Steve Kerr response to question about Chinese Human Rights Violations

• Most government officials and commanders who actively participated in the political and military actions during the protest were promoted to the circle of top leadership afterwards. Even if all of them have retired, their political influence still cannot be neglected. That influence will fade away after 10-20 years.
  
• For many ordinary people in developing countries, economic development and living conditions are more important than an increased level of freedom
  
• Government transparency is improving in China, but definitely not for sensitive topics such as the Tiananmen protest
  
• For western governments and politicians, human rights are often used as political tools for them to seek for interests or justify their actions in other areas (e.g. economic), as well as appease their voters.

I appreciate that you have the awareness that democracy may not be the solution for every country at the moment. Here is some related information:

• Western democratic system has been non-existent in the Chinese political system during its 5000-year history.
  
• There had been several protests in the last 20 years that happened in many countries under the name of democracy and freedom (see color revolution). Most of them caused destabilization and significant financial losses. Some ended up with transformations of power. The result? None of those democratized governments performed better than their predecessors. Several countries suffered from long-term social turbulence. The Chinese government is now actively preventing color revolutions in mainland China.
  
• I just see this short video from the former Prime Minister of Singapore -- a city & country that resembles Hong Kong -- talking about his view of democracy. Here is another version of it.

I am not an expert in political topics. This is just some food for thought.

 

The British government report suggested that the ambassador was passing information provided by one "reliable" Chinese official. The ambassador probably did not see those events himself or verify the information from other sources.

The 10,000 number was an estimate on the morning right after the crackdown when the overall situation was still chaotic. Therefore its accuracy is in doubt. A piece of news suggested that the British ambassador had revised the estimate to 2,700–3,400 afterwards, which is closer to but still higher than most estimates. I understand that the difference probably does not matter to you because the number is still large anyway.

The other parts you cited have not been verified by any other sources. Meanwhile, several reports, including the one I cited in the previous post, have suggested no massacre had happened within the Square. There were people being killed by tanks elsewhere but I have not seen any other reports mentioning the incineration. I would not be surprised if those turn out to be the truth though.

I did not find the reports for the media ban, but that is definitely possible.

Just as a side remark, the leaders in CCP were divided as well and there were significant power struggles among the top leaders. Eventually the heavy-handed ones won the battle and resorted to end the protest with military actions. The Gorbachev event was definitely a push for military intervention among the leaders.

 

There certainly was a massacre. There are also some photographs of dead protesters stacked on top of each. As far as the number goes, the 10,000 is the latest number I have heard. It well could be 3,500 dead and another 10,000 injured. That is a number that I heard from a Chinese exile that now is a college professor that was present at the protest. He was asleep at the time and was able to get out. His wife was killed as a result. His view is interesting. He stated that the soldiers had been there for sometime but believed they were safe. They were told the would have to leave the square and shortly there after the soldiers began pushing forward. He went to get his wife but could not get her. He said there were fires and shooting. He said it was absolute chaos and that some of the soldiers refused to push forward and refused to push the protesters. [/QUOTE]

This is something that I think needs to be mentioned.

The CCP had members in high status positions that were sympathetic to the protesters. Not everyone in a position of power in China wanted to attack the protesters. It is my understanding that there were even a fair number of politicians that wanted to ease restrictions and allow for some degree of freedom.

Several things happened that in my opinion are important. in the two months leading up to the massacre, the CCP was allowing local Chinese press to report reasonably free of restriction on what was happening in the square. That changed when the CCP declared martial law. At that point the media from the USA and UK became popular in parts of China and around the world. The problem was that the world press made the protesters seem very sympathetic. There are documents showing the CCP became very protective and were afraid of the protests becoming bigger. The CCP began strongly restricting press and in detained the press.

The other big event that is not discussed is that while this was all going on, the CCP was very proud to be hosting Gorbachev and it was a very big event in China. The event was to take place in Tianamen Square (as you know it is of incredible important to communism in China) and the whole world was to watch Gorbachev be honored in the Square. Well that didn't happen because the protesters had no interest in leaving and the protests were asking for a style of government that is the exact opposite of communism. This was very much a big black eye for China CCP leadership and Moscow was aware.

The conservatives in the CCP won out, and they reached a point where they had enough and went in and killed and forced the protests to end.

Tiananmen Square is one of the most important spots in a nation that has an amazing and long history. I have been a number of times.... all the history and all the violence, you can feel it.

 

what qualifies the UK Govt's report, released 29 yrs after-the-fact, an authoritative source the TAM protest ???

it was more simple than that.

what started was a Chinese student protest against poor lighting/lack of lighting in their dorms,
when priviledged students (international students / Chinese students w well-connected parents)
had adequate lighting

 

I was saying there was no massacre within the Square. Killings happened in other areas of the city.

The April 26 Editorial was the first major event. There might not even be a protest had it not been published. The students asked for a retraction of the article, which struck the nerve of conservatives.

On May 3-4, two speeches were given by the General Secretary of CCP, who was sympathetic to the students, to ease the situation. Students were satisfied and resumed classes. However, further reforms within the party were resisted by the conservatives.

After a few days of no-action from CCP, students decided to escalate the protest, leading to the Gorbachev event. Meanwhile, protests also happened in other cities and working class joined as well, undermining one of the major supporters of CCP and disrupting government operations. All those gave the conservatives enough reason to call for a military intervention. The General Secretary was then sidelined and martial law was declared. After a few failed talks between the party officials and student leaders, the fate was already more or less determined.

 

When Kerr retires he can say whatever he likes. But he works for the Warriors and the NBA. It is his job to represent the interests of his employer, not to use the platform his job provides to spread his personal opinions.

 

Ok, so they were being very belligerent, and perhaps actually were basically inciting violence. In which case, I don't really have any issue with it.

Thanks for the post...always good to have first hand info on things.