You’d have a point there, if there wasn’t ample photographic evidence which also suggests that no concerted massacre took place, in the square or elsewhere. All available photographic evidence that I’ve seen supports the Chinese government’s version of events: scattered street clashes which unfortunately featured some quite heavy duty violence, but no mass formation of tanks coming in and deliberately schwacking everybody in sight.
You make convincing arguments, and I’m sure you are correct to some degree. I do not believe that the dramatized events suggested by the west are accurate. But, I still think it was a disgusting waste of life that could potentially be described as a massacre.
It wasn’t nice, to be sure. The workers’ protests which happened concurrently with the events of Tiananmen Square were reportedly the source of much of the violence, and it got properly nasty at times. The two events are often conflated though, and I felt it important to draw that distinction. Anyhow, I appreciate your open-mindedness.
