Just an FYI, pretty much all the teenage boys in China who hang out at "net bars" know how to by pass China's swiss cheese filter with this thing called "Proxy Hunter":

http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=Proxy+Hunter    

•  bobby fletcher

May I suggest better search keywords? Please try them on google.cn and compare with my Baidu search result:

Here are some of the search result I found about Tiananmen on Chinese search engine Baidu.com. I used the keywords "天安门 89" ["Tiananmen 89"]:

Here's a blog complete with photos and frank discussion:

http://www.starfox.cn/wowo/article.asp?id=37

Here are few more I found:

http://mpm.3c3e.com/modules/planet/view.article.php/36234/b30

Two netters argued weither hundreds of thousands of university students were killed during TAM. They called it "89 Student Movement Massacare":

http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/5659664.html

Netters are trading VCD of some artist's concert performance during TAM protest:

http://www.fmusic.cn/bbs/printpage.asp?BoardID=5&ID=122    

•  bobby fletcher

If anyone is curious about the Tiananmen Square massacre, a good recent resource is The Tank Man video.    

•  Jan and Cindy

I'd like to offer couple more references, in addition to the Chinese search engine results above, and J&C's excellent reference to PBS Frontline's "The Tank Man", where it reported the fact students in TAM were allowed to leave peacefully once the troops arrived:

An article by Gregory Clark on pack journalism:

http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/7702519.html

"the so-called massacre was in fact a mini civil war as irate Beijing citizens sought to stop initially unarmed soldiers sent to remove students who had been demonstrating freely in the square for weeks. When the soldiers finally reached the square there was no massacre."

An article by Columbia Journal Review on passive journalism:

http://archives.cjr.org/year/98/5/tiananmen.asp

"as far as can be determined from the available evidence, no one died that night in Tiananmen Square.
...
Hundreds of people, most of them workers and passersby, did die that night, but in a different place and under different circumstances."

[Just for reference, throwing molotov cocktail at riot police is a crime in US.]    

•  bobby fletcher

Chinese Communist Party propaganda spin doctors quickly put the blame for the tragedy on the shoulders of the protestors. After all, according to their maxim, the party is never wrong.

A testament to this idea is the fact the portrait of Mao Zedong, arguably the most lethally effective psychopath in history, still hangs in the square -- and the party still pushes "the cult of Mao."

It's true, Charles, that many people mistakenly believe that most of those massacred by the PLA died in the square, rather than on the streets leading to it, where most of the actual carnage took place.

This is a technicality -- which doesn't take away from the fact that thousands of people were murdured in cold blood by their own army.

The Tank Man documentary does a good job explaining that, and we recommend our readers watch it.    

•  Jan and Cindy

Jan & Cindy, I have too much respect for you to call you names, and it it not in my nature to accuse people who disagree with me as spies.

As the your "thousands murdered" comment, I would urge you to watch The Tank Man again. It reported that the Chinese government investigated TAM and released casualty figure of 250 dead. This figure is in-line with US intel estimate of 180-500.

And I hope you will read the Columbia school of Journalism article:

"Not only has the error made the American press's frequent pleas for the truth about Tiananmen seem shallow, but it has allowed the bloody-minded regime responsible for the June 4 murders to divert attention from what happened. There was a massacre that morning.

Journalists have to be precise about where it happened and who were its victims, or readers and viewers will never be able to understand what it meant."    

•  bobby fletcher

Charles,

I think that you know very well that any figures published by the Chinese regime have no bearing on reality. They sometimes *may* be true, but how would we know? Their credibility is simply nil.

The recent publication of a paper by Beijing scientists documenting a human death due to bird flu in 2003, 2 years before Beijing admitted to any, and the regime's subsequent apparent attempt at another coverup, is a case in point. Hmmm...maybe it's time to write about this one in a separate entry.

The Chinese Red Cross (a reputable, international organisation) for the death toll was 2600. That is very clearly "thousands" -- though there has been a very concerted effort by the regime to reduce what appears in regular media to "hundreds," and to have it called an "incident" instead of a "massacre", which it most clearly was.

As to the Tank Man video -- we really suggest that anyone reading these posts watch it -- and see for yourselves what is contained therein.

What you're reading may be a carefully-crafted part-of-the-truth that gives a very different picture than the information within its true context.    

•  Jan and Cindy

US intelligence agency NSA published estimated casualty at 180-500, not thousands.

As far as I know United States' credibility is not in question on this, which seem to be vetting the Chinese government's figure.

Yes, I agree with you people should see the documentary, read the Columbia Journal Reivew article, and Clark's oped for themselves.    

•  bobby fletcher

Hi Charles,

We'll stick with the Chinese Red Cross estimate, as they were the ones on the scene to the the assessment.    

•  Jan and Cindy