I know it is a joke, but they do not deny the event. They just put it into a different context. It goes something like: 2000 lives for 20 years of stability. Well, actually 30 years now.
> That would be an interesting tradeoff conversation if true.
While no-one can predict the future, we can have a good guess what a democratic China would be like, because one exists. It's called Taiwan. Which is richer per capita and arguably more stable than the PRC.
Wikipedia claims: the official PRC position at the time was 300; many other estimates are in the thousands ranging up to 10,000. Of course now they are trying to erase it altogether.
The tagline "objective, nonpartisan and insightful" on 'World Affairs' really brings it home.
The Chinese government obviously has its own propaganda, but being anti-China is objective and nonpartisan in the US. It's not taking sides, it's just the natural state of affairs, the entire media thinks so, both kinds of it.
> but being anti-China is objective and nonpartisan in the US
No, pretty much all American propaganda mills that are not formally associated with a political party claim to be “objective and nonpartisan” (the latter is truly universal, the former or a close synonym quite common). It doesn't matter if the viewpoint being pushed is one orthogonal to the party divide, common to the major factions of both parties, or extremely partisan in its appeal, or even outside of the mainstream of either party. The label is, itself, propaganda (though so routine and formulaic and widely recognized that it only has an impact on the most unaware.)
There's a 'foreign policy grownup' archetype who gets credibility for free whether they're on MSNBC or Fox News. That grownup has a default stance of American global supremacy, and China has gotten too big/rich/powerful to be compatible with that worldview.
Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe acknowledged and defended the Tiananmen crackdown in 2019. That's pretty much going to be party / national consensus going forward.
>stopping the "turbulence" was the "correct" policy.
/s