An SIU Journalism Professor who covered the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre sees bleak similarities to the current Hong Kong uprising.
Bill Babcock was the Christian Science Monitor's Senior International News Editor and Asia Desk Editor when thousands of students were killed in Tiananmen Square. He says the parallels to today's protests are striking.
"I think that the big similarity is that you have a government which is very fearful of losing control - that's the mainland China government. What's changed, though, is that you now have access to social media."
Babcock points out the addition of social media has China's leaders worried about a movement similar to the Arab Spring - which toppled governments in numerous Middle Eastern countries nearly ten years ago.
Babcock says he fears a negative outcome to the current uprising. He says protests today likely won't change much within the Chinese regime.
"Keeping as polite pressure on by the people as possible is about the only hope that they can have of gently encouraging the government that change is required."
He says there is an entire generation of Chinese citizens that doesn't know what happened at Tiananmen Square because of strict information control by the government there.
Babcock was a guest on WSIU InFocus. You can hear his entire interview here.
