The top voted comment from basically the same thread in 2017 [1] does a good job of presenting a point of contention in a relatively neutral fashion:
from the /u/aleyan:
> The figure was given in a secret diplomatic cable from then British ambassador to China, Alan Donald.
> Mr Donald's telegram is from 5 June, and he says his source was someone who "was passing on information given him by a close friend who is currently a member of the State Council".
Here we have a telegram by a guy (British Ambassador) who heard from a guy (unknown) who heard from a guy (unknown State Council) facts about the events of the day prior (massacre was on June 4th). Where did the unknown State Council official get his estimates from; were those official or just something he heard and repeated (and when did he get them)? Initial estimates of disasters are often quite wrong; here they were produced in game of telephone in a day or less; and they are not collaborated by any evidence we have now.
I rank the quality of new evidence as low. Rumors repeated in old official telegrams are still rumors. I expected BBC to have reported more critically. Alan Donald is still alive; BBC could have asked him if he received any updates to that first number that he trusted more.
I also have to fault BBC for it's phrasing around Donald's source. At first reading it sounded like Donald's source is an unnamed member of the State Council who is a close friend of the Ambassador. After reading BBC's sentence a carefully however; it sounds like the Donald's source is a person who is a friend of an unnamed member of the State Council. This ambiguous sentence is deceptive.
EDIT: I see vote count moving up and down on this comment making me think it is controversial. If you disagree with my doubts on the veracity of this story, write a comment. Maybe I missed something.
> 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.
Wow, I've never read this before. I have a really high tolerance for this type of stuff but his was still shocking.
Particularly how they brought in a mostly illiterate military unit from a rural area, blocked them from hearing news for 10 days, and told them it'd be filmed as part of a TV show. They also shot ambulances trying to help in addition to other soldiers from other units(? it's not clear what SMR troops means, possible a local police force).
Edit: SMR seems to be Shenyang's military regiments who initially went in unarmed to try to scare the students. Shortly after that failed they were immediately followed up by the armed attacking forces (27th unit from Shanxi, the rural area mentioned above). The Shanxi shot and ran over any "straggler" Shenyang units who were near the protestors. "27 ARMY USED BECAUSE MOST RELIABLE AND OBEDIENT. SOME CONSIDERED OTHER ARMIES WOULD ATTACK 27 ARMY BUT THEY HAD NO AMMUNITION"
"some guy" is, in this case, a British Ambassador. There's no particular reason for him to fabricate this story (in fact, it has the potential to make his job much tougher), and a proper historian could dig through other communications and see how prone to exaggeration he is. My gut instinct is that the cable is more or less true, in the sense that he's reporting claims from a source he's identified as someone he trusts ("THIS SOURCE HAS PREVIOUSLY PROVED RELIABLE AND WAS CAREFUL TO SEPARATE FACT FROM SPECULATION AND RUMOUR.").
The person providing the information is a bit trickier. Chinese politics have always had a bunch of different factions fighting for influence (despite how Western media portrays it as some Orientalist absolute monarchy). Whoever provided the information was likely trying to undermine some faction or another. Perhaps someone from Foreign Affairs trying to undermine some PLA-affiliated faction or another. That'd be trickier to analyze.
One must consider the fact that any conclusions drawn from state archives or on-the-ground investigations will be seen as biased one way or the other. Any evidence which exonerates the CCP will be accused of being manipulated CCP propaganda. Any evidence hinting otherwise will be accused of being pro-West fabrications. "Independent", multinational investigations are not immune either, for instance in the case of Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency inspections [1]. All you end up doing is preserving the status quo.
With the dearth of physical evidence, an objective conclusion will likely remain out of reach. Something definitely happened, and something bad. But to the extent of grinding up the bodies of 10,000 civilians into meat patties and hosing them down the drain bad? It is likely that we will never know the answer to that.
> With the dearth of physical evidence, an objective conclusion will likely remain out of reach. Something definitely happened, and something bad. But to the extent of grinding up the bodies of 10,000 civilians into meat patties and hosing them down the drain bad? It is likely that we will never know the answer to that.
I disagree. These events are still within living memory, so most of the actual people who were tasked with suppressing the protests and cleaning up afterwards can still theoretically be interviewed. Given the scale and brutality, at least some of them likely feel shame for participating and would testify honestly help clear their consciences (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/world/asia/china-tiananme...). Many others may have hidden diaries or other records (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/world/asia/tiananmen-squa...). These events also happened in a dense urban area, so there were many uninvolved witnesses. If the political situation allowed all these accounts to be collected and cross-checked, I think we'd know these answers.
" 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."
This is contradicted by most accounts.
From wikipedia:
"At 4 am, the lights on the Square suddenly turned off, and the government's loudspeaker announced: "Clearance of the Square begins now. We agree with the students' request to clear the Square."[124] The students sang The Internationale and braced for a last stand.[125] Hou returned and informed student leaders of his agreement with the troops. At 4:30 am, the lights relit and the troops began to advance on the Monument from all sides. At about 4:32 am, Hou Dejian took the student's loudspeaker and recounted his meeting with the military. Many students, who learned of the talks for the first time, reacted angrily and accused him of cowardice.[126]
The soldiers initially stopped about 10 meters from the students. The first row of troops took aim with machine guns in the prone position. Behind them soldiers squatted and stood with assault rifles. Mixed among them were anti-riot police with clubs. Further back were tanks and APCs.[126] Feng Congde took to the loudspeaker and explained that there was no time left to hold a meeting. Instead, a voice vote would decide the collective action of the group. Although the vote's results were inconclusive, Feng said the "gos" had prevailed.[127] Within a few minutes, at about 4:35 am, a squad of soldiers in camouflaged uniform charged up the Monument and shot out the students' loudspeaker.[127][126] Other troops beat and kicked dozens of students at the Monument, seizing and smashing their cameras and recording equipment. An officer with a loudspeaker called out "you better leave or this won't end well."[126]
Some of the students and professors persuaded others still sitting on the lower tiers of the Monument to get up and leave, while soldiers beat them with clubs and gunbutts and prodded them with bayonets. Witnesses heard bursts of gunfire.[126] At about 5:10 am, the students began to leave the Monument. They linked hands and marched through a corridor to the southeast,[115][126] though some departed through the north.[126] Those who refused to leave were beaten by soldiers and ordered to join the departing procession. Having removed the students from the square, soldiers were ordered to relinquish their ammunition, after which they were allowed a short reprieve from 7 am to 9 am.[128] The soldiers were then ordered to clear the square of all debris left over from the student occupation. The debris was either piled and burnt on the square, or placed in large plastic bags that were airlifted away by military helicopters.[129][130] After the cleanup, the troops stationed at The Great Hall of the People remained confined within for the next nine days. During this time, the soldiers were left to sleep on the floors and fed a single packet of instant noodles split between three men daily. Officers apparently suffered no such deprivation, and were served regular meals apart from their troops."
IIRC, that discrepancy is accounted for if most of the bloodshed actually occurred near but outside of the square, which is reflected in the same Wikipedia article:
> The earliest casualties occurred as far west as Wukesong....Several minutes later, when the convoy eventually encountered a substantial blockade somewhere east of the 3rd Ring Road, they opened automatic rifle fire directly at protesters....
> At about 10:30 pm, the advance of the army was briefly halted at Muxidi, about 5 km west of the Square, where articulated trolleybuses were placed across a bridge and set on fire. Crowds of residents from nearby apartment blocks tried to surround the military convoy and halt its advance. The 38th Army again opened fire, inflicting heavy casualties....As the battle continued eastward the firing became indiscriminate, with "random, stray patterns" killing both protesters and uninvolved bystanders....Soldiers raked the apartment buildings with gunfire, and some people inside or on their balconies were shot. The 38th Army also used armored personnel carriers (APCs) to ram through the buses. They continued to fight off demonstrators, who hastily erected barricades and tried to form human chains. As the army advanced, fatalities were recorded all along Chang'an Avenue. By far the largest number occurred in the two-mile stretch of road running from Muxidi to Xidan...
> To the south, paratroopers of the 15th Airborne Corps also used live ammunition, and civilian deaths were recorded at Hufangqiao, Zhushikou, Tianqiao, and Qianmen.[116]
> The killings infuriated city residents, some of whom attacked soldiers with sticks, rocks and molotov cocktails, setting fire to military vehicles.
