Lecture 26: Tankman

This was an extraordinary gesture, by an unknown man standing in front of a line of tanks. These
tanks were not just a sign of intimidation they had caused CARNAGE a few hours ago. Its obvious
to think how china got away with something like this? Censorship of international media specially
effective because the internet had not yet come.

China has issues with the border of Pakistan which china claimed all of a sudden, a little like Tibet.
In 2011 US is very keen to find out whatever they can in the jin jiyan province. The Chinese
government response is simple whenever there is a state of reference here, they send ground
troops, create a media blackout and butcher people. But, how can you do this when people are
keeping track via satellites? China did a smart thing. They shot down one of their own satellites just
to show that they can. This was a warning to the others who were sending their own satellites into
chinas airspace. Air space was a major point of contention anyway. China just created a media
blackout YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE SATTELITES HERE. Divert it, or get shot.

In 1989 an American Photographer Charles Gole lived in one of the hotels overlooking shanghai
avenue. This is where the massacre first begins. He took the video of the tankman, and photographs.
He hid the reel in his socks. Because, members of the peoples security bureau were going to raid
the hotel. He hid the camera roll inside the sink of his toilet. The PSB take everything including him
away. However, the camera roll and the video remain safe.

He tells the hotel that he is checking out, but by some luck, the hotel does not rent out that room to
anybody else for the next 2 days. All it would require otherwise to flush the toilet. He comes back
after two days, and its evident that he is going to be kicked out of china. Before going to the aircraft
he comes, finds the roll and stuff it inside his pocket and leaves. This is the most important footage
of the latter half of the 20th century. It became a symbol of resistance, of inspiration. It inspired a
movement the likes of which hasnt been seen before.

But the irony is a majority of people dont even know about these photographs. 1989 isnt that
long ago. How did china get its people to move on? To forget and forgive? What was the
compensation China offered? How did nobody hold this against china? The aftermath doesnt even
end, the next 1 year china openly portrays the trials and public executions of 100,000 people. Yet,
today nobody is speaking about it?

DX real master plan comes in here. You cant give people what they really ant i.e. freedom. You can
just give them the illusion of freedom. What he does following T square is e offers the people 2
doors. Politics and Economics. We can become capitalist but you dont get to question the one party
system. If you do that again, this will happen again. He is not even apologizing. He tells these people
your only problem is jobs and money. So stick to that. Dont venture into politics. Economically
the future is yours.

There was an economic depression how did china manage to come out of it? they got FDI but ran it
through the state. People no had a choice either communist = poor, or capitalist = part of the
party. If you wanted to be capitalist sign up with the party. Beijing and Shanghai came up
metropolitan systems, huge sky rises. From the 90s, this is the economic model of china. However,
it came at a cost.
(During the public executions nobody was accused of being the tankman. He still has a legacy)

VIDEO If the tankman has survived, where is he now?

DX does not tell the city people is that the dual market economy that he had proposed before the T
square protest was not being put to work. While there were bigger cities, rural china is where the
compromises were being made. People lost social security, health care and insurance. Instead they
get an offer do this yourself. They were told that they are becoming too dependent on the state.
You need to move to the cities. Hat DX creates is a migration permit. If you want to move from rural
to urban china you have to go there are do something.

People gained money from selling their land. But the amount this got them was meagre. They went
to the cities, got jobs, avg working hours a day are 15. You get an off once every 10 th day. The only
public holiday is Maos birthday. Your avg day begins at 4:30 a.m. and ends at midnight. You are
given a decent meal and hostels to stay. But 6 months later your migration permit expires. You can
still stay there if your boss extends your migration permit. The deal is that the govt and owners of
these companies are in agreement about the fact that at no point will more than 30% of the
migrants be provided with an extension.

If 100 people work in the same company, and joined at the same time only 30 can keep on. These
would be legal migrants and the others stay on as illegal migrants. The advantage of being legal is
that you can be a part of the trade unions and can protest for more rights. The illegal people
however, cannot ask for any more rights because theyre anyway staying on illegally. This was smart.
Because now this majority chunk cannot do anything. And just the 30 legal percent were too few to
ask for much anyway. It was almost slave like labour which has allowed massive production.

China had no holidays companies were rushing to establish their companies here. People would
never ever ask for more wages, they would work DOUBLE, human rights are not in consideration.
Products in china are getting produced way more affordably. 80% of all buttons in the world are
from China. This is how china managed to grow. This is what allowed the massive boom hich other
companies have failed to replicate.

The biggest problem has been western Europe. The US is the military super power, china
economic. Europe is losing the race their on markets have become stagnant and they now want to
move to china. Western Europe has fed human rights and holidays to its people to such an extent
that they are not unwilling to work more than 25 hours a week. They want Wednesday and Friday
half days. They want their weekend eves i.e. Friday half day. Monday response is slow because
Monday Blues. A man in china finished their week of one work in 2 days. The gap is huge. Till the
1950s Europe could compensate via colonialism, and they dont have that kid of manpower and
resources any longer. Their best case scenario is these migrants are coming over. The migrant crisis
in Europe. Millions of people are coming from the middle east. They are being bombed in their own
countries, and gates of European countries like France and Germany are apparently open on
humanitarian grounds for them. Its ironical, that these same countries have been the biggest
suppliers of weapons to the middle east. There is an obvious connection.

It is Chinas masterplan now being used by western Europe. The only difference is. W.E. isnt doing
it to their own people, but using this migrant labour. W.E. is incorporating people into the workforce
slowly and steadily. Its a brilliant plan for somebody without a conscience. One can only hope that
this analysis is wrong, because its completely horrifying. However, most likely, there is a connection.

Chinese workers were interviewed in the hostels with govt agents in the same room. They couldnt
afford to say one thing against the system. They had to survive in china at the end of the day. The
only people who could be interviewed were the 30 legal percent.

VIDEO Interview

The tankman photo was shown in a school to children who would probably just have been born
around then. They say just what they are trained to, but one girl gives away a small comment. This
evidently means they know, but they are not supposed to speak about it.

VIDEO

Western countries are trying to please the Chinese government. They all want to invest here. If in
china you search for Tinnimen square by its dates you get taken away, by the PSB. Following a
few of these incidents. A group of media professionals were told strictly what the could and couldnt
say about this incident. One journalist Shi Tao made a yahoo ID and tried to send a mail to
somebody in the US about this. All emails going out are monitored.

Chinese authorities contacted Yahoo. Yahoo gave them details of the IP address, the user and the
computer. This journalist was jailed for 10 years. A case was put on yahoo, google, Microsoft and
CISCO about how you could have given away this information. They had compromised their duties.

VIDEO

All 4 of these are US based companies. It is a big shame. China is a noted offender in terms of human
rights. This whole issue was really highlighted. A Chinese scientist living in exile in America speaks of
something the china uses a system called the golden shield.

It protects all internet activities i.e. censorship. He as developing surveillance software which he
wanted to sell to them. But they always had the latest technology from CISCO. Again such a big
USA MNC was helping the Chinese government suppress its people. China has perfectly managed to
go by with all of this. They dont have to oblige anybody.

VIDEO (Something about a newspaper article by John)