#Tiananmen36: Remembering the Tank Men

 "The heroes of the tank picture are two: the unknown figure who risked his life by standing in front of the juggernaut, and the driver who rose to the moral challenge by refusing to mow down his compatriot." - Pico Iyer

A Nonviolent moment: Tank Men face off in Beijing on June 5, 1989

On June 5, 1989 in Beijing, following the Chinese Communist Party's massive and bloody crackdown  on thousands of Chinese students and workers on June 3rd and 4th after six weeks of protests that began in Tiananmen Square and spread across 400 cities in China something remarkable happened in the midst of all the horror and terror. 

A man risked all to protest what had taken place. Wearing a white t-shirt, black trousers, and carrying what appeared to be a shopping bag he walked out on the north edge of Tiananmen Square, along Chang'an Avenue and faced down a column of Type-59 tanks.

Wider perspective of Tank Men protest with full column of tanks

 

Jianli Yang, a Tiananmen Massacre survivor and former Chinese political prisoner and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China in his important 2022 article in Newsweek provides the full significance and context of what happened.

"I was near Tiananmen Square in the early morning on June 4, just as gunfire began. At one point, I was so close to the soldiers that I shouted to them in their trucks and told them not to shoot. We even sang songs that every Chinese knows, trying to touch their hearts. But when they received the order, they just opened fire. I saw many killed, including 11 students who were chased and run over by tanks on that fateful day."

Photos appeared of what remained after a tank ran over a student, and this is what Tank Man was in danger of becoming.

Human body crushed to pieces by PLA's tanks.

 In the video of the confrontation, the lead tank tried to drive around him, but the lone man repeatedly ran in front of the tank to prevent its passing. The tank driver turned off his engine and the rest of the column of tanks followed suit. 

The protester climbed on top of the tank and began to talk with him. Eventually he climbed back down and the tank driver turned the engines on but the protester once again blocked the tank column.

Jianli makes a powerful observation about this dynamic between the two men in the same OpEd in Newsweek.

"The Tank Man photo was taken the next day, on June 5, the morning after, when the massacre was still ongoing. By any measure, this image is one of heroism. But how many heroes do we see?

Nearly nine years after the picture was taken, the writer Pico Iyer said: "The heroes of the tank picture are two: the unknown figure who risked his life by standing in front of the juggernaut, and the driver who rose to the moral challenge by refusing to mow down his compatriot."

Not only did the driver refuse to kill, but he undoubtedly disobeyed orders and risked—and perhaps received—punishment in order to save a countryman's life."

We do not know the identities of either Tank Man, or what happened to them, but we do know that for one moment, in the midst of a blood bath perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party, humanity and dignity triumphed over repression in this particular case.

For more information visit:

Standoff At Tiananmen
How Chinese Students Shocked the World with a Magnificent Movement for Democracy and Liberty that Ended in the Tragic Tiananmen Massacre in 1989
http://www.standoffattiananmen.com/

Virtual Museum of China '89
http://museums.cnd.org/China89/

http://www.cnd.org/June4th/

Screams for help at China's secret 'black jails' - 27 Apr 09 AlJazeera
https://youtu.be/NsN4-A1G5zc

Seeking Justice, Chinese Land in Secret Jails / NY Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/world/asia/09jails.html

A piece of red cloth by Cui Jian (music video - song sang by him in the Square)
https://youtu.be/l8UPST1ZKSw

Frontline Documentary Tankman
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/

#Tiananmen35: Remembering the Tank Men

"The heroes of the tank picture are two: the unknown figure who risked his life by standing in front of the juggernaut, and the driver who rose to the moral challenge by refusing to mow down his compatriot." - Pico Iyer

Nonviolent moment: Tank Men face off in Beijing on June 5, 1989

On June 5, 1989 in Beijing, following the Chinese Communist Party's massive and bloody crackdown  on thousands of Chinese students and workers on June 3rd and 4th after six weeks of protests that began in Tiananmen Square and spread across 400 cities in China something remarkable happened in the midst of all the horror and terror. 

A man risked all to protest what had taken place. Wearing a white t-shirt, black trousers, and carrying what appeared to be a shopping bag he walked out on the north edge of Tiananmen Square, along Chang'an Avenue and faced down a column of Type-59 tanks.

Wider perspective of the Tank Men protest with the full column of tanks

Jianli Yang, a Tiananmen Massacre survivor and former Chinese political prisoner and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China in his important 2022 article in Newsweek provides the full significance and context of what happened.

"I was near Tiananmen Square in the early morning on June 4, just as gunfire began. At one point, I was so close to the soldiers that I shouted to them in their trucks and told them not to shoot. We even sang songs that every Chinese knows, trying to touch their hearts. But when they received the order, they just opened fire. I saw many killed, including 11 students who were chased and run over by tanks on that fateful day."

Photos appeared of what remained after a tank ran over a student, and this is what Tank Man was in danger of becoming.

Human body crushed to pieces by PLA's tanks.

 In the video of the confrontation, the lead tank tried to drive around him, but the lone man repeatedly ran in front of the tank to prevent its passing. The tank driver turned off his engine and the rest of the column of tanks followed suit. 

The protester climbed on top of the tank and began to talk with him. Eventually he climbed back down and the tank driver turned the engines on but the protester once again blocked the tank column.

Jianli makes a powerful observation about this dynamic between the two men in the same OpEd in Newsweek.

"The Tank Man photo was taken the next day, on June 5, the morning after, when the massacre was still ongoing. By any measure, this image is one of heroism. But how many heroes do we see?

Nearly nine years after the picture was taken, the writer Pico Iyer said: "The heroes of the tank picture are two: the unknown figure who risked his life by standing in front of the juggernaut, and the driver who rose to the moral challenge by refusing to mow down his compatriot."

Not only did the driver refuse to kill, but he undoubtedly disobeyed orders and risked—and perhaps received—punishment in order to save a countryman's life."

We do not know the identities of either Tank Man, or what happened to them, but we do know that for one moment, in the midst of a blood bath perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party, humanity and dignity triumphed over repression in this particular case.

For more information visit:

Standoff At Tiananmen
How Chinese Students Shocked the World with a Magnificent Movement for Democracy and Liberty that Ended in the Tragic Tiananmen Massacre in 1989
http://www.standoffattiananmen.com/

Virtual Museum of China '89
http://museums.cnd.org/China89/

http://www.cnd.org/June4th/

Screams for help at China's secret 'black jails' - 27 Apr 09 AlJazeera
https://youtu.be/NsN4-A1G5zc

Seeking Justice, Chinese Land in Secret Jails / NY Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/world/asia/09jails.html

A piece of red cloth by Cui Jian (music video - song sang by him in the Square)
https://youtu.be/l8UPST1ZKSw

Frontline Documentary Tankman
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/

#Tiananmen34: Remembering the Tank Men

“We persist in our three demands as always: truth, compensation, and accountability — on the 34th anniversary of the June Fourth Massacre.” - Tiananmen Mothers, May 27, 2023

Nonviolent moment: Tank Men face off in Beijing on June 5, 1989

On June 5, 1989 in Beijing, following the Chinese Communist Party's massive and bloody crackdown  on thousands of Chinese students and workers on June 3rd and 4th after six weeks of protests that began in Tiananmen Square and spread across 400 cities in China something remarkable happened in the midst of all the horror and terror. 

A man risked all to protest what had taken place. Wearing a white t-shirt, black trousers, and carrying what appeared to be a shopping bag he walked out on the north edge of Tiananmen Square, along Chang'an Avenue and faced down a column of Type-59 tanks.

Wider perspective of the Tank Men protest with the full column of tanks

Jianli Yang, a Tiananmen Massacre survivor and former Chinese political prisoner and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China in his important 2022 article in Newsweek provides the full significance and context of what happened.

"I was near Tiananmen Square in the early morning on June 4, just as gunfire began. At one point, I was so close to the soldiers that I shouted to them in their trucks and told them not to shoot. We even sang songs that every Chinese knows, trying to touch their hearts. But when they received the order, they just opened fire. I saw many killed, including 11 students who were chased and run over by tanks on that fateful day."

Photos appeared of what remained after a tank ran over a student, and this is what Tank Man was in danger of becoming.

Human body crushed to pieces by PLA's tanks.

In the video of the confrontation, the lead tank tried to drive around him, but the lone man repeatedly ran in front of the tank to prevent its passing. The tank driver turned off his engine and the rest of the column of tanks followed suit. 

The protester climbed on top of the tank and began to talk with him. Eventually he climbed back down and the tank driver turned the engines on but the protester once again blocked the tank column.

Jianli makes a powerful observation about this dynamic between the two men in the same OpEd in Newsweek.

"The Tank Man photo was taken the next day, on June 5, the morning after, when the massacre was still ongoing. By any measure, this image is one of heroism. But how many heroes do we see?

Nearly nine years after the picture was taken, the writer Pico Iyer said: "The heroes of the tank picture are two: the unknown figure who risked his life by standing in front of the juggernaut, and the driver who rose to the moral challenge by refusing to mow down his compatriot."

Not only did the driver refuse to kill, but he undoubtedly disobeyed orders and risked—and perhaps received—punishment in order to save a countryman's life."

We do not know the identities of either Tank Man, or what happened to them, but we do know that for one moment, in the midst of a blood bath perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party, humanity and dignity triumphed over repression in this particular case.

For more information visit:

Standoff At Tiananmen
How Chinese Students Shocked the World with a Magnificent Movement for Democracy and Liberty that Ended in the Tragic Tiananmen Massacre in 1989
http://www.standoffattiananmen.com/

Virtual Museum of China '89
http://museums.cnd.org/China89/

http://www.cnd.org/June4th/

Screams for help at China's secret 'black jails' - 27 Apr 09 AlJazeera
https://youtu.be/NsN4-A1G5zc

Seeking Justice, Chinese Land in Secret Jails / NY Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/world/asia/09jails.html

A piece of red cloth by Cui Jian (music video - song sang by him in the Square)
https://youtu.be/l8UPST1ZKSw

Frontline Documentary Tankman
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/

 

#Tiananmen33: Remembering the Tank Men

"Seeking government accountability for the massacre in accordance with the law is our legitimate right. For 33 years, we have been pursuing the three demands of “truth, compensation, and accountability” in a peaceful and rational manner, calling for a dialogue with the government through the legal process to resolve the issues related to the June Fourth massacre." -  Tiananmen Mothers, June 1, 2022

Nonviolent moment: Tank Men face off in Beijing on June 5, 1989

On June 5, 1989 in Beijing, following the Chinese Communist Party's massive and bloody crackdown  on thousands of Chinese students and workers on June 3rd and 4th after six weeks of protests that began in Tiananmen Square and spread across 400 cities in China something remarkable happened in the midst of all the horror and terror. 

A man risked all to protest what had taken place. Wearing a white t-shirt, black trousers, and carrying what appeared to be a shopping bag he walked out on the north edge of Tiananmen Square, along Chang'an Avenue and faced down a column of Type-59 tanks.

Wider perspective of the Tank Men protest with the full column of tanks

Jianli Yang, a Tiananmen Massacre survivor and former Chinese political prisoner and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China in his important 2022 article in Newsweek provides the full significance and context of what happened.

"I was near Tiananmen Square in the early morning on June 4, just as gunfire began. At one point, I was so close to the soldiers that I shouted to them in their trucks and told them not to shoot. We even sang songs that every Chinese knows, trying to touch their hearts. But when they received the order, they just opened fire. I saw many killed, including 11 students who were chased and run over by tanks on that fateful day."

Photos appeared of what remained after a tank ran over a student, and this is what Tank Man was in danger of becoming.

Human body crushed to pieces by PLA's tanks.

In the video of the confrontation, the lead tank tried to drive around him, but the lone man repeatedly ran in front of the tank to prevent its passing. The tank driver turned off his engine and the rest of the column of tanks followed suit. 

The protester climbed on top of the tank and began to talk with him. Eventually he climbed back down and the tank driver turned the engines on but the protester once again blocked the tank column.

Jianli makes a powerful observation about this dynamic between the two men in the same OpEd in Newsweek.

"The Tank Man photo was taken the next day, on June 5, the morning after, when the massacre was still ongoing. By any measure, this image is one of heroism. But how many heroes do we see?

Nearly nine years after the picture was taken, the writer Pico Iyer said: "The heroes of the tank picture are two: the unknown figure who risked his life by standing in front of the juggernaut, and the driver who rose to the moral challenge by refusing to mow down his compatriot."

Not only did the driver refuse to kill, but he undoubtedly disobeyed orders and risked—and perhaps received—punishment in order to save a countryman's life."

We do not know the identities of either Tank Man, or what happened to them, but we do know that for one moment, in the midst of a blood bath perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party, humanity and dignity triumphed over repression in this particular case.

For more information visit:

Standoff At Tiananmen
How Chinese Students Shocked the World with a Magnificent Movement for Democracy and Liberty that Ended in the Tragic Tiananmen Massacre in 1989
http://www.standoffattiananmen.com/

Virtual Museum of China '89
http://museums.cnd.org/China89/

http://www.cnd.org/June4th/

Screams for help at China's secret 'black jails' - 27 Apr 09 AlJazeera
https://youtu.be/NsN4-A1G5zc

Seeking Justice, Chinese Land in Secret Jails / NY Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/world/asia/09jails.html

A piece of red cloth by Cui Jian (music video - song sang by him in the Square)
https://youtu.be/l8UPST1ZKSw

Frontline Documentary Tankman
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/

Tiananmen at 27: Who are the Tank Men?

What became of them?

Tank men face off on June 5, 1989 on Changán Avenue in Beijing, China

27 years ago today on June 5, 1989 in Beijing, following a massive and bloody crackdown after six weeks of protests that began in Tiananmen Square and spread across 400 cities in China, a man would risk all to protest what had taken place. He was wearing a whit t-shirt and black trouses carrying what appears to be a shopping bag and walked out on the north edge of Tiananmen Square, along Chang'an Avenue and faced down a column of Type-59 tanks.

Victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre

The lead tank tried two drive around him, but the man repeatedly ran in front of the tank to prevent its passing. The tank driver turned off his engine and the rest of the column of tanks followed suit. The protester climbed on top of the tank and began to talk with them. Eventually he climbed back down and the tank driver turned the engines on but the protester once again blocked the tank column.

Wider perspective of the Tank Man protest with the full column of tanks

This time two men, dressed in blue, approach the protester and escort him off the main avenue and disappeared into the crowd.


There were two tank men that need to remembered. The protester who had stared down the column of tanks and the tank driver, who unlike many others over the previous 48 hours, refused to run over the non-violent protester. This act of nonviolence is now remembered the world over and the unidentified protester known as the Tank Man an icon, but the tank driver who refused to crush him also needs to be remembered.

Between June 3 and June 5, 1989 other tank drivers ran over protesters

 The identities and the fates of these two men remain unknown today and people of good will are calling on the Chinese government to identify the two and reveal their fate.

Who are the Tank Men, what became of them, and where are they today?

Please sign the petition asking these questions of the Chinese government.

Tiananmen at 27: We are all Chinese now

“Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”  - John Donne, Meditation XVII 

What Chinese students demanded from the Chinese regime in June 1989

Cubans both in the island and in the diaspora have used the phrase "we are not Chinese" when discussions arise of imposing a "Chinese model" on Cuba or, in other words, economic reforms without accompanying political reforms. In some cases the impression is given that Cubans would not tolerate what the Chinese have tolerated under communism in China.

This analysis is mistaken, not because Cubans will not resist a policy that condemns them to decades more under communist tyranny, but because the Chinese have resisted and paid a high price for their desire for freedom. More than 35 million Chinese were killed under this regime between 1949 and 1987. The Chinese regime also demonstrated that the founding generation of leaders, as they neared death, initiated one last spasm of sustained mass killings in the Cultural Revolution.

Today the world observes, refusing to forget as communist China tries to minimize and erase, the anniversary of a massacre. However it is important to also recall the courage, persistence and sacrifice of millions of Chinese citizens who stood up for freedom between April 15th and June 5th of 1989 and how close they came to achieving a democratic China. More than one million Chinese students and workers occupied Beijing's Tiananmen Square and held it for six weeks. This square covers an area of 100 acres and is the seat of communist China's political power with a history that predates it to 1651. By mid-May over 400 cities across China were participating in the protests demanding democratic reforms and on May 20, 1989 martial law was declared.


Troops moved into the center of Beijing on May 20, 1989 but refused to fire on the nonviolent demonstrators and left four days later. The Chinese communist leadership, humiliated began identifying troops that would brutally put down the nonviolent demonstrators.

On June 2, 1989 the communist party elders issued the orders to put down the "counterrevolutionary riot." The savage suppression by military forces was not just in Beijing but across China in all those cities that had participated in the protests demanding reform.

Time magazine in 2015 reported on the brutality visited on protesters in Chengdu, the capital of China’s Sichuan province. On June 4, 1989 the protesters at the center of town voluntarily left but when they learned of the massacre in Beijing things changed:

"Then crowds swelled and protesters, fully aware of the danger they were putting themselves in, took to the streets holding banners that read: “We are not afraid of death.”Street fights erupted, and, over the course of June 4, June 5 and June 6, turned into riots. Protesters stormed the gates and ransacked the Jinjiang Hotel, about 1.5 km from the main square, after which “the police rounded up about 70 protesters and began to beat them brutally in front of guests,” Lim tells TIME. Vehicles were set on fire and eventually a major market in the city was razed (which would later be used by Communist propaganda to discredit the protesters). ...[C]onservative estimates from a U.S. diplomatic cable, the Los Angeles Times and an Amnesty International report from Sept. 19, 1990, around 30 people died in the clashes. Others, including Western eyewitnesses, put the estimate as high as 400."

Imagine these scenes played out in 20 other cities in China along with the huge massacre in Beijing, the terror inflicted on the Chinese people over those days begins to be placed in context, despite the full number of dead still not being known.

Tank Man on June 5, 1989 stops a column of tanks in Beijing

In the midst of all this on June 5, 1989 one man with his shopping bags infuriated by what had happened, and was still happening, challenged and stopped a column of tanks. 27 years later the fate of that man remains unknown, as does the fate of the tank driver who refused to run him over. Thousands of people of good will from around the world are asking the Chinese government to reveal what happened to these two individuals.

Sadly, we must also remember the betrayal of the Western world that for the sake of economic interests paid lip service in support of Chinese democrats while quietly backing the Chinese communist dictatorship.

Unfortunately, as one can see in Cuba and Vietnam with the United States and other Western powers marginalizing pro-democracy activists, paying lip service on human rights, while embracing communist dictatorships for economic, or other perceived strategic objectives, as was done three decades ago in China that today in a real and tragic way "we are all Chinese."

Cuban American students over the years have gathered to remember what happened to their counterparts in June of 1989 but now let us all take concrete action on behalf of the Chinese seeking to be free. Here are four thing you can do. The first three are requests made by the NGO Human Rights in China and the last by Initiatives for China:

• Watch and listen to the stories of the victims as told by their family members, and read eyewitness accounts of the events of June Fourth (see the full list of HRIC resources on June Fourth).
• Share your knowledge about June Fourth and available online resources widely.
• Send a message of support to the Tiananmen Mothers via communications@hrichina.org (subject: Message for Tiananmen Mothers).
•  Please sign the petition to seek truth about the two Tiananmen Tank Men

The world is witnessing today, with human rights in decline worldwide for the past decade, the fulfillment of martyred Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas's December 17, 2002 warning when he called for global solidarity and explained the consequences of failing to do so. 

"The cause of human rights is a single cause, just as the people of the world are a single people. The talk today is of globalization, but we must state that unless there is global solidarity, not only human rights but also the right to remain human will be jeopardized."

Erazim V. Kohák in his book Jan Patočka: philosophy and selected writings provides an idea of what this global solidarity would look like when he refers to Patočka’s “solidarity of the shaken” as a community freed “from the preoccupation with the pursuits of peace and prosperity that inevitably lead to war and turn it instead to the pursuit of the Good, the care of the soul” that is “living with a clear conscience, living in truth, or in far older terms, seeking first the Kingdom of God.”

Therefore let us identify with our Chinese brothers and sisters, not only in our shared suffering of  totalitarian regimes, in a world too often complicit with tyranny, but also in our shared struggle for freedom.

We are all human and therefore ought to be free.

Tank Man: 26 years later

The power of one person to make a difference

Fuller picture of column of tanks one person stopped on June 5, 1989

Tiananman, China June 5, 1989 The killing had started on the night of June 3rd and intensified in the early morning hours of June 4, 1989 with tanks running over demonstrators. It was bikes versus tanks and the tanks always won.

Until June 5, 1989 when Tank Man appeared and with his moral courage and outrage stood down a column of tanks. 26 years later, we still don't know his name or what happened to him. But we remember how he gave us hope with the power of one person to say: Enough! Stop!

The 2004 Frontline Documentary TheTankMan explores the significance of this act, and attempts to discover what happened. Below the documentary available online: