Comment by crazygringo
2 days ago
For comparison, estimates of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre death count are usually put in the 300-1,000 range by journalists and human rights groups.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests...
But note that the Tianenmen Square massacre was only one part of a larger nationwide protest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Chinese_protests_by_regio... . There's no telling how many were killed or disappeared outside of Beijing.
Actually, there is plenty of telling, and the largest (only?) massacre outside Beijing was in Chengdu, with 8 to 400 people killed depending on who you believe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu_protests_of_1989
There was plenty of rounding up student leaders and executions afterwards, but I don't think even the wildest anti-communists would claim a death toll in the thousands for this.
"Actually, there is plenty of telling"
To this day, the official version is, nothing happened there and then. If you talk about it online inside china, or using chinese services outside of it, it will automatically be blocked.
So yes, people did get out, but till this day they will have to face persecution or other disadvantages and some want to to visit family again or not have them face consequences.
In other words I don't know about any numbers, but how can you claim to know, when the chinese government did all it could to prevent acurate information?
One interesting thing about that incident I only learned recently is the chinese leadership was reluctant to use force and prevaricated for ages.
In the end they decided it was worth the risk and I guess they were right, because China survived that period without any rotation of elites and became more prosperous and powerful as a result, avoiding all the chaos of the former Soviet countries
most of the victims during 1989 Beijing massacre were NOT at the actual square, people should already stop using this simplified term which leads to confusion
but yeah, compared to what Israelis do in Gaza or Iran, even whole Beijing numbers are negligible considering China population