The other week I read an interesting account on this subject by one Alexey Maslov, a Russian/Soviet Chinese translator and philologist who went with Gorbachev on a state visit to Beijing on 15-18 May 1989. He says that Gorbachev, who came to preach perestroika and restore 1950s-era Soviet-Chinese relationship, was snubbed by Deng, who wanted to normalize relations with USSR in order to obtain raw materials, and to inform Russia on the strength of China's newfound development that it was now China's turn to be 大兄 and Russia's turn to be 小弟. Naturally this didn't go down well, and Gorbachev then vented his frustration two days later in a big meeting with Beijing university students, telling them about perestroika and democratization in the USSR. Maslov relates that

[E]ven before this meeting the students sent Gorbachev a message via the Soviet embassy, telling him of their wholehearted support of perestroika. They said they had read [Gorbachev]'s book Perestroika and the New Thinking and liked it very much. They wanted more politics!

Later Maslov observed

students going into the streets of Beijing with Gorbachev's portraits and banners saying "We ardently support Comrade Gorbachev!" It was then that the slogans of "More openness, more glasnost" made their appearance. People went with signs in Chinese and Russian that said "Democracy is our common hope". I.e., as they understood it, Gorbachev appealed directly to young Chinese over the heads of the CCP Central Committee and Deng Xiaoping with a political message! ... Mao did the same thing at the start of the Cultural Revolution. Gorbachev didn't intend any such thing, but his lack of understanding of political processes in China, of what was going on, put not just himself, but the whole USSR in a very stupid position.

Maslov mentions that after the protests (which apparently had been going for months before that) had been suppressed, USSR, despite the then official Soviet perestroika-era positions on democracy and openness, said nothing, and that China understood from this that USSR no longer had any clear political aims.

Also anniversary of Blue Star http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-classic-in-praise-of-sikhs-the-coolest-warrior-tribe-around/

I always get the sads when John Derbyshire goes on about Tiananmen. I mean, I am sure it was awful, and killing people is always mean. War is nasty, and in democracy, war is always latent; it exists within the nation as factions vie for power. Usually you just count heads and the less numerous party submits -- and the nasty bits of war don't happen... but if a faction gets too intransigent, and too aggressive, then sometimes the knives come out. Moldbug on mobs and Tiananmen:

As a human being, of course, I deplore the explosive power of modern antipersonnel weapons. But as an intellectual I can’t help but applaud what an airstrike on a demonstration does to the mythical power of crowds. The crowd always relies on the pretense of actual physical power; but actual physical power it has little or none. It can be dispersed, or better yet contained and captured, by a trivial military force. And if not — airstrikes! Tiananmen, without a single airstrike, popped the bubble of crowd power and brought peace to China for a generation.

Tiananmen established the CCP's right to rule for a generation (at least). (Because of course might makes right, and it demonstrated that the CCP had both the power to exert control and the will to use it.) During that generation roughly a half billion people have been lifted out of poverty. Strong government works. Could a weak government have done as much? Doubtful.

Seems to me that Tiananmen Square is closely followed in liberal mythology by the events of Bloody Sunday 1905.

My, what's going on at the Unz Review? Popularity Gain ⇒ Dramatic Lowering of the "publication threshold" (stress on the "dramatic"). Now along with content that doesn't catch interest you see content that embarrasses, by people who embarrass. Week after week, a bit more of it. But yeah, he's got convinced that he can upset the course of things, and Fix It All if only he can further boost those traffic scores :).

What's characteristic about G. Roberts is he devotes two thirds of his commenting/writing effort to stating Chinese historical cultural/philosophical superiority over the West without showing any hint that he realizes all of his concepts, categories and judgments are 100% Made in the West in spirit and structure. He thinks he has repudiated Western ways of thinking —and thought formulation — while he totally adheres to those (starting from the concern with "superiority"). I wasn't thinking about him though, but some other recently added characters who are totally not in line with the former site's roster. To the rest of the site I give a 10/10.

Godfree Roberts is bizarre. I'm not entirely convinced he's a real person. He comes across as a bot or something.

Protecting their women ... "Nanjing Anti-African Protests"

"If the Western press won’t shut up about something, odds are is all a pig pile of fake news..." Very true. They've elevated T-Square to into a symbol of freedom that it never was in actuality. They always see other people's struggles in the light of their presumptuous freedom ideology with all of the associated bullshit. Projection all the way. So far Trump has more or less been playing it low-key on Hong Kong, but the usual media clowns have been clamoring for escalation.

”East Asians are just civilized but profoundly different people who mostly dislike us, think we’re weird, and just want to be left alone, taking advantage of us and scamming us money every now and then” It seems they do take advantage of us with the willing help of collaborators on the US side. One thing Trump grasped intuitively. I for one would like to treat these collaborators the same way China does with a public truth session shaming and lock the bastards away.