June 22, 1989
excerpts from the "Los Angeles Times"
front page:
"3 Shot in First Executions for China Protests"
By David Holley, Times Staff Writer
BEIJING - Shanghai executioners, carrying out the first in a growing wave of death sentences imposed on anti-government protesters, Wednesday {June 21, 1989] killed three men convicted of setting a train on fire.
Xu Guoming, a brewery worker; Yan Xuerong, a radio factory employee, and Bian Hanwu, an unemployed worker, were shot before a crowd of observers, a Shanghai city government spokesman said. He gave no further details, but executions in China normally are carried out with a single shot to the head.
The executions came despite pleas for clemency from the United States and several Western European nations.
The three young men had been part of an angry mob that attacked the Beijing-Shanghai express on the night of June 6 after it plowed into a crowd of demonstrators and killed six people.
Those blocking the train's path had been protesting the bloody suppression of demonstrators in Beijing the previous weekend. The Chinese army, according to Western intelligence estimates, killed at least 3,000 people while shooting its way into central Beijing to clear pro-democracy student protesters from Tian An Men Square.
"U.S. Planning No New Actions Against China"
By David Lautner,
Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON - The Bush Administration, admitting that its diplomatic moves against China have had no impact and still hoping to preserve ties with Asia's largest power, has decided to take no additional steps in response to Wednesday's political executions, Administration officials said.
"The United States is not contemplating any additional action at this time," Secretary of State James A. Baker III said.
page six:
"Beijing Moves Propaganda War Into Bookstores"
From Reuters
BEIJING - Chinese authorities, waging a mighty propaganda war to justify having sent in the army against unarmed protesters, rushed a paperback history of the pro-democracy movement to bookshops Wednesday [June 21, 1989].
Hundreds of copies of the slim, pale-yellow volume, titled "The Flag Must Bright To Go Against the Turmoil," were delivered to stores in Central Beijing.
The book gives an official history of the demonstrations that erupted after the death in April of Hu Yaobang, the former reformist leader of the Communist Party. The government says the protesters degenerated into a counterrevolutionary rebellion.
The book covers events up to and including Premier Li Peng's May 20 decision to impose martial law on the capital.
Witnesses and diplomats say many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people died in the assault. But the Chinese government says about 300 died, most of them soldiers.
page six:
"Deng Likens Crackdown to U.S. Quelling 60's Protests"
From Associated Press
HONG KONG - Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping said the United States should not criticize China for its crackdown on dissidents because America used troops to quell student demonstrations during the 1980s, a Hong Kong newspaper reported.
The English-language South China Morning Post on Tuesday published what it said is the full speech Deng made to senior military officers June 9, five days after the army entered Beijing to quell the pro-democracy movement.
Portions of the speech, broadcast on national Chinese television, were reported previously. The newspaper did not say how it obtained the full text.
China has launched a propaganda campaign urging its citizens to read the speech, but the text has not been widely available there.
In the speech, Deng noted that Washington has criticized China for suppressing students but said the United States also mobilized troops against student rioters in in the 1960s and 1970s.
"They were suppressing students and the people, but we are quelling counterrevolutionary riots. What qualifications do they have to criticize us?" he said.
Deng said the pro-democracy protesters hoped to "topple the Chinese Communist Party and to overthrow the socialist order . . . Of course . . . their goal is to establish a totally Westernised, bourgeois republic."
He conceded that in the course of quelling the rebellion, many people died. China has said about 200 people died, about half of them soldiers. Western intelligence sources and Chinese students have estimated that up to 3,000 have been killed.
I didn't see any mention in this article whether or not the Bush Administration was asked to comment . . . yes, we had some demonstrations, but personally I do not remember tanks rolling over protesters . . .
page nine:
"Executions Evoke Chinese Slogan: 'Kill a Chicken to Frighten Monkey'"
By Karl Schoenberger, Times Staff Writer
BEIJING - An old slogan from the Chinese Communist lexicon is popping back into conversations these days: "Kill a chicken to frighten the monkey."
The sacrificial fowl, as it were, turns out to be three men who were executed in Beijing on Wednesday . . .
I somehow think the Nazis had similar slogans . . . and if you can just look at people as chicken or monkeys or just any other critter, but not ascribe to them the dignity of men and women, endowed by their Creator . . . was there any chuckling about throwing a scare into the defenseless people?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
excerpts from the "Los Angeles Times"
front page:
"3 Shot in First Executions for China Protests"
By David Holley, Times Staff Writer
BEIJING - Shanghai executioners, carrying out the first in a growing wave of death sentences imposed on anti-government protesters, Wednesday {June 21, 1989] killed three men convicted of setting a train on fire.
Xu Guoming, a brewery worker; Yan Xuerong, a radio factory employee, and Bian Hanwu, an unemployed worker, were shot before a crowd of observers, a Shanghai city government spokesman said. He gave no further details, but executions in China normally are carried out with a single shot to the head.
The executions came despite pleas for clemency from the United States and several Western European nations.
The three young men had been part of an angry mob that attacked the Beijing-Shanghai express on the night of June 6 after it plowed into a crowd of demonstrators and killed six people.
Those blocking the train's path had been protesting the bloody suppression of demonstrators in Beijing the previous weekend. The Chinese army, according to Western intelligence estimates, killed at least 3,000 people while shooting its way into central Beijing to clear pro-democracy student protesters from Tian An Men Square.
"U.S. Planning No New Actions Against China"
By David Lautner,
Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON - The Bush Administration, admitting that its diplomatic moves against China have had no impact and still hoping to preserve ties with Asia's largest power, has decided to take no additional steps in response to Wednesday's political executions, Administration officials said.
"The United States is not contemplating any additional action at this time," Secretary of State James A. Baker III said.
page six:
"Beijing Moves Propaganda War Into Bookstores"
From Reuters
BEIJING - Chinese authorities, waging a mighty propaganda war to justify having sent in the army against unarmed protesters, rushed a paperback history of the pro-democracy movement to bookshops Wednesday [June 21, 1989].
Hundreds of copies of the slim, pale-yellow volume, titled "The Flag Must Bright To Go Against the Turmoil," were delivered to stores in Central Beijing.
The book gives an official history of the demonstrations that erupted after the death in April of Hu Yaobang, the former reformist leader of the Communist Party. The government says the protesters degenerated into a counterrevolutionary rebellion.
The book covers events up to and including Premier Li Peng's May 20 decision to impose martial law on the capital.
Witnesses and diplomats say many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people died in the assault. But the Chinese government says about 300 died, most of them soldiers.
page six:
"Deng Likens Crackdown to U.S. Quelling 60's Protests"
From Associated Press
HONG KONG - Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping said the United States should not criticize China for its crackdown on dissidents because America used troops to quell student demonstrations during the 1980s, a Hong Kong newspaper reported.
The English-language South China Morning Post on Tuesday published what it said is the full speech Deng made to senior military officers June 9, five days after the army entered Beijing to quell the pro-democracy movement.
Portions of the speech, broadcast on national Chinese television, were reported previously. The newspaper did not say how it obtained the full text.
China has launched a propaganda campaign urging its citizens to read the speech, but the text has not been widely available there.
In the speech, Deng noted that Washington has criticized China for suppressing students but said the United States also mobilized troops against student rioters in in the 1960s and 1970s.
"They were suppressing students and the people, but we are quelling counterrevolutionary riots. What qualifications do they have to criticize us?" he said.
Deng said the pro-democracy protesters hoped to "topple the Chinese Communist Party and to overthrow the socialist order . . . Of course . . . their goal is to establish a totally Westernised, bourgeois republic."
He conceded that in the course of quelling the rebellion, many people died. China has said about 200 people died, about half of them soldiers. Western intelligence sources and Chinese students have estimated that up to 3,000 have been killed.
I didn't see any mention in this article whether or not the Bush Administration was asked to comment . . . yes, we had some demonstrations, but personally I do not remember tanks rolling over protesters . . .
page nine:
"Executions Evoke Chinese Slogan: 'Kill a Chicken to Frighten Monkey'"
By Karl Schoenberger, Times Staff Writer
BEIJING - An old slogan from the Chinese Communist lexicon is popping back into conversations these days: "Kill a chicken to frighten the monkey."
The sacrificial fowl, as it were, turns out to be three men who were executed in Beijing on Wednesday . . .
I somehow think the Nazis had similar slogans . . . and if you can just look at people as chicken or monkeys or just any other critter, but not ascribe to them the dignity of men and women, endowed by their Creator . . . was there any chuckling about throwing a scare into the defenseless people?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
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