I wasn’t born at the time so I have not 1st hand account. My parents heard about it on the news and they also heard about it from relatives. My parents and grand parents are pro- Communist Party, they didn’t really care about the protests being suppressed, they wanted stability more. But remember, China has a culture of what westerners refer to as “Social Harmony”, and don’t like to “causs troubles”. In 1912, when people were uprising against the Qing Monarchy, most parents would not have wanted their children being revolutionaries either. Same thing when Communists and Nationalists were fighting a civil war. The youth always want change, but no parent would ever want their child getting involved in stuff. They don’t want to lose their childen. This is the same sentiment regarding Tiananmen. Change is risky, causes too much instability. China not being united is what allows foreigners to invade China. (Eg: Eight Nations Alliance invading China, Consessions in China (Chinese land that was occupied by foreign countries), Japanese invasions of China during the midst of Communist-Nationalist Civil war, etc.) Even though the students in Tiananmen called for reforms, not revolution, the Communist leaders feared riots or a violent uprising, so they decided to violently suppress it before it “got out of hand”. Most people in China are probably just glad that it ended without fracturing China, they didn’t care which side won, as long as the country is still stable.

I learned about Tiananment when I was around high school age, many years after immigrating to the US. I left China in 2nd grade, so it’s not surprising I didn’t know about it, I mean most kids don’t get taught history. My older brother told me about it. At first, I just thought: meh, another one of the government’s conflict with the people But that wasn’t the important thing. What was odd to me was that they censored it in China. I mean, in my public school in the US, I was learning about slavery, how George Washington was a slave owner, most founders owned enslaved people. And even after the US Civil War, there’s still racism against black people. And I start learning that stuff around like 3-5th grade. Yet, my older brother who was like 7th grade in China didn’t know about it. So that was really odd to me. Then, I learn about how they put a firewall around the entirety of China’s network. Now the government started to look very shady to me. I mean, at this point, I’m still very Patriotic for China, just starting to suspect wtf kind of shit was going on in the government. Then one day my mother told me about how she has to take a risk to conceive me during the One Child Policy. She was supposed to be sterilized after my older brother was born, but she bribed a government official to fake the certificate of being sterilized. Then also hide that she was pregnant with her second child (the second child being me, obviously). So she went to a nearby city to be less likely to be found. Then I was born in the city hospital. Now that I’m already born, they can’t kill me anymore since somehow forcing a woman to abort her child was okay, but they didn’t want to go as far was actually killing someone who was already born. But my parents still had to pay a fine. Something like tens of thousands of Yuan(¥)/Renminbi. It took years to pay off. (And if you don’t pay it off, they don’t give you your documents, birth certificates, ID, etc. Basically becoming a legally non-existant person, despite actually existing). So that’s my personal grudge against the CCP, I mean who wouldn’t hate an organization that essentially tried to kill you? Idk why my parents still support the CCP to this day. Everytime they spew Pro-CCP propaganda, I’d just say: “So you support the One Child Policy? Should I not have been born?” That usually shuts then up.

I personally view what happened in Tianamen as a tragedy. I mean, they weren’t even threatening to revolt, just wanted to talk some sense into the CCP leaders and start some reforms. The government didn’t need to use tanks to suppress it. Such unnecessary violence.

Authoritarianism and the One Child Policy are both reasons why I oppose the Communist Party of China, although the One Child Policy is much more personal to me. They have since changed it to Two Child Policy, but still wtf is this shit. It’s equivalent to US red states forcing women to give birth. Both are governments dictating the lives of others.

I’m currently a US Citizen, I’m probably not going to visit China any time soon. (Not only because of China, but visiting China can also cause the US government putting you on a list of suspected CCP spies, and I don’t want that to happen.) And right now idk what happens in China, it aint my country anymore.

(Although if China and the US is at war, that’d be terrifying. That shit would cause another Internment camps, this time for people with Chinese Ancestry. Being a US Citizen with Chinese Ancestry is as being stuck in the turbulent oceans between 2 unsafe shores. No safe harbor for people like me. I have to deal with China labling me a traitor, and also the US suspecting CCP spies. What a shitty situation that’d be.)