Quote Originally Posted by Duff
Remember the Chinesse dude and the tank?
Of course. Tiananmen Square 1989. Protesters take to the streets of Beijing to mourn the death of Hu Yaobang, a Pro- Democracy campaigner. As with plenty of large public protests, all kinds of of other groups joined in as well and the protest was eventually put down violently by the military. The image you reference is, as far as I know, the only image (or one of very few at least) that came out of the whole event. It depicts an unknown man in a white shirt blocking the path of a PLA tank. I was in the very same spot only last year.

Quote Originally Posted by Duff
What ever happened to that guy? Anybody ever hear from him again?
Shortly after the iconic photograph was taken he was ushered back into the crowd by a small group. Friends? Concerned citizens? Secret Police? Nobody knows for sure, but as far as I can tell, he has never resurfaced.


Quote Originally Posted by Duff
Anyway, they are all communists; like one big union, right?
If you mean all of China, then yes. They run a single party system and the governing party is the Communist Party of China, making all of China a communist state.

Quote Originally Posted by Duff
Cleaning up these messed up factories and straightening out this criminal activity should be a short order for them.
I get where you're going with this, but I don't think anything is going to be that simple in a country of 1.3 billion people, single communist state or not.

To go completely and utterly off topic....

If you get the chance, Beijing is a great city to visit. For a city of some 22 million people I was amazed at how clean, slick, modern and organised it feels. (especially after experiencing what 18-20 million people in Cairo feels like.....) Not Tokyo slick by a long way, but impressive nonetheless.