Remember Tiananmen Square : American Greatness

The Chinese are very keen to brush the historical reality of what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989 under the rug, into the oubliette. In the first place, it doesn t fit the narrative of Chinese inevitability. Radical dissent coexists uneasily with fantasies of ineluctable success. 

Second, the facts of Tiananmen underscore not just the brutality of the Chinese but the surprising potency of individual action. You cannot find many discussions of those haunting images of the Tank Man without encountering the word iconic. A solitary man versus a column of tanks. Who won that exchange? 

No doubt Stalin thought he was being cynically clever when he asked How many divisions has the Pope? The answer, of course, was zero and the implication was that the pontiff, a solitary man, would be no match for Stalin with his millions of troops.  

It did not turn out that way, however. On this unhappy anniversary of Tiananmen Square, as the Chinese grind the denizens of Hong Kong under the thumb of their vast surveillance apparatus and the world wakes up to the true origin of COVID-19 in a Chinese bioweapons laboratory, the fate of Stalin s sarcastic question should give us both pause and resolution.  

via amgreatness.com

I remember it very well. I lived only a couple of blocks from the PRC embassy and remember the cars honking in support of the protestors 24 hours a day.