Chinese General Says Tiananmen Crackdown Underpinned Stability
Chinese General Says Tiananmen Crackdown Underpinned Stability
(Bloomberg) -- A top Chinese general defended the army’s bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square in 1989, saying it was the correct move that led to 30 years of stability in what is now the world’s second-largest economy.
Responding to a question at a security forum in Singapore on Sunday, Defense Minister Wei Fenghe said China has undergone “earth-shaking changes” under the Communist Party over the past three decades. He called the Tiananmen protests “a political storm and political unrest.”
“The central government took decisive measures, and the military took measures to stop it and calm the turmoil,” Wei said at the Shangri-La Dialogue. “This is the right way. It is the reason the stability of the country has been maintained.”
China has gone to great lengths to censor any material related to the Tiananmen protests, in which soldiers killed hundreds –- and possibly thousands -- of people in the center of Beijing. The 30th anniversary of the event will take place on June 4, marked by vigils in Hong Kong and other parts of the world.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alfred Cang in Singapore at acang@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, Jon Herskovitz
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