Date of 4 June remains one of China’s strictest taboos, with government using increasingly sophisticated tools to censor its discussion
There is no official death toll but activists believe hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed by China’s People’s Liberation Army in the streets around Tiananmen Square, Beijing’s central plaza, on 4 June 1989.
The date of 4 June remains one of China’s strictest taboos, and the Chinese government employs extensive and increasingly sophisticated resources to censor any discussion or acknowledgment of it inside China. Internet censors scrub even the most obscure references to the date from online spaces, and activists in China are often put under increased surveillance or sent on enforced “holidays” away from Beijing.
New research from human rights workers has found that the sensitive date also sees heightened transnational repression of Chinese government critics overseas by the government and its proxies.
Timing will be important. They’ll want the big violence to break out next summer, so he can declare Martial Law, and suspend the 2026 Midterm election.
America has never missed an election, even during the Civil War. Suspending an election is a big, bright red, flashing line. They do that, and it’s on for real.
It’s already on for real. Hypernormalization is a bitch. That might shock us all for an afternoon but we’d be back to the same discourse a week later.