Dear FRONTLINE,

My very good friend works in a large city in China. She has asked me (in person) to be very careful about email because they monitor everything sent electronically. I fear for her. I've just erased generic information about her from this email, because I don't want to compromise her situation.There is no freedom without the freedom of expression. How can we support the Olympics, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Cisco? I'm at a loss.I remember Tiananmen Square. We were all devasted; how could this happen? And the brave man...everyman speaking. We were all so afraid for him, the families, freedom for the Chinese seemed to be so far away. I wasn't surprised that the four young students now at Bejing University had no idea about the photo. That's how dictators rule...keep them in the dark and feed them the well-flavored lie.

Melinda Brewster
Charlotte, North Carolina

Dear FRONTLINE,

As wonderful as I found this documentary, I'm not sure I understood the references to the economic boom of the recent Chinese economy in this documentary. In my opinion, the filmmakers got close to Michael Moore territory for about 10 minutes. It might have been possible to make a documentary about "Tank Man" without mentioning the modern Chinese economy. Does anyone know for sure that the choice after 1989 was strictly between "economy" and "politics", as the documentary would have us believe? We already know that the government in China made a horrible choice in 1989. If the documentary was trying to reinforce that point, the departure into to modern Chinese economy did not work. That whole section could have been edited and made the documentary much tighter.

Scott Candage
Williston, North Dakota

Dear FRONTLINE,

I do not have any word to comment...I cannot make too much difference on my parents, but I can make huge difference on my children.

Many thanks for this program.

nick yue
Toronto, Canada

Dear FRONTLINE,

It was painful to watch again of what happened on "June/4th".

Frontline has opened one of the dark chapters in the modern Chinese history. Looking back, I can see a lesson to be learned on "June/4th" from both sides. Protesters ought to be more self-controlled, for violence could not advance their agenda (especially in the later days of the protest). A lot of student leaders actually lack of in-depth understanding of democracy. That also contributed to the failure. On the other hand, today's senior leaders ought to re-examine the whole incident again. Truly, mistakes were made on "June/4th". They should openly acknowledge this past mistake. Only then, the whole country can move forward on this platform. In order for China to become a truly democratic society, people from all walks of live and every corners of the society must have the willingness, understanding and desires for a fundamental change (a peaceful revolution on political reform). Don't forget, students were not the only protesters. Protesters came from all levels of the society, especially the working class. One just needs to look back on "May/4th1919" and will understand the meaning of "a double-edged sword".

SFBayArea,

Dear FRONTLINE,

It is rather discouraging to see some of the comments here, especially the ones posted by some of the Chinese. They echo the deep rooted cultural collective consciousness that I have seen in the Chinese people in general, with which individual rights (or exsistence?) are of far lesser value than the superficial wealth and the 'face' of a country.

After having been back in Macau for several years, I might not have the first hand information on the conditions of China, but I cannot help but see the chasm between the social classes. Human rights aside, with the mass majority living close to (if not under) the poverty line, so called stability will not hold out much longer unless certain actions to amend the inequality. After all, the Chinese Communists gained their support from people of the underclass 70 years ago.

The funny thing is that Chinese people are unnecessarily dying each day, not because of fighting for human rights, not because of civil wars, but because of low education, corrupted governments, and the lack of basic human decency. I cannot help but wonder what the real meaning of stability is as put forth by Chinese governments.

Ricardo Sanchez Leong

Dear FRONTLINE,

In the scene where Zhao Ziyang is appealing to the students before he was purged from the party, standing behind him is Wen Jiabao. Wen Jiabao is the current Premier of the State Council. Tiananmen must be very clear in Wen's mind, his boss Zhao lost his career for it. I don't think Wen will allow another Tiananmen to happen.

Simon Wang
Montreal, Quebec

Dear FRONTLINE,

Vietnam's tank man is next. And I certainly hope that the VN government will not be as brutal to the people as the CN government was. I also hope in Vietnam, money will not cause these American businesses like Google, Microsoft, Cisco, and Yahoo to sell their souls to the devils as they did in China.

Great program!

n.t. tran
austin, tx

Dear FRONTLINE,

The show brought back a lot of memories for me of the late 1980's when the world was getting out from under the thumb of the Cold War. The Eastern European and Chinese Communist regimes were under civil assault and everyone had a sense that the world was changing, and changing at a very fast pace.

I'm convinced that as the free market economy grows in China, the unilateral government will have another Tienamen Square on their hands. Very good program Frontline.

Mike Garcia
Chicago, IL

Dear FRONTLINE,

As a son of the one of the organizers for the student demonstration in 1989, I want to share some of my thoughts regarding Tiananmen Square. My father lost his political future because what he did in 1989. He never regretted what he did and I am proud of him, however even him thinks what the students did at end of the protest actually stopped the democracy movements in the 80s.

Nowadays, we have much less freedom compared to 20 years ago. Students' voices had been heard; the prime minister of china met up with students' leader and agreed to work on the issues students raised. The Chinese president back then came out to ask students to leave and promised to resolve the problems. If the students or the so-called students leaders choose to leave Tiananmen Square before June, there will not be thousands deaths and we will have much more freedom today; possibly much more democratic political system in China.

WEI ZHANG
Toronto, Ontario

Dear FRONTLINE,

As always, Frontline has outdone itself in investigative journalism. I applaud the director in illustrating China's human rights issues and the way western IT companies have facilitated the government's ability to hunt out the "enemies" of the state.

Just as Boeing and Lockheed-Martin cannot sell cruise missiles and fighter jets to China, Yahoo, Google, and Cisco should not be allowed to arm China with informational defensive weapons.

With regard to the ad hominem tu quoque arguments made in this forum, just because other governments around the world might have certain issues doesn't mean other government's issues should not be raised. As one can see from Frontline's archives, they have explored many issues, from Katrina to Rwanda. I hope one day to visit Tiananmen Square and see a monument to the Tank Man.

A. Georgas
Terre Haute, Indiana

Dear FRONTLINE,

Just want to thank you for a well made documentary. It brought back a lot of memories of China.

I have spent the last ten years of my life in various parts of the country as a foreign English teacher. Some of the things that were said in the video I can relate to because of my personal experiences. The scenes where the factory worker girls were interviewed while their "minders" were watching reminded me of a provincial trip I took to rural Jiangsu Province with many other foreigners. The officials took us to a private school, a toothbrush factory, a food processing factory, a rich farmer's house for lunch, etc...I remember being in a bus convoy. Three bus loads of foreigners being escorted by nine police cars -- five in the front and four in the back. We were a sight to see!

One thing that does scare me is the fact that companies like Yahoo and Cisco can turn in people who the government doesn't like. That scares me because I have a blog which I started in China. Most of the things I've posted are basically things about my favorite things or things that have happened to me through out my day. But there are a few dicey ones as well. I also have a Yahoo e-mail address. If I e-mail something to a friend of mine about the government -- whether good or bad -- that Yahoo will turn me over to the authorities? I'm in the US now and I hope to return to China someday. Does this mean that I'll have to delete the dicey blog entries?

I'm also very encouraged that there have been a lot of Chinese outside of China that have seen this film and that have posted their thoughts about it. To me that is very enouraging.

Hilo, HI.

Dear FRONTLINE,

Nobody cares 6.4 in China nowadays. Actually I did get videos about 6.4 from the internet when I was in China.

The 6.4 tragedy was a fault of both the government and students. Don't just show the one side of things. That's biased.

As you said in this movie, lots of people in China are still very poor. The most important thing for them is to be a little bit richer, not to live in a chaos so called democracy society.I believe China is changing toward a peaceful democracy country. First of all, we need a strong mid-class to push the government. That means we need further economic success. That's very important for China's future.

Well, China is not perfect and there are lot of social problems to sovle. I believe Chinese can do very well by themselves, just like you guys do very well in america.

One correction: There is no Beida University in Beijing. Beida means Beijing University in Chinese.

Tony Liang
Baltimore, MD

Dear FRONTLINE,

Thank you for this remarkable documentary. I never saw such conprehensive coverage of the Tiananmen events in June 1989. I think the section on economics and inequality are less well done, and sometimes inaccurate. But the irony in the final part on control of information is unbeatable: here are western firms stating how they help China control information,even though it goes "against their core principles" being interrogated by congressmen that love to beat up on China, but not addressing the issue of misinformation at home, and possible criminal behavious by their own president and government that is invading privacy of their own citizen.

Beijing, China

Dear FRONTLINE,

What the Chinese Government needs to do it to face the problem up front. It has to admit that the Tiananmen Incident was a mistake that will never be ever made again, and push the road for political reform. It has to admit that there are "two Chinas", the rich urban China, and the poor rural China. China's youth must know about the 1989 incident, it played an important role in turning their country into what it is today, and probably what it will be in the future.

Dennis Neo
Singapore, Singapore

Dear FRONTLINE,

I was born in the early 80s in China and came to the US in the mid 90s. I really enjoyed the program. The point that I want to make is there is no country in the world that is comparable to China. China has being a unique nation in the past and will continue to be in the future. The huge popullation is an important part of its uniqueness. Due to the law of economic and scarcity, it is impossible for everyone in China to be rich and well-being. It is ironic that China is doing a lot of "uncommunistic" stuff by making part of the country rich at the sacrafice of the poor. I am not saying that is the right thing to do base on human rights. However, that may be the right thing to do for a country with this large of a popullation.

Similarly, the 1989 event was probably not the right thing to do. However, I feel that without the government taking such an action, China (or at least part of China) will not be as well as today. The most important thing for China or for any country, is stability, not human rights. It is impossible to give that large number of Chinese people equal rights in choosing their governor. Imagine the whole earth is one nation, the communistic with Chinese uniqueness type of government may be the only way to govern.

Eric Tan
Bay area, CA

Dear FRONTLINE,

I was born in 1982. I was born and raised in Guangzhou, China. I came to U.S. in 1996. I remembered that the Chinese Mass Media still had its own freedom of speech before the Tiananmen Square incident happened. I always love to watch your programs plus other public televisions that are none biased. But I have to say that this program(Tank Man) is biased.

. I admitthe Tiananmen Square incident was a tragedy done by the Communism. I don't deny nor questioned about the methods they used to crush the protest. But, I believe democracy is not the golden key to open up China either, or perhaps it is. We must look at it as a trial experiment, there is failure then there is success. Besides, I am certainly sure that in the future, the Communism regime in China will admitted their wrongdoings about the Tiananmen Square incident.

Part of your program touched the issue about the freedom of speech. In order to make a protest, one has to turn to a method which only recognized by the Communism government in China under its rule. An example: ???? (Simplified Chinese) the following web site serves as an online forum which recognized by the Communism government in China. http://bbs.people.com.cn/bbs/start A lot of posts have harsh critiques about the current regime. China is not the only country that has information control. The U.S. government also uses this program or software called "WSC..." to scan Internet emails among individuals. Why don't you investigate about this too about how U.S. government itself attempts to control the public media over the Internet?

I have been living here for 10 years. The so-called freedom of speech in here also limited by what we see and what we hear which controlled by the Mass Media. The ABC and CBS... rarely broadcast information about other countries except big events. Most of the time, they focus only on the issues related to local and national.

Finall, your program touched the issues regarding economic reform in China. I only partial agree with some of the statements w offered by your commentators. It is a common sense that cities grow faster if they are located near major river, major ports and ocean where foreign trade and commerce bring them a fortune. The cities that you have mentioned such as Guangzhou and Shanghai... all have the above characteristics. The rural area developed slower because they are considered inaccessible. As a result, the younger generations are moving out to the big cities to seek job opportunities. It is also true that most of the wealthy people in China don't contributed back a penny to their country. It is also true that they are self-fish, greedy, and cold hearted. Let's not to forget these elements are characteristic of Capitalism. I watched a program which produced by PBS about Castro. His vision of communism did work in Cuba although he failed the economic part. Before the introduction of Capitalism, there aren't any prostitutions and etc... And after the arrival of Capitalism, prostitutions happen in Cuba... And that is why the Chinese communism regime is trying to put back the teaching of Confucianism into the current society. Among all, I don't like the comment where they remarked that they are the losers of this economic reform to those whom left out without any jobs and to those who still living in rural. If there isn't any economic reform, more and more people could turn into discontented. There is always a winner and a loser. It depends on which side one weights more. So, the economic reform is a double-edged sword. As a farmer in China, there is many taxes that needed to be pay in the past. Since Jan 1st, 2006 the Chinese party had veto any taxes charged against for the farmers. There will be no taxes for the farmers whatsoever. It is here that your program failed to keep update and failed to mention!

Yu Wan
fremont , california

FRONTLINE's editors respond:

While the government's taxes on farmers has been rolled back, farmers still struggle with taxation by local authorities who are often corrupt.