Because the purpose of the firewall is to keep the West out.
This is a common misconception. The real purpose of the Great Firewall is to keep China's posters in. The CPC is doing the world a great kindness. I've seen the magnitude of posting that happens in China. We could not survive posting of that magnitude.
if the Tiananmen Square massacre had never happened, then why does the Chinese government continue to block any mention of it vis the firewall and censorship?
They don't. People in China know that the protests in 89 happened, they just don't think it's a big deal. The idea that it's this huge dangerous taboo is just western
Communism evolved in to the Xeelee, killed everyone in the universe, and then went back in time to the beginning of the universe again to kill everyone in the univserse again 69 times! Checkmate, socialists!
Many leftists conspiracy theories are just "Yeah, the US toppled this government and slaughtered a huge number of people. Here's the CIA written article on the CIA website where they admit to it".
This is all silly! The moon landings were faked. They had Kubrick film it! Of course Kubrick being Kubrick he insisted on filming on location...
My favorite "The moon landings were faked" is the old 90s game Battlezone. In Battlezone the moon landings really happened... but they were a cover up because the US sent a secret army of advanced hover-tanks to the moon to gather a nigh-magical unobtanium resource as part of their solar-system spanning secret war with the Soviets. In the first cut-scene the camera pulls back from the Apollo site to show the secret high tech US army base. It was a fun game. Shame about the anti-communsit brainworms. A hybrid FPS/RTS vehicle sim. Cool concept, if a little clunky.
"Hey, what do you think about the 2020 antifa uprising where the antifa burned all America's cities down and executed white parents and small business owners?"
My understanding is that most people in China don't really care about the 1989 unrest and are perplexed as to why westerners make such a huge deal of it.
My understanding is that that is not the case at all, and that the CIA backed "liberal democracy" gang was a very small number of people who bullied their way in to control of the PA system and never had much support from the students. My understanding is that when the PLA finally made an ultimatum to leave almost all the students joined hands and walked out of the square peacefully. I believe there was some confrontation between PLA soldiers in riot gear and students, but it was relatively minor and confined to small areas of the square. It's hared to overstate that what happened bears no relationship at all to the western narrative.
Remember that picture of 50,000 uniformed fascists taking over part of the city in a show of force allegedly for a funeral because some pig got got?
That said, my understanding is that relations between the PLA soldiers and the students were positive throughout. Almost all the PLA soldiers in the square had no weapons, including no batons or riot helmets. I believe there were some riot units present but they were a small number relative to the overall PLA presence. There are stories of the PLA soldiers and students singing songs and sharing food. It's important to remember that most of the students in the square were advocating for a return to Communist economics from the Dengist market liberalization. From what I understand the CPC didn't really know what to do with them because they didn't want to start a confrontation with people demanding more communism, and that's largely why the event was almost entirely peaceful.
Thousands of completely unarmed PLA troops had already been in the square for days. This is nonsense. There's pictures of them chilling with the students.
My understanding is that after the initial ambush of unarmed PLA soldiers armed PLA units were eventually able to get to the area and engage the insurgents in combat, and that the deaths were a mix of PLA soldiers and insurgents, with probably some innocent bystanders because war is hell no matter how you try to prevent civilian casualties.
I don't think violent protests is an appropriate description. From what I understand armed insurgents ambushed and killed unarmed PLA soldiers and there was a running street battle as armed PLA units tried to get to the area to combat them.
Have you seen that chart that tracks how Americans went from credditing the USSR for making the greatest sacrifice in WWII and contributing the most to victory in 1946, to completely removing the Soviet contribution from the picture by the 80s? It's really sad. The Red Army deserves better.
![Frank [he/him, he/him]](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/7a7a0556-ce69-4e05-a56c-89b65fb37753.jpeg?format=webp&thumbnail=128)
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