I’ve only really just started my research era (and what better place to start it with than the “Tiananmen Square Massacre”) so I can explain my process of finding sources as this was all very recent. I don’t know how useful this will be for you because this was intended for a mainland Chinese liberal who just kind of left me on seen when they wanted to “argue” with me about it (and sadly they were on the side of saying it did happen).

So first things first, I watched the Hakim video, which I had watched in the past, but I wanted to collect all the sources and actually scrutinise them. Who are the individuals making these claims and what is their authority on the matter, were they in Beijing and were they at the square that night?

The video makes the claim Robert Helvey was in Hong Kong while erroneously using a totally unrelated news article as the link. So I search for the claim and it comes from Bahukutumbi Raman, the (at the time) head of counter-terrorism activities in India. Pretty authoritative source I would say.

I then start putting pieces together, and reading through different sources, there really weren’t a lot of journalists inside the square. So the next question is who (if anyone). The Chilean diplomat is mentioned in the video, but I don’t think it’s mentioned that RTVE, the Spanish state owned broadcaster, were the only journalists who filmed the entire night inside the square. So I watch what videos are available, and what the journalists themselves had to say about that night. No massacre, just like the Chilean diplomat. What about other folks? Robert Munro of the Human Rights Watch was there and he counted 10 foreign journalists I believe. Cool. They all pretty much corroborate the same story and align with what the Chilean diplomat say.

I start hunting for more videos and I stumble across Nury Vittachi’s breakdown which has way more sources than the Hakim one and really goes into depth. I compile that into my list. I stumble across a twitter thread with videos of student protestors Liu Xiaobo and Hou Dejian also saying there was no massacre in the square. More and more to the list. I check out the ProleWiki as well.

So then I look at certain American sources to see what the paper trail looks like. I find some information on George Soros, Milton Friedman, and two very interesting magazines, The Chinese Intellectual and China Alliance for Democracy, and how they were funded by the KMT and CIA to spark a color revolution.

I noticed in my compiled list a pattern, that in 2009 a ton of journalists come out and say “no massacre happened, but it happened elsewhere in Muxidi and Chang’an”. And I think Hakim in the video makes the point that “violence did happen but it was outside the square and China was always transparent about that”. So the next question is - does that violence constitute a massacre and when you look at what the “Massacre” is defined as, it’s quite explicitly defined as the military using machine guns on unarmed students immediately after a peaceful exit is secured (and then graphic tank stuff). It was always “there was violence in the area and a massacre in the square”. But now the definition is changed to “there was a massacre in the area and no violence in the square”. There are a lot of conveniently worded things like “it had turned out the majority of the massacre took place outside the square”. Well duh, if nobody died inside the square, and some people died outside the square, by definition the majority of violence was outside the square!

And then finally I searched on reddit if anyone else has posted about any claims or if my claims show up. And added relevant information from there.

Anyway, that’s sort of my thought process when doing research. I hope that was helpful even if it was a ramble. No idea how it would work against liberals.

Funnily enough, I see myself moving to Ireland and I have Chengdu as a back-up plan if things get out of hand in terms of racial tensions and what-not.

I could honestly see myself studying at Kim Il Sung University if money or time wasn’t an issue. It seems like an out of this world experience. Difficult, but awesome nonetheless.

In Australia the overnight trains between Melbourne and Sydney as well as Brisbane and Sydney are regularly sold out. Quite literally the only reason more trains haven’t been added to accommodate the demand is due to intense lobbying from airport and airline companies. And this existing demand is for a 12 hour rail journey as opposed to a 90 minute flight.

Funnily enough, the replacement trains the New South Wales government is rolling out has even less capacity than the existing trains, meaning the new services will have less passengers before it gets sold out.

I haven’t even scratched the surface on the Laos fast rail or Chinese high speed rail.