This story comes from the British ambassador to China, named Alan Donald, who relayed a cable to Hong Kong . He is the only source in the world that claimed such things, not even people who participated in the protests say anything close. He also made a bunch of other claims such as the machine gun nests, which other journalists didn’t report.
A diplomat is not an impartial source, especially when making a confidential cable to their government (remember the wikileaks US cable 10 years ago). Their job is to represent and further the interests of their country abroad However, telling libs that the diplomat said all that because he had an interest in demonizing China to justify further involvement will get you nowhere – I’ve tried.
This isn’t even going the logistics of such a claim. This is what the cable says:
FACT. ON ARRIVAL AT TIANANMEN TROOPS FROM SMR HAD SEPARATED STUDENTS AND RESIDENTS. STUDENTS UNDERSTOOD THEY WERE GIVEN ONE HOUR TO LEAVE SQUARE BUT AFTER FIVE MINUTES APCS ATTACKED. STUDENTS LINKED ARMS BUT WERE MOWN DOWN INCLUDING SOLDIERS. APCS THEN RAN OVER BODIES TIME AND TIME AGAIN TO MAKE QUOTE PIE UNQUOTE AND REMAINS COLLECTED BY BULLDOZER. REMAINS INCINERATED AND THEN HOSED DOWN DRAINS.
Several questions need to be answered:
Could APCS in 1989 run over bodies without destroying their components? This means both liquid and solid waste attached to the wheels.
Where are all the bulldozers that were brought in for this? When did they bring them in? Why didn’t anyone else report them?
How did they incinerated all the remains? This is not explained. Flamethrowers? They brought in incinerators for this?
Could the Beijing sewer system in 1989 handle such a load of toxic, human waste? I don’t think even modern sewers could handle that on top of all the other usual waste they have to sanitise.
If it’s ash that was hosed down, this explains the hazardous material being treated in a water treatment plan – ash AFAIK is not toxic. But the sheer volume of it remains.
Finally the picture the person on Reddit is referring to comes from an obscure website, here (not NSFW, they’re just links to the pictures without thumbnails here). The picture itself is number 14 and NSFL. However, the website says it’s a person crushed by a tank, they don’t claim it was part of the fictitious incident the diplomat reports. You can clearly see civilians behind the body, most likely (but not 100%) the person was trampled during the commotion. Well, there are several things in the picture that seem strange to me but I’m not a forensics specialist and I don’t want to be an internet detective so I’ll refrain from commenting there. However, I will note there are no tank tracks on that picture while there are in others, which calls the caption into question.
There are certainly other pictures but again, none of the so-called incident the diplomat describes.
But of course you all know that here, it’s convincing the idealists that’s more difficult.
Also, if you want to shut libs up, tell them the Chinese government published official documents on the incident – you want the 1989.6, and it’s the first title in the pdf.
This story comes from the British ambassador to China, named Alan Donald, who relayed a cable to Hong Kong . He is the only source in the world that claimed such things, not even people who participated in the protests say anything close. He also made a bunch of other claims such as the machine gun nests, which other journalists didn’t report.
A diplomat is not an impartial source, especially when making a confidential cable to their government (remember the wikileaks US cable 10 years ago). Their job is to represent and further the interests of their country abroad However, telling libs that the diplomat said all that because he had an interest in demonizing China to justify further involvement will get you nowhere – I’ve tried.
This isn’t even going the logistics of such a claim. This is what the cable says:
Several questions need to be answered:
Finally the picture the person on Reddit is referring to comes from an obscure website, here (not NSFW, they’re just links to the pictures without thumbnails here). The picture itself is number 14 and NSFL. However, the website says it’s a person crushed by a tank, they don’t claim it was part of the fictitious incident the diplomat reports. You can clearly see civilians behind the body, most likely (but not 100%) the person was trampled during the commotion. Well, there are several things in the picture that seem strange to me but I’m not a forensics specialist and I don’t want to be an internet detective so I’ll refrain from commenting there. However, I will note there are no tank tracks on that picture while there are in others, which calls the caption into question.
There are certainly other pictures but again, none of the so-called incident the diplomat describes.
But of course you all know that here, it’s convincing the idealists that’s more difficult.
Also, if you want to shut libs up, tell them the Chinese government published official documents on the incident – you want the 1989.6, and it’s the first title in the pdf.