Tiananmen anniversary: China arrests activists

[pmaitra]

Tiananmen anniversary: China arrests activists

China has arrested activists and placed others under increased surveillance to stop them from marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

From the capital, Beijing, to Fuzhou on the east coast and Guiyang in the far south-west, Chinese police have moved to detain and pressure activists.

Hundreds have been rounded up in Beijing to prevent them from marking the anniversary, rights campaigners told AFP news agency.

BBC News - Tiananmen anniversary: China arrests activists

 

[Ray]

China does not want people to remember the Tienanmen square massacre.

So, if some people want to rake it up, then they will go hell for leather and stop it.

But that could add to another massacre to add to China's chequered history of brutal actions!

A Leopard cannot change its spots. So, why raise a hornets' nest?

 

[SADAKHUSH]

China is basically ruled by well known Triad Gangs and this is how it is going to be in future as well. We need not sweat about the rights of Chinese as such but should leave it up to the natives to bring about change.

 

[Ray]

China is China.

There is no way one can be a mynah!

There is no way to have an independent mind or a life!

 

[Ray]

I wonder where have all our Chinese posters gone?

Out to get briefed?

 

[s002wjh]

china has its issues, but its certainlly not the worst human right offender out there. also most chinese are more worry about corruption, rich&poor gap, and land grabing right now.

 

[pmaitra]

china has its issues, but its certainlly not the worst human right offender out there. also most chinese are more worry about corruption, rich&poor gap, and land grabing right now.

Somewhat true, because the major land grabbing was done when Tibet and East Turkestan were occupied by PLA.

 

[s002wjh]

not really refer to land grabbing in tibet/xinjiang, but land grabbing for commerical development all over china etc, which is a big issue in china along with corruption.

 

[satish007]

shhhhhh can we discuss other stuff

 

[no smoking]

Somewhat true, because the major land grabbing was done when Tibet and East Turkestan were occupied by PLA.

Wrong, the land grabbing you are talking about were done long before 1900.

 

[satish007]

China is China.

There is no way one can be a mynah!

There is no way to have an independent mind or a life!

we all know CCP is not very good sometimes sucks or we will have not come here , instead, we were proud to mock America in US sites.

 

[huaxia rox]

CPC should appologize for the crakdown...and many still remember this.....

 

[nimo_cn]

If there is anyone who should be responsible for this tragedy, those who orchestrated the subversion and incited the students to go against CPC at the very beginning, but then fleed to America and abandomed the poor students, should be punished first.

 

[Vishwarupa]

We should ask the tibetians in India to celebrate this anniversary.

 

[kickok1975]

I wonder where have all our Chinese posters gone?

Out to get briefed?

What do you expect others to post when you are posting like this?

 

[Oblaks]

If there is anyone who should be responsible for this tragedy, those who orchestrated the subversion and incited the students to go against CPC at the very beginning, but then fleed to America and abandomed the poor students, should be punished first.

What a rotten nationalistic attitude

 

[nimo_cn]

What a rotten nationalistic attitude

What is so nationalistic in my post?

 

[s002wjh]

well CCP is the one who fire the shot. but some the student leaders basically incite the protest to a much higher degree than necessary, ask student go up against armed troop while themself flee, and later flee to US.

 

[ajtr]

China, the Ghosts of Tiananmen, and the Hard Landing

China, the Ghosts of Tiananmen, and the Hard Landing

Twenty-three years ago, the struggles in China to implement market-based reforms begun the '70s culminated in the Tiananmen Square protests that led to army opening fire on civilians on this date, June 4. The massacre still resonates strongly in China.

Flash-forward to today and China is trying to transform its economy again.

In the years since Tiananmen, China's Communist party has engineered one of the great economic transformations of modern times. But today China's economy is in a critical state. Its economy is slowing and might be heading for a dreaded hard landing.

The trick for China's leadership is to avoid having that boom go bust, at all costs, because for China's communists, economic growth has become the glue that holds their grip on power together.

The Chinese are trying to transform their economy from one reliant on exports and massive internal investment into one supported by consumer spending. They're trying to do this amid rampant signs the economy is slowing down, and at the same time as they complete a once-a-decade transfer of leadership within the Communist Party. The last thing they want is focus on something like Tiananmen.

It's proving impossible. The Chinese are buzzing over todays' 64.89 point drop in the Shanghai Composite Index. In China, 64 is like 9/11 in the U.S., because June 4, 1989, is the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre. It also happens to be today's date.

The Chinese responded predictably, banning any online searches or references to the Shanghai, or to Tiananmen or the massacre. No matter. The people found ways around the ban, quoting a 9th Century poet, for example, or arranging candles in a 6 and 4. Or just writing "say nothing," as one person did. "Everyone understands."

The issues of human rights, freedom, and crashing economies aren't new, but they aren't usually all found within the world's second-largest economy, and how China deals with them will have quite an effect on the rest of the world. Mike Casey, author of The Unfair Trade, came on the Markets Hub this morning to discuss China's balance of power.

The data out of China (despite its questionable reliability) points to a clear downturn. J.P. Morgan cut its 2012 GDP estimate to 7.7%. That's getting into hard-landing territory, and the 7% mark is something of a line in the sand for the Chinese, GeoStrat's Robert Hardy said in an interview. Less than 7% growth means jobs aren't being created, he said. That's unacceptable for the government, for political even more so than economic reasons.

For the Communist Party, economic growth has been the lever through which they have maintained the consent of the governed; in many ways, in fact, the Communists have become captive to economic growth; they know they can't live without it.

"They rule by the consent of the people not because of Communist ideology, but on the back of economic success that has been spread throughout the nation as a whole; and there is no going back," GeoStrat's Robert Hardy wrote in his weekly note.

So even though the Party last week threw cold water on the idea of a big stimulus program like the one from 2009, Hardy believes they will take some measures to boost the economy. They don't have a choice. The Chinese will build new steel mills, even if the demand isn't there. They will build cities, dams, roads. (Ironically, the Journal's "A-hed" story today focuses on one Chinese company that has failed miserably at a big road project in Poland.)

Some day, the Chinese will have to deal with the ramifications of their political and economic control. "Command economies just don't work in the end," Hardy said.

When that day will be, of course, is the big question.

 

[Ray]

Re: China, the Ghosts of Tiananmen, and the Hard Landing

We should avoid discussing the Tienanmen Square massacre since it is a sore point with our Chinese posters.

It was a most unfortunate affair as far as the world is concerned, but it was quite in order, natural and normal for the Chinese Communists and it was no patch on the massacre that was caused during the officially sanctioned Cultural Revolution.

It is the money that has come into the pockets of the Chinese is what is keeping them mesmerised about a bright future and they are not concerned as to how many died or why they died.

They are more concerned about creature comforts and not anything else and that is why they are surprised that the Tibetans bother about their religion and culture when China is changing the economic landscape of Tibet.

Now, if the Chinese economy cannot keep pace with the aspirations and the trends that have established itself in China, the CCP will have a huge problem.