The Massacre at Tiananmen Square

Tank Man. An indelible image burned in our brains. But what led to this extraordinary event? Chuck and Josh walk you through the days and weeks leading up to the massacre at Tiananmen Square, which is more of a cautionary tale than we realized.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's your pals, Josh and Chuck, and we
wanted to record an intro to this episode because, um,
when we first recorded it and got it ready to
publish and edit, um, things were a lot different in
America because that was like a week ago. Yeah, exactly,
And I think the events of the past week or
two have taught us that something like this podcast episode

(00:23):
is more relevant than ever and it just kind of
worked out that way. Yeah, And we also wanted to
say that we grieved the death of George Floyd and
everybody who's ever died unfairly at the hands of the police,
and we stand with Black Lives Matter and anyone who's
fighting for justice in the United States. Absolutely. So when
you hear this episode on Tienamen Square and think, well,

(00:45):
that could never happen much less in the United States,
be careful because that's the kind of dangerous thinking that
you can get us all in trouble. And on with
the show. Welcome to Stuff. You should know a production
of I heart ratings as how stuff works. Hey, and

(01:07):
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles
w Chuck Bryan over there. Uh, and it's just the
two of us, Chuck and I decided we can make
it if we try just the two of us. Chuckers
and I. How long did you plan that, buddy? It
just came pouring right out of my brain through my

(01:28):
mouth and just lay indo with a thud on the desk. Yeah,
r I p to the great Bill Withers. Oh. I
was thinking more, um Austin Powers. M hmm, yeah, alright,
what Austin Powers? He died a long time ago, right,

(01:50):
You got me there for a second, Yes, you did.
Mike Myers had passed. I thought Mike Myers had passed,
and then I was like, wait to Dr Evil died?
I was like, wait, Dr Evil's not real. It was
really confusing for a second there. Man. So I last
night did one of the things that I loved doing
as part of our work, Chuck, which is watched a

(02:11):
really great documentary, paid for it, but you love that
great There's a really good documentary by Frontline PBS show
about tank Man, which you probably girl. Tank Man totally
different kind of thing. This is not Lori Petty. This

(02:31):
is an unknown person who no one, as far as
anyone knows, knows their name. But even if you're familiar
with tank Man, just the name. You've probably if you
live outside of China, seen this picture. It's a picture
of just as a lone man um wearing a white
kind of dress shirt and black pants, holding a couple

(02:52):
of shopping bags to the side, staring down a column
of heavy tanks that he has stopped single handedly just
by standing in front of him. Yeah. I mean it's
one of those uh, indelible images that if you were
you know, it still resonates obviously, but if you were, um,
you know, cognizant of the news in nine then you

(03:15):
could not escape this image or forget it. Yeah, And
I mean what you were close to around eighteen or so,
so I'm sure this really had a big impact on you.
And it was going on right yeah, I mean just
just had graduated high school, so like this must have
really kind of raised the hackles on the back of
your neck and gotten you pretty worked up like the
rest of the world, I would guess. Yeah, I remember

(03:37):
it being kind of one of the first big political
events that uh got my head out of my butt. Yeah,
it did that for a lot of people too. I mean,
like what happened that that day or those days like
think June three and fourth of nine, the communist regime
that had a iron grip on the country and still

(04:00):
does today, maybe even more so today, Um almost fell.
It was almost toppled by popular uprising, and to stamp
it out, the government went to the most extreme measures possible,
which was commanding the army to murder citizens. Unarmed, peacefully
protesting citizens were gunned down in the streets like like

(04:24):
like they were enemy combatants, basically in the in the
their own city in Beijing, And it was just a
horrific thing that managed to kind of trickle out and
definitely captured the world's attention, pulled the world's head out
of its butt, as you would say. Yeah, so you know,
to tell the story, we need to go back in
time a little bit. And big thanks to our pal

(04:46):
Dave Ruse for helping us out with this one. This
is very good. In fact, it was on a different
laptop and I kind of forgot it was sitting in
my folder when I it has been there for like
a month or so, right, yeah, it's been there a while,
And then I saw it. I was like, oh wait
a minute, we got tenement square on the burner. So yeah,
they did a great job. And we have to travel
back in time to uh, previous to nineteen nine, when

(05:11):
the sort of feeling among students in China was that,
you know what, this communism isn't working out so great,
and we want to start making a little bit of noise.
And we're not saying to topple our government or anything
like that, but we're saying, um, let's get the corruption
in check, and let's maybe um get some free speech

(05:33):
going on and see some free press and free expression.
And they thought they could get there. Uh, they thought
they could get there, which is what makes this really
really sad, among many other things. Yeah, and then even
sider than that to me is they almost got there,
you know, like this was I mean, this was close.
This is like a hair's breadth away. Where they brought

(05:55):
this so so much to the government store step and
laid this at their feet that the government had to
at least consider, if not openly to one another, at
least you know, to themselves, like do we just bow
to the will of the people and just say, okay,
we're gonna do things differently. Like it was a big,
big deal. It was a big deal, and um, I

(06:17):
guess preemptively, we should say we're going to do our
best with with some of the pronunciations of the names. Uh,
they are tough and well as usual, we'll do our
best and probably failed and stop short of being perfect.
I think we we learned our lesson on the underground city.
At least, we're not going to pronounce X like X right. Right.

(06:39):
So the students had a little bit of wind in
their sales because their college students, and that's what college
students are like, that's why we love them. And they
thought they had um an Ally who was a pro
reform leader and pretty high up in the Communist party
and hugh yao bang sounds are about right, okay. Uh.

(07:00):
He was forced out of power in eighty seven, though,
and when he died in April April fifteenth, nineteen nine,
the memorializing in the morning of his death is what
really kind of kick started this whole process that led
up to June three. Yeah, and in the late eighties,
what you call the president of China was named Dan

(07:22):
Jao Ping, and he was he had been in charge
for a while. But in addition to the president in
a communist country, you also have the leaders of the
Communist Party. They're not exactly like lateral, but they're pretty
high up. You have like a prime minister, you have
the leader of the party, the general secretary. Then you
also have the president of the country, and Um Dang
was the President of China at the time. But there

(07:46):
within the party and within the leadership of the country,
including Hugh and he was kind of the face of
this movement, there was this idea that, Okay, the Maoist
Revolution happened. Mao was great, but we we can't run
a country just living by these kind of lofty principles
that Mao espoused. We need to kind of get a

(08:08):
little more loose gripped here, at least economically um And
there was a whole contingent, led again by Hugh that
that basically said, maybe we should kind of ease up
on the government planning a little bit and let a
little bit of free market go and see what happens.
We really think that, like there's gonna be a lot
less starvation, a lot less poverty if we just led

(08:31):
a little bit of this stuff into there. So there
was this kind of progressive movement. But then when Hugh
when this when these protests kind of started in. They
basically showed Hugh the door, like you were saying he was.
He was removed from office because he had kind of
demonstrated that that level of like loosening of the grip

(08:52):
on the people would lead to things like protests and demonstrations.
But it was too late. They had opened the door
now and then, like you said, when he died, that
was that was kind of the the lip match that
got thrown onto this powder keg. And I take it
you're on a first name basis now because it's easier
to pronounce Hugh. Hugh was actually his last name. In China,

(09:13):
they say last name first. Yes. So I'm doing I'm
having my um my dumpling and eating it too. Oh man,
that's the best way to have a dumpling. So uh
and I learned something new today too, thanks Chuck. That's
basically why I wake up in the morning. Uh So,

(09:34):
what happened is uh, you know, he died on ape.
Bunch of students, like thousands of students got together in
Tianamen Square to mourn his passing. And Tianamen Square, we
should say, is it's an enormous place. It's the largest
public space in the world. Right in the middle of Beijing. Uh,
it is just it's the town center, unlike any town

(09:57):
center in the world. Yeah, there's like no trees any where.
It's just flat and then edged by enormous public buildings.
It makes you feel very small. Yeah, and it's also
a perfect place to get like thousands and thousands and
thousands of people together. And this is what happened during
the funeral celebration in Tianamen Square. And it didn't go

(10:18):
on for too long before students started to sort of
use this as an opportunity to not only mourn someone
that they believed was going to champion their cause, but
they said, we can use this now and let's just
let's just camp out un let's hold some speeches, and
let's sort of start giving our demands for a political reform,

(10:40):
like throwing peace signs and just basically peaceful protests that
you would imagine students from. And most of them came
from Beijing University, which from what I understand, is the
the premier elite university in the entire country. So these
were like the children of the elites, as it were.
There's definitely a measure of tolerance of this going on

(11:04):
whereas had it been you know, just a popular uprising
or popular protests from the start, they probably would have
been treated a lot more roughly, and it certainly would
not have been allowed to have go on as long
as it had. Yeah, and you know, it's interesting you
mentioned the um the sort of split and ideologies within
the party, which is really interesting to think about now. Um,

(11:28):
but they were split about what to do about these demonstrations. Um.
This was the biggest civil protests, longest running since communism
had taken hold in ninety nine. And there were some
people it wasn't just like all right, let's go in
there and mow him down. There was a complete faction
within the party that was like, you know what, Um,

(11:50):
these are students and they want what's best for us,
and maybe we should listen to them a little bit. Yeah,
because it's like you said, they were saying down with communism,
down with the China Any's Communist Party. They were they
were saying, like down with corruption, and you know, we
wanna we want a little more free speech, like some
really basic stuff that didn't require the entire system to

(12:12):
be overthrown, which was I think another reason why they
were kind of allowed to continue. And then yeah, like
you're saying, there were sympathetic members of the Communist Party,
high up in the party who were like, no, no,
we should just you know, maybe hear him out or
just let it this thing fizzle out. But then on
the other side was a guy named Lee Ping, and

(12:32):
he was the he was the antagonist in this whole thing.
Most people paying him as the villain um, but I
read an article about how he's actually the fall guy,
that it was really Dang Jao Ping who was the president,
who was the true architect of all of this, and
that Lee Ping, while he gets all of the um

(12:52):
notorious credit, yeah for this whole thing, he he he didn't.
He didn't. He wasn't the architect of it. But he
also didn't stop his boss, um Danjo Ping, from from
carrying this out or from being the architect of it too.
So it's not like he was a good guy. He
was easy to hate, I think from what I read,

(13:15):
and it made him an easy target of the protests
and then the aftermath as well. Yeah, and I think
it's you know, I think people it's easy to paint
a good guy and a bad guy in a situation
like this, and he was painted definitely is the bad guy.
And again we're not saying that he was some awesome person.
But on the other side was the Communist Party General

(13:36):
secretary and his name was Zal's Yang and he was
the one that was, you know, more sympathetic to the
cause basically, Yeah, and so he was kind of holding
back Danjo Ping's um worst impulses and saying like, no,
we just need to kind of like approach this peacefully
or whatever. And he got removed to Um, which I

(13:59):
really think kind of highlights just how uh how much
crossing or opposing Dang Jo Ping where it would get
you get your removed at best. And actually jaos Yang
he Um spent when he was removed from office, he
spent the rest of his life under house arrest, because
I mean that's what happens when you are removed from office.

(14:21):
There they just say go home and don't leave again
here under political quarantine. Yeah. So, you know, they had
seen this happening all around them. The Soviet Union was crumbling. Um,
they saw countries, communist countries, people just like these students
kind of rising up and saying that they've had enough.

(14:41):
So they were nervous and when zalox Yang went on,
he went out of town, basically went on to Korea
on a state visit. This is when Lee Ping said,
all right, now is our time. This guy's out of
the country, and he's like, basically, we can we can
start the the first piece to toppling these students. And

(15:03):
it wasn't initially a violent piece. It was an ad.
It was in April. It was an ad in the
People's Daily, the state newspaper, and it was an editorial
basically that just denounced the demonstrations. And that was their
first sort of shot fired. Was your friend is out
of town. Well they didn't say that, but because he

(15:25):
was out of town, they said, we're going to run
an editorial denouncing this. Yeah, And they basically said, look,
these students are being misguided. That the whole thing started
earnestly as a memorial for UH, for Hugh Um, but
that that it had been taken advantage of by probably
outside agitators, maybe even like plants from other governments, who

(15:49):
were fomenting like a popular uprising out of this um
genuine you know, sorrow for this guy who was you know,
a real real advocate for them Um. But regardless of
how it started or what's going on. We can't we
can't abide this any longer. And if we do, there's
going to be I think they put it, will never
have another day's piece unless we act. Um. They didn't

(16:12):
say brutally resolutely. Unless it's checked resolutely, they said, which
is then in the margin it said, see brutally right exactly. Yeah,
I mean like that's not checked resolutely? Is against a
popular protest? Is this menacing stuff? Should we take a break?
More menacing stuff? All right, we'll take a break and

(16:35):
we'll come back and talk about the effect that this
editorial had right after this stop No, alrighty, So they

(17:03):
ran this editorial. They said that the uh, they would
be checked resolutely if they didn't disperse, and they thought
that that would do the job basically, But all that
that had the complete opposite effect. Like literally overnight, people
all over China, four hundred cities across China had people

(17:24):
coming out and protesting because they were invigored by these
students and what they saw going on in Beijing. And
I think it says Dave had an estimate here of
one inten citizens took to the streets and these were
people of all social strata, all walks of life in China. Yeah, yeah,
one intend in Beijing, but then tends to hundreds of

(17:46):
millions of protesters all pouring out into the streets and
cities across China, like they had a huge problem overnight
on their hands. Like they they people were like that
was the that was that editorial was the exact wrong move. Move. Yeah,
it was the wrong move. And uh, things just kind
of went on this way for a little while until

(18:08):
I think about in mid May when Gorba Chef was
coming to visit in China. So they said, this is
the perfect chance, let's stage a hunger strike and Tienamen Square.
And this was not a good look for the Chinese
Communist Party. They were not happy that this is going on.
What Gorba Cheff was going to pay the visit, Yeah,
because I mean, you wanted to impress Goreby. He was

(18:28):
probably the most popular guy in the world. Right then
in nine Um, yeah, they lost face and it was
it was a pretty well done move on the part
of the students who carried out the hunger strike. Um,
but that that editorial that kicked all this off, that
really kind of changed things. There was a huge turn.

(18:51):
There was a sea change in the entire thing when
regular people started taking up this protest, because it started
out as a student protest and now all of a
sudden it was an everyday Chinese person protest um, and
that apparently changed the entire attitude of the government towards
this whole thing that was no longer paternal and kind

(19:12):
of head patty and um uh patient. It was like,
wait a minute, I saw in this front line documentary
that somebody said it was like, the workers are the
ones who who put the Chinese Communist Party in power,
and now it suddenly looked like the workers were about
to take the power away from them. And this scared
the bid Jesus out of out of them because again

(19:32):
this is a very um. They had an iron stranglehold
over their population, and they were also there's a lot
of corruption in the government too, so the the whole
idea of being removed from power had a lot more
at stake than just you know, losing power. Like there
there was they these people that had done quite a
bit that they might have to answer for after they

(19:54):
lost power. You know, oh yeah, big time. They were.
They were officially worried at this point, um, he still
had Zo calling for cooler heads to prevail here. Um.
But and this is before his removal, just before but
Leeping said, you know what, the only way to take
care of this is by kind of cracking the whip

(20:16):
in a hard, hard way. Um, martial law should be imposed.
Students heard about this, and this is when the big,
big protest at Tenement Square. I think they estimated like
over a million people, one point two million people, um, students.
There were police involved, there were some military that we're protesting,

(20:36):
and this is when everything really started to gain some momentum. Um.
And you know what students thought was the right direction,
but it turns out was a bad move. Probably yeah,
I mean in high you can never yeah sure, yeah, yeah,
I mean like like yeah now. But at the time,
it was like, okay, we're gonna go to the mattresses

(20:57):
rather than backing down. And they said, okay, we're gonna
escalate on our end as well. If they're gonna amass
troops and invade Beijing, which is what they did, we're
gonna meet them and try to drive them out. And
at first it actually worked. There was a a first
incursion into Beijing of about three hundred thousand Chinese soldiers.

(21:17):
The Chinese military showed up in Beijing and tanks, armored
personnel carriers, troop transport trucks, the whole shebang. The imagine
three hundred thousand soldiers showing up in Atlanta and just
basically being like, everybody needs to go home. The thing is,
everybod go home. This first probably this first um, this

(21:39):
first incursion I guess into Beijing, UM didn't actually make
it to the city center because the people in the suburbs,
uh came out and swamped these army convoys and prevented
them from moving forward and actually kept them there and
gridlock of a sea of humanity for about four days.
I think. Yeah, I mean it was a it was

(22:00):
a huge victory. Kind of right off the bat. They
had UM you know, they they went after these personnel
carriers and these tanks. They had children, they had older adults,
they had They basically kind of paralyzed what they were
trying to do and then decided to do a very
kind of brilliant thing, which was appeal to the good

(22:21):
nature of these soldiers as human beings. UM. I saw
one article that that kind of guess that about six
of the p l A soldiers were illiterate. Um, they
were uneducated. They were from out in the country, and
these Beijing city folks would approach them and they would

(22:42):
bring them food, and they would bring them things to drink,
and they would send their children out to talk to
them and say things like, you know, you should be
defending us, you shouldn't be attacking us, you should join us,
And some of them did. Some of those soldiers stepped
down and kind of quit on the spot, knowing full
well that that not end well for them, And the

(23:02):
majority of them obviously didn't right right, But even you know,
even if they didn't step down and and quit, some
of them did step down and mingle and talk. And
I saw footage of them when they finally left on
the fourth day, they turned around and retreated away from Beijing.
You know, a good third or half of the troops

(23:23):
on these trucks that were driving away were waving to
the to the people of Beijing who'd just been who
just spent the last four days like feeding them and
talking to them and basically trying to change their minds
about this. Because I don't know if we made it
we made it clear when the people from the Beijing
suburbs swamped these trucks. This is a big non violent

(23:45):
form of resistance. It wasn't violent, it was it was
a charm offensive. It was just straight up non violent resistance.
And it worked, like it totally worked. On the one hand,
it worked because the Chinese government hadn't given them orders
to fire on anybody, and probably gave them orders not
to carry out any violence against the people. Um and

(24:07):
that that's really why it actually ultimately worked. Because if
if you're being met with that kind of resistance and
you can't meet that resistance with violence, it's not like
the soldiers We're gonna explain their position or the government's
position to the Beijing residents and change their minds. There's
nothing they could do but just sit there and then
finally turn around and leave. And so at first, the uh,

(24:30):
the residents of Beijing were kind of chugh with themselves,
you know, like like that really worked. This non violent
resistance turned back three hundred thousand troops from China's equivalent
of Arkansas who just showed up in China's equivalent of
New York and um and and kept them from invading. Basically, yeah,

(24:51):
so the government sees this happen, and they they're on
full uh, they're on high alert now. They're fully worried,
and they see the riding on the wall that this
could be the end of the Communist Party as we
know it if we don't squash this thing once and
for all. And so they said, all right, here's what

(25:11):
we're gonna do. Let's send the army in again, just
like we did the first time, except now you're going
to get to Tienamen Square and squash this uprising. If
they come out and meet you in the suburbs, um
take care of things. However, you need to to get
to Tienamen Square, like full authorization to use deadly force. Yeah,

(25:32):
and I saw again on that documentary they were saying
like they were given guns and ammunition, and the ammunition
they were given were um, thumb sized bullets. The kind
of bullets that um from what I could tell, they
were um what's that kind that like turned into like
like circular saws inside people. What's it called? It's like

(25:52):
a really common word. Everybody knows all the point. I
think anyway, they they were meant for like combat. The
bullets they're using, these weren't rubber bullets. They weren't even
regular bullets. They were like combat grade bullets that these
the troops were given and you have to you have
to remember to chuck. By this time, there's nobody now

(26:12):
because Zoo has been removed. Um, there's nobody arguing against
this impulse, at least not openly, and so this impulse
is allowed to go and check. Nobody stopped and said, well,
wait a minute, wait a minute, this is crazy. We're
talking about going in and slaughtering our own people. Um,
we have to find another way. Nobody was saying that,

(26:33):
and in fact, Lee Lee Paying was at the very
least keeping his mouth shut, if not supporting this whole
thing as well. Yeah, so you know, the students get
word that this is what's coming, basically a second wave.
They were victorious in that first wave. So they were,
like you said, they were checked. They were probably like,
all right, bring it on, Well let's do the let's
do the same thing again. We're going to charm you again. Yeah,

(26:57):
pretty much. And they did the same thing. They had
these they improvised these barricades at the entrance points. They
blocked off roads with people with busses uh tired like
stacks of tires and stuff. And on June third, the
night of June three, the tanks roll in, the personnel
vehicles roll in. By this time, there are some rocks

(27:18):
being thrown and some Molotov cocktails and stuff like that,
and things start to get a little unruly, and the
p l A just charged through and at nine pm
the first shots rang out, and it was very clear,
very quickly that they were just gonna mow people down. Yeah,
but apparently even though it was clear to some people,

(27:41):
to other people it was so surprising and just so
utterly unbelievable that it took way too long for it
to sink in what was going on. I'm sure everybody
was shocked. Yeah, So some people, i think, just started
running when they saw people falling and bodies starting to
pile up, But other people were still, you know, throwing rocks,

(28:01):
and it hadn't really sunk in yet. And then ultimately,
eventually everybody got it and they started to turn and run.
And then as they would turn and run, the government
there the soldiers would fire into their backs, keep firing
into crowds that are running away. Unarmed crowds maybe have rocks,
maybe a molotov cocktails, set a bus on fire. But
they don't have guns. They don't have machine guns. I

(28:22):
was looking and apparently chuck, China has one of the
strictest gun policies, um in the world. Like, if you're
just an average Chinese person, you are not armed. You
could get a gun if you apply for one and
the government gives it to you, if you have like
a real need for it, like maybe there's bears that
live around your house that keep killing your livestock or something.

(28:44):
But if you live in Beijing, you don't have a gun.
And it makes me wonder like would this have erupted
into civil war if Beijing was armed, you know, um?
Or would it have been even worse? You know? Would
they have fought back a lot more if they had
had guns? Who knows. But the fact of the matters
these people did not have guns, and they were shot

(29:05):
in the back running away by government troops from their
own government, from their own country. And this is just
the first time this happened. This was in an isolated incident. Yeah,
so I read this article. UM. I think about three
years ago there was a sort of first hand account
from a writer from England named Sir Alan Donald, and

(29:27):
it was declassified three years ago. He wrote this account
on June five, so you know, we'll we'll finish up
on what happened June three and fourth. But it was
a very fresh account of what happened. He was over there,
and he got his information from a source who had
spoken to a very close friend in China State Council
who apparently previously had always proved very reliable, very even handed,

(29:52):
um and very factual. And the things that he would, uh,
I guess leak um out to his friend, and the
account of what happened is just like mind boggling that
they were there were snipers shooting people in on their
balconies that weren't even not down on the street protesting um.

(30:13):
They said that there were snipers using street cleaners and
things just sort of a target practice. Uh. They were
young women who were begging for their life that were
bayonetted through the chest. There was one account of a
three year old that was wounded and the mom was
racing to try and help it and they mowed her down. Uh.
They were you know, hosing body parts and entrails into

(30:33):
the drains of the street. It was just they were
mowing people down at like forty miles per hour, just
running people over in these personnel trucks. And it just
can't be overstated what a complete and utter massacre this was. Yeah,
I mean the end result of this was as on

(30:55):
the high end, maybe ten thousand people civilians, almost almost
to a person was were killed overnight from June three
to fourth, and the violence that took place, and then
on the next day, June four, unarmed, many of them
shot in the back, just just killed and including Yeah, like,

(31:17):
like you say, some people weren't even down on the street,
They were in their apartment. They just had the misfortune
of having an apartment whose windows looked out onto ten
m And Square. Uh, and who had caught the attention
of a sniper on nearby rooftop. Like it was just
just ghastly one of the worst things that any government's
ever done to its own people, certainly in modern times. Um,

(31:41):
it doesn't really get much worse than that. Yeah, So
one thirty am, the army is finally in the heart
of Beijing. They have surrounded Tenamen Square. All of these
protests are not all of them, Sure, some people got
out of there, but most of these protesters are still there.
Um there order to leave the they opened fire again.

(32:04):
I think at this point they sent in something called
the twenty seven Army, which the best the best I
could find is that just as was a very um
loyal division, apparently that would they knew that would just
obey the orders no matter what. And so now they're
in Tiennement Square. They're throwing rocks, they're getting strafed by

(32:24):
machine gun fire. And within a few hours and most
of Tienamen Square had empty out. Uh, they were down
to about three to five thousand students. They took a
vote um the student union basically said do you want
to go or do you want to stay? And most
people wanted to stay, but the leadership said, no, we
got to get out of here otherwise we're all going

(32:47):
to be killed. Basically, yeah, they just said the ghost
have it, let's go um. And in retrospect, that was
the smartest possible thing they could have done. There wasn't
any anything that would have been gained necessarily by the slaughter.
But they were all very surprised that they weren't just
indiscriminately slaughtered themselves like they you know, a lot of
people have been killed in Tianamen Square already and they

(33:09):
were cornered by the military. But then rather than just
mow them down like had been done to everybody else,
they were given an ultimatum that they could either leave
now and and just dropped the whole uprising thing, or
um they could be jailed, prosecuted and probably killed. So
they decided to go. And it makes you wonder like

(33:30):
would it have had an effect if they had been killed,
because these these must have been the very students from
the elite Beijing University who were the sons and daughters
of the elite leaders in China at the time. Um,
So what repercussions would there have been had they died?
But ultimately it was the right move, It was the
smart thing to do, and the best thing to do

(33:51):
is for the leadership. These students themselves, they were in
their early twenties, tops to say let's we should leave,
and they did. Yeah. So, you know, Tienamen Square itself
gets all the press and the and the historical record
kind of lies in Tienamen Square, but uh, it was
it was all over Beijing the um June four, like

(34:12):
it was on June three. On June four, Some say
that that's where the most loss of life happened and
some of the bloodiest. H I was about to say battle,
but it wasn't even a battle. The bloodiest part of
the massacre happened the next day in the surrounding streets. Yeah,
for Tienaman Square to have, like you say, all the press,
very little actually happened there. It was mostly in the

(34:34):
area around it in the rest of Beijing. Um. But
the the street that actually runs in front of Tienaman Square, UM,
shooting on Yeah, shooing on avenue it Um, it got
the most coverage and has the most record of what
happened because there happened to be a high rise hotel

(34:55):
along shune On Avenue that that housed a bunch of
Western journalists who were surreptitiously recording and photographing this whole
thing and documenting it. Yeah, so they that was very fortuitous, um,
because you know, we'll get to tank Man later. But
on this avenue, the protesters gathered and they started to

(35:17):
get on the p l A troops demanding answers. The
army said, all right, you need to disperse again or
face the consequences. And once again, just like in the
other instances the army just opened fire and they just
barreled down the avenue and people were scrambling, they were
getting out of the way, they were hiding behind trees

(35:38):
and buildings, and there would be a little period of
calm and then people would gather up again. And this
is what makes us also tragic, is the people would
continually get the nerve to try again over and over. Yeah,
and a lot of those people the next day on
on shooing on Avenue UM, were the parents of these

(35:59):
these protests or who they wanted to get into Tianneman
Square to find out what had happened to their kids.
They didn't They hadn't heard from him yet. They thought
maybe they were dead in there. So I think that
might have been what drove them to to come back
over and over again, even after being fired upon UM
And I saw footage of this. There's like after that
first wave, maybe even after the second wave, this whole

(36:21):
thing went on a dozen or so times where the
people would come back up and confront the military, the
military to open fire them, they'd run away, and then
the people would like gather their courage up again and
go do it again. At least after the first or
second wave. Uh, there's an ambulance that shone like rushing
to the scene, and they fire on that. And they

(36:42):
seemed to have either killed or possibly injured the driver
because it like years off course and runs into like
a booth or some of some sort. So they were
firing on ambulances that were coming to help the injured
who they had fired on just a few minutes earlier. Yeah,
I saw one report that they uh one I'm not

(37:05):
sure how it's split up, but one troop fired on
their own officer and murdered him because I think he
had shown a little bit of resistance or maybe the
way I read it, it was a kind of even
just like hey, what are we doing here, like a
little bit of self doubt about their mission, and so
they murdered him. Man, I mean, imagine this like whether

(37:27):
you're in America or the UK or Australia, Like, imagine
your own army doing this to you, like showing up
in your city and just opening fire like what I
just nightmare situation. That would be. Yeah. Should we take
another break? Yes, all right, we'll take another break, and

(37:48):
we'll talk about tank Man and sort of the legacy
of the massacre at Tenement Square right after this stop
stop you. So, like I said, Chuck, there was about

(38:18):
on the high end, ten thousand residents of Beijing killed
June three and fourth. Um oh really, Um yeah, I
mean the account from the one guy said that it
was at least ten thousand, and that was from his
supposed source from inside the Chinese government. And that's that's
just killed. That's not killed or injured. That's not just

(38:40):
total casualties. That's that's killed. Um. The uh, the government
of China, whenever they did acknowledge that this even happened,
which we'll get to in a little bit, they said,
I think it was like to tote like two something,
is what they said. And they included in that a

(39:01):
lot of soldiers and officers. And it is true that
there were reports of you know, some of these barricades
that people had put up around Beijing where they there
were enough people that they overran you know, troop like
troop transports and killed soldiers on board. So there were
some soldiers that died, but far in away, the most

(39:23):
casualties were on the civilian side, unarmed civilian side. Keep
in mind, yeah, I think I saw the Chinese Red
Cross initially said twenty seven hundred, but that was quickly squashed. Uh,
and that even seemed super super low, right, So um,

(39:44):
this is uh. That was June four that the worst
of the massacre happened. It was in broad daylight. And
then June five, Um, things had calmed down some in
the sense that there was not necessarily indiscriminate mowing down
of people in the streets anymore. People had just basically

(40:04):
resigned to give up and stay inside. The TENEMN protests
have been completely squashed. Um, And it was I guess
calm as calumn as could be, considering that there were
still plenty of like tanks and martial law in the
area and on shooting on avenue, like a column of

(40:25):
I think eight tanks or a few a few tanks,
I'm not sure how many there were, um gathered into
a line and sort of going down the avenue, and
then just out of nowhere, this one guy tank man
steps out of nowhere and just stands in front of
the lead tank, and eventually the tank just comes to
a stop. And I guess there were This is all

(40:47):
right in plain view of the Western journalists, of a
lot of people who were watching this waiting for the
tank to just run this guy down or to just
shoot him with the machine gun, just basically treat him
just like like you know, ten thousand or more other
people have been treated in the last day, and to
everyone's great surprise, it didn't happen. Instead, the tank just

(41:11):
tried to move. Yeah, so he stops the tanks. Uh.
He's motioning, you know, like kind of get out of here.
He's kind of sweeping his arm around and then, you know,
this footage is just remarkable to look at even today.
The tank tries to go around him, and like you said,
then the guy gets in its path. The tank stops again,

(41:32):
the tank goes to the left. They're doing this just
surreal dance of the tank moving and the guy moving
in front of it. And then finally the tank stopped again,
cut its motor, and the guy climbs up on top
of the tank and starts yelling at the soldiers. One
of the dudes in the tank, uh, pokes his little

(41:53):
head out and they start talking, and I say, little head.
I think he had a normal size head, but just
from the the vantage point of the footage was a
little head. Uh, or who knows, maybe he was a
tiny headed person. It was smaller than normal. You can
never say. So they start yelling at each other and

(42:13):
having an exchange, and the guy gets back down on
the ground. Tank Man does. The tank starts this engine
and he gets right back in front of front of
it again. And that is when that very famous photo
from Charles Cole is snapped of him just standing again
with those shopping bags by his side, just as defying

(42:35):
as the human being has ever been. And I mean
this is after ten thousand of his fellow Beijing Beijing
ors have been killed in the street. And this guy
said this is enough. Like that's the thing to me.
The guy said, this is enough. I'm sick of this.
S you guys need to go. That very clearly what

(42:56):
the guy was saying. But the beautiful thing about tank
Man is you can't hear what he said. You can't
see you can't see his face, uh nearly enough to
to even tell who he was. There's no way anybody
saw who this guy actually was, um at least not
from like a camera or anything. So you also couldn't
read his lips or anything. So it's left up to

(43:17):
you and your imagination what this guy was saying and
what he was doing, and then actually comes through in
the fact that China, right after this incident, broadcast it
on TV. But they broadcast it as clear evidence of
just how much restraint the Chinese military had shown in Beijing,

(43:37):
and how all of the casualties that had actually come
out of it were the fault and the on account
of the these um rebellious anti communist uprisers, and that
the military had really done a good job with us.
But it really kind of underlines like you can put
into tank man what you want, but far and away
the vast majority of the world. Because that Charles Cole

(44:00):
photo quickly got out, we'll explain how in a second,
the vast majority of the world was inspired by this
guy showing courage. That that's how they took it, that
this guy was saying, and not if you can do
what you want to me, but I represent the real
true feeling of the people of Beijing, are the people
of China, of all freedom loving people in the world,

(44:22):
I represent how they feel about you in that tank
and all the people who sent you here right now. Yeah,
it was it was remarkable. Um So Charles Cole takes
this picture, he is seen by some security officials that
are on a rooftop across the street. And he knows this,
and he's like, they're gonna come for my camera. Um,

(44:43):
for sure, So he very smartly pops this roll of
film out and hides it in the water tank of
his toilet in his bathroom. I was, Oh, I don't know,
I think can you imagine? I think the keyster would
be sought out sooner than the toilet tank, right. The

(45:07):
first thing they did was probably bend him over and
see what he had. So they did come, and they
did compensate his camera, and they confiscated a roll of film,
but it was from the day before, and he came
back the next day and that that roll of film
was still in the toilet tank. Yeah, I got it.
Otherwise the world may have never seen this image. Yeah no,

(45:30):
I don't know that that's necessarily true, because there's that
video footage of it that shows the whole thing. And
did we say also that he um, have we gotten
to the part where he's hustled off? Who cole tank man?
Oh no, okay, well I just spoiled it. So I

(45:50):
mean there is the video of it. But yeah, that
that that photo that the world got to see because
of Charles Cole's quick thinking, that that became like a
symbol of you know, the tenam and square uprising, like
tank Man just standing defiantly. I wonder if do you
know the release date of the video footage? No, I don't.

(46:14):
I know that stuff leaked out pretty quick. I imagine
that everybody was kind of like, ho, um, I'm just
leaving Beijing for no good reason. I'm a Western journalist
just traveling to Shanghai to fly back to London for
no good reason. You don't need to search me for anything,
and just got out of there as fast as they could.
I just wonder if they released the footage after the
photo had become released. I'm not sure. I know that

(46:38):
there were a lot of journalists watching that at the time,
including just you know, UM text journalists when writers, I
guess you'd call them um that that that were witnessing
this and writing about it and memorizing and documenting it. Um.
And the fact that they were left alive let this
idea get out, because we'll see the Chinese government like

(47:00):
washed a memory of this. This is a lot. It
bears a lot of resemblance to um to the Tulsa
Race massacre. Yeah, you know, it just follows a lot
of the same key points, but um to some up
tank Man or to wrap up his story. Um, after

(47:22):
this this, like you said, this weird dance goes on
for a little while and he's just standing there and
there's there in a standoff. It's between him and the tank.
A guy runs it, comes up on his bike and
you could tell he's just kind of like you, Okay,
you need to get out of here. This is not
going to go well for you. And that kind of
cues up a couple of other guys who run into
the frame of this video footage and just grabbed tank

(47:45):
Man and hustle him away. And there's some debate over
who those people were and what became of tank Man.
Some witnesses say, well, they were clearly you know, members
of the Communist Party, you know, secret police, and he
was taken away and executed. But if you watch the footage,
to me, these are these are people who are getting
him out of there to help him. That's how it

(48:06):
would Yeah. Yeah, So they think the fact that the
Chinese government did not parade this guy around, hold a
public trial and probably a public execution to make an
example out of him, and the fact that no one
has any idea what his name was and no one's
ever said it was this guy definitively makes people think

(48:26):
that he is still alive and hadn't told anybody that
he he made it out of there alive. Basically, Yeah,
I really wonder. I mean, there have been various accounts
over the years of who they think it was. Some
people have even named individuals. Uh. Some people have said
that no, he was executed. Some people said no, he wasn't. Uh.

(48:47):
Some people said he was incarcerated, never to be heard
from again, and we just there's really no way of knowing. Uh.
It is interesting to read though, all the accounts of
what people think might have happened. Yeah, I like to
know with that he was absorbed by a crowd and
disappeared like live to live, not disappeared like disappeared like

(49:09):
from the government's radar. Yeah, it's like at the end
of Victory, the Great World War two soccer movie. Oh
I never saw that one. Well, should I spoil it? Sure?
I think I kind of did they win? All right?
If you want to see this movie, don't listen to
this people. But the whole deal is as they stage

(49:32):
the Allies prisoners of war stage the soccer match against Germany.
But the real plan is that they are to escape
during a tunnel in the locker room. Uh, this rag
tag team of soccer players that the prisoners as symbol
featuring Sylvester Stallone as the loan American in goal, and uh,

(49:55):
they think that they can win the soccer game. At
halftime that they don't escape, they decide to not go
and to play that soccer match and they win, and
it's amazing, and the stadium is field is stormed and
they are absorbed by the crowd and you see images

(50:17):
of them getting hustled off and having like street clothes
put on them over their soccer uniforms, and that's the
end of the movie. It's great. So they were very
fortunate that the crowd treated them that way, but they
didn't know that that was going to happen. No, they
then that was one of the dumbest decisions ever made
by a group of human beings in the world to

(50:39):
try and win a soccer game instead of this game,
because it doesn't matter. The soccer game doesn't matter, that matters.
That was so dumb it's such a good movie based
on a real life true story. You know, I have
no idea. I don't think so it has to be

(50:59):
I've hoped so Okay, So anyway, Um, we don't know
what became a tank man, but the the his his image,
they think, or they say, actually inspired a lot of
those um protests in Eastern Europe that had made the
Communist Party so nervous for a wild chuck that um
they actually inspired those protesters to go all the way

(51:21):
and actually led to the downfall of the USSR. What
he did not lead to the downfall of was the
Chinese Communist Party because they won. They they they went
as far as they needed to go to make sure
that they held on to power, like they went far
beyond like any reasonable point and engaged in not civil war,

(51:46):
a massacre of their own people, just to hold on
to power and keep things the way that they were.
But one thing that really changed that directly came out
of this June popular uprising was a shift toward economic
reform that they had said, Okay, you people, you want

(52:08):
some economic reform. You want a bigger shot at life,
you want more, you want to make more money, you
want you know, luxury brands build malls and open up
stores here, We'll give you that. And they did. They
opened up China to foreign investment. And I mean we
all know how that story went. Um, this rise of
China that we're seeing now and have been seeing for

(52:30):
the last couple of decades directly came from the June
uprisings and the decision for the government to say, okay,
we'll open up some economic reform. Yeah. And in the end,
like we said, you know, up to and perhaps more
than ten thousand people murdered, um at least six d

(52:50):
people imprisoned. I gotta think it was much more than that.
But that's from a human rights group called the Dii
Hua Foundation and uh, you know, imprisoned for uh you know,
crimes against the government, um, re education camps, life sentences. Supposedly,

(53:14):
in two thousand sixteen, a man was supposedly the very
last prisoner from the Teneman massacre to be released twenty
seven years later. But who knows the truth? And a
lot I mean a lot of public executions, like making
examples out of people, scaring the the Jesus out of

(53:35):
the population, saying like this is what happens. Look, what
happens if you're a um, if you're anti government. But
again they were they were doing in a was saying like,
there's just a few people who were really against the government.
We know you would never do this, and it really
had this huge chilling effect on that. And so they said,
we'll give you economic reform. Do not ever ask for

(53:56):
political reform again, because this is what happens when you do.
We're in charge, we're keeping things the way they are,
but we'll make it so you can have more money
or whatever. And now China is basically like um, much wealthier.
There's a huge middle class than there was before. But
there's also a tremendous amount of inequality that wasn't there before.
But you can also say, on the other hand, everybody

(54:18):
was equally poor. Um, now there's a lot less people
who aren't poor, and even a lot of the poorer
people are way better off than they were, but they
still live under one of the most repressive regimes in
the world. UM. And that was the that was the tradeoff,
that was the bargain that was made. Yeah, and you
know what, there's one thing that I think I really

(54:39):
learned from this, and it was that you have to
nip corruption in the bud before it takes true route,
Because if you let your government and your leaders get
away with corruption, they're gonna try to get away with
a little more, and a little more and a little more,
and then before you know it, corruption is so entrenched
in your government, it and in your society that the

(55:03):
people who are in charge have so much to answer for.
I have so much that they've done that they would
not want people to know about that. They can't ever
afford to let go of power, and so they will
do anything to hold on power, including murder their own
people who try to take them out of power. And

(55:23):
I mean, this happened in China, but if it if
it reaches that point, you could make a pretty good
case that this could happen anywhere. That's what I took
from it. You cannot as a society, You cannot as
a um, a political group of citizens, a citizenry put
up with corruption, no matter how big your house small,
in your leaders, in your government, you can't do it. Yeah,

(55:47):
it's a man, what a time. But like you said,
it's it's a cautionary tale. Forever agreed. Uh, Oh, one
more thing, Chuck. They showed some They showed a picture
of tank Man to some kids from Beijing University when
that documentary was made in two thousand six, and either
either they pretended they didn't know who it was or

(56:09):
they legit did not know what they were looking at.
Yeah it looked real to me, man. Yeah, But you
could also make the case like that this is such
a taboo subject that like you would pretend on camera
to some Western journalists with government mind or sitting right
next to them, or had no idea what it was.
Yeah yeah, um, well that's tenemn square now, you know. Um.

(56:31):
And if you want to know more about it, there's
a lot to read about it, um all over the internet, thankfully,
as long as you live outside of China. It's about
one internet, right Uh. And since Chuck said one Internet,
it's time for a listener mate. Uh, this is which

(56:52):
one should I read here? So you know what? Let
me read this? This was a this one just came in.
This was a uh listener male prediction and that puts
Jared from sub from subway to shame. Did you read
this one? No? I don't know which one that is. Uh,
well just sit back then and hold onto your seats. Hey, guys,
My family and I live in Oregon have been in

(57:13):
lockdown for the past ten weeks. My husband is a
firefighter paramedics, so we are really staying home so we
can minimize the risk of spreading the virus because he
has so much exposure due to his job. I am
a substitute teacher and I am not work right now,
but I'm homeschooling our kids age two, six, and eight.
We're very lucky. My husband's job is essential, though, because

(57:36):
so we're not in the position that so many Americans
are in with losing both of our jobs. And when
I'm not homeschooling, I get to listen to as much
stuff you should know as possible. So onto the reason
I'm writing this. I was listening to the Globe of
Death episode from December two thousand seventeen, and I went

(57:56):
back and listen to this. In fact, maybe we should
play this one again. Uh, listener mail, Well, let me
just read this. We'll see if we need to. We'll
play the entire episode in this listener mail. No, just
the listener mail, gotcha? Okay, the listener mail. And this
episode was really eerie. It's a woman who predicts the

(58:17):
next global outbreak will be a flu pandemic, and it
calls on the government for cutting c DC funding to
prepare for an event like this. It's very strange to
be listening to this listener mail on this situation after
being in quarantine. I know you guys love it when
you're show predicts events, so I thought I would throw
this out there. Thanks that you do all that you

(58:37):
do to keep me sane, and that I'm able to
hear other grown ups talking about interesting talk topics. My
kids are always asking what I'm laughing at and then
asked to hear what Josh and Chuck are saying. Thank you, guys.
That is from Tiffany Hallock and uh, shall we play
a portion of that? Yeah? We should. All right, Well,
here's the listener mail from two thousand seventeen, and see

(59:01):
if this is uh sounds a little eerie to you.
I'm gonna call this flu epidemic. Hey, guys, I'm a
Master's of Public Health candidate in Atlanta at Emory, and
we spend a good amount of time discussing the flu.
I remember you mentioning the Spanish flu and wondered if
such an epidemic could happen again. Bad news is, it
can and it probably will. According to public health scholars,

(59:24):
that is the culprit is our meat industry, which keeps
an overbundance of foul and pigs and tight unsanitary quarters.
Because of the way this industry is growing, and some
might argue due to its lack of regulation. Uh, these
unsafe conditions lend to the rapid mutation of the virus. This,
coupled with the ever decreasing c DC budget, makes it

(59:46):
harder and harder for vaccine scientists to create accurate vaccines.
On top of all that, the flues scene is a
low threat by most of our society, rendering us ill
equipped and underprepared. Most people are scared of ebola or
other difficult catch viruses. However, influenza is a rapidly mutating
and highly aggressive virus that is easily transmittable and is

(01:00:07):
right here on our doorstep. Scientists predict the flue might
be the next most deadly epidemic if we're not careful.
My recommendation to our congress people stop cutting the CDC budget.
Prevention is key. I know will probably sounds like a
quack not to me for real, but just wanted to
spread a little knowledge and say hey to my favorite podcasters,
thanks for putting on such amazing show. And that is

(01:00:29):
from Jasmine. Wow, that was pretty eerie. Turned out to
be Dr Debra Burkes herself. Uh well, thanks dude, that
was a that was a good listener mail. And that
was from Tiffany, you said, yeah, that was from Tiffany.
Thanks for that one, Tiffany. Thanks good catch, um, and
thanks for letting us know that you guys are doing okay, Uh,

(01:00:51):
hanging there with the home school in and hanging there
everybody who whose job was not essential, who's on furlough
or um beating up the unemployement an office website. Uh,
hang in there, everybody, because things are going to get better.
Uh and we will be here the whole time too. Okay,
that's right. Okay. If you want to get in touch
with this in the meantime to say hi or whatever,

(01:01:13):
well you can do a via email. How about that.
Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send
it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
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