this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
84 points (98.8% liked)

News

23300 readers
3444 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Beijing is believed to be behind court bid to secure account of life inside Communist HQ

In the early hours of 4 June 1989, Li Rui, a veteran of the Chinese Communist party (CCP), was standing on the balcony of his apartment on Chang’an Boulevard in central Beijing. He could see tanks rolling towards Tiananmen Square.

For weeks, up to a million protesters had been gathering peacefully in Beijing’s plaza, demanding political reform. But they failed. Instead, as Li observed from his unique vantage point, troops opened fire, killing an estimated several thousands of civilians. It was the worst massacre in recent Chinese history. “Soldiers firing randomly with their machine guns, sometimes shooting the ground and sometimes shooting toward the sky,” Li wrote in his diary. A “black weekend”.

The first-hand account of an event that the Chinese government has systematically tried to distort and erase from the historical record is one of thousands of observations noted in Li’s diaries, which he kept meticulously between 1938 and 2018. Few people, especially not of Li’s stature, have kept such detailed records of this tumultuous era in Chinese history. Now those diaries are the subject of a hotly disputed lawsuit, the trial of which begins on Monday.

top 9 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So Beijing wants to memory hole this guy’s journal. Gross

[–] YaDownWitCPP@lemmy.world -1 points 2 months ago

You got a problem, Rick?

[–] Doom@ttrpg.network 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It is crazy to me people still try to say this event didn't happen

Chinese bots on Lemmy will hit you with this shit; https://redsails.org/another-view-of-tiananmen/#fn24

[–] WanderingVentra@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago

Thankfully I haven't seen anyone on Lemmy deny it happened, more that it's numbers of dead, some of its bigger myths (people run over by tanks for example), and importance in China are over exaggerated.

[–] WanderingVentra@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Once I read the article, it's kind of a tough one. The wife wants the journal, but says they can still make copies for the Hoover Institute archives. But they want to keep the original source. But shouldn't China have access to its own primary sources, the same way we say Egypt should have access to its own ancient artifacts? Idk, maybe everyone here disagrees with me, but I don't think it's as cut and dry as I originally thought from the beginning.

[–] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Personal effects are personal. If a country is going to burn or otherwise get rid of history others have a right to keep it from that country. Historical artifacts deserve to be preserved. Sometimes that means building protection around them (statue of David during wwii) other times that means leaving the country until it becomes more friendly to the truth.

The wife as stated in the article is likely a front for the CCP who are obsessed with removing any "harmful" history from peoples consciousness.

[–] WanderingVentra@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Oh ya, I love history and definitely agree that it should be preserved. I also believe in national self sovereignty. There's no guarantee they're going to burn the book or that she's a front for the CPP (although it's definitely likely), she could just want her husband's physical diary back, hence not caring if they're copied over first. That's perfectly plausible and normal in my eyes. In that vein, I don't think the British Museum should have all the records and artifacts they've stolen. And those places don't tend to give them back once the victim country is stable, either.

On the other hand, I don't think Isis, for example, deserved to have control over their historical sites when they were actively hostile to them, and if China was going to rip out pages or something, then that's obviously bad, too. But in this case, at least the history would still be preserved first from the copying the daughter is doing. That's why it's kinda complicated in my eyes. I just wish I knew what the wife or the CPP was going to do with it.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

On 30 January 2017, for example, he recorded a meeting with his wife, Zhang Yuzhen, to talk about “the issue of my diaries”. Zhang “agreed with my decision … having Hoover retain the diaries”, he wrote.

...

Why would Zhang, who is now well into her 90s, spend several years and millions of dollars fighting over a collection of diaries?

[–] MediaBiasFactChecker@lemmy.world -4 points 2 months ago

The Guardian - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)Information for The Guardian:

MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - United Kingdom
Wikipedia about this source

Search topics on Ground.Newshttps://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/18/monument-to-history-battle-between-us-and-china-over-future-of-maos-secretarys-diary
Media Bias Fact Check | bot support