Merged8 条有来源依据的主张、争议事实与证据

Topic summary

Merged: What was the Tiananmen Square Massacre? — 8 sourced claims. A declassified British cable alleges injured female students were bayoneted, victims were crushed repeatedly… · According to the British diplomatic cable's source, the commander of the 27th Army during the Tiananmen crack… · Sir Alan Donald's source was an intermediary relaying information from a member of China's State Council who…

Important claims and supporting citations

• A declassified British cable alleges injured female students were bayoneted, victims were crushed repeatedly by armored personnel carriers, and remains were incinerated and washed down sewers.

• According to the British diplomatic cable's source, the commander of the 27th Army during the Tiananmen crackdown was Yang Zhenhua, nephew of President Yang Shangkun.

• Sir Alan Donald's source was an intermediary relaying information from a member of China's State Council who was assessed as reliable.

• A declassified British diplomatic cable authored by Ambassador Sir Alan Donald provided a minimum estimate of 10,000 civilian dead in the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

• The official Chinese Communist Party death tally for the 1989 crackdown was 241.

• Sir Alan Donald's casualty estimate was transmitted on June 5, 1989, and was roughly ten times higher than commonly accepted contemporaneous figures.

• Independent and modern scholarly estimates place the death toll of the Tiananmen Square crackdown between 300 and 2,700.

• Sir Alan Donald's June 5, 1989 cable is held in the UK National Archives and was first reported by the news website HK01.

Competing explanations

• A declassified British cable alleges injured female students were bayoneted, victims were crushed repeatedly by armored personnel carriers, and remains were incinerated and washed down sewers.

• A declassified British diplomatic cable authored by Ambassador Sir Alan Donald provided a minimum estimate of 10,000 civilian dead in the Tiananmen Square crackdown.