalist Jan Wang, who witnessed the confrontation. And if authorities had found him, they would have put him on public display, she told PBS. She believes there’s a good chance he’s alive and living quietly in China. The Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy Movement in China said in 1998 that it had obtained official party documents that showed authorities had no idea what happened to him. In a 1990 interview with Barbara Walters, former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin said he couldn’t confirm (video) whether the man was arrested or not. He broke from speaking to Walters through an interpreter and said in English, “I think never, never killed.”
It’s also possible that Tank Man may have been simply a regular citizen in Beijing who had seen or heard of the brutal government crackdown that left students, workers, children, doctors and passers-by dead, many of them shot in the back. According to film footage and witnesses, he was walking alone along the six-lane avenue, holding a bag of shopping, when he saw the tanks and decided to do something.
This tank man was seen as symbol of fraction which wanted democracy in China are confined to Taiwan today. As the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949, the Chinese communist People’s Republic of China (PRC), led by Chairman Mao Zedong, took control of Mainland China.
The Republic of China, led by President Chiang Kai-Shek, retreated the government of the Republic of China to Taiwan.
Though fighting continued for the next several years, by the time of the Korean War the lines of control were sharply drawn: the Communist-led People’s Republic of China government in Beijing controlled most of mainland China, while the Kuomintang-led Republic of China government, now in Taipei, controlled the island of Taiwan, some surrounding islands, and a number of islands off the coast of Fujian. This stalemate was enforced with the assistance of the United States government which began deterring an invasion of Taiwan after the start of the Korean War.
For many years, both governments contended to be the sole legitimate government of China. With the fighting largely over, the major battleground became diplomatic. Before the 1970s, the Republic of China was still recognized by many countries and the United Nations as the sole legitimate government of “China”, which included both mainland China and Taiwan. The Republic of China had been a founding member of the United Nations and was one of the five permanent members of the Security Council until 1971, when they were expelled from the UN and China’s representation was replaced by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) via UN General Assembly Resolution 2758. Before the 1970s, few foreign governments recognised the People’s Republic of China. The first governments to recognise it as the government of People’s Republic of China were Soviet bloc countries, members of the non-aligned movement, and the United Kingdom (1950). The catalyst to change came in 1971, when the United Nations General Assembly expelled representatives of Chiang Kai-shek by refusing to recognise their accreditations as representatives of China. Recognition for the People’s Republic of China soon followed from most other governments, including the United States. The Republic of China continued to compete with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to be recognised as the legitimate government of China.
Since the 1990s, however, a rising movement for formal recognition of Taiwanese independence has made the political status of Taiwan the dominant issue, replacing the debate about the legitimate government of China. A view in Taiwan is that the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are sovereign, thus forming “two Chinas”, or “one China, one Taiwan”. Former Republic of China President Chen Shui-bian adamantly supported this status quo, and accordingly largely abandoned the campaign for the Republic of China to be recognised as the sole legitimate government of China. Under President Chen, the ROC government was campaigning for the Republic of China to join the United Nations as representative of its effective territory—Taiwan and nearby islands—only.
Message for Indian Communists
Whenever you come across communists in India ask them question. What is your Idea of India? Please explain with an available example (Venezuela, China, and Russia??) give them example of successful democracies like US, UK, India etc. And don’t let them beat around the bush. These communists talk in philosophies not in facts and figures. It’s high time we must understand that communism is a failed system and it doesn’t work without gun & Tanks and where there is a Tank there will be Tank Man.
Video Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq8zFLIftGk