Asked to explain his past comments on the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, Donald Trump described the protesters using similar language contained in the Chinese government’s account.
During Thursday night’s Republican primary debate, moderator Jake Tapper recalled a 1990 magazine interview in which Trump said, “When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it, then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength.” Then Trump jumped in.
“That doesn’t mean I was endorsing that. I was not endorsing it. I said that is a strong, powerful government that put it down with strength. And then they kept down the riot,” he said. “It was a horrible thing. It doesn’t mean at all I was endorsing it.”
Trump’s use of “riot” to describe the events, however, was curious. As The New York Times reports, that word fits a June 1989 report from Beijing about Tiananmen Square:
Trump has been criticized for his lenient and even favorable language toward authoritarianism.
