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no bull and the aftermath.

When the crackdown came, it had this stiltifying effect on the foreign ministry and on embassies

overseas.

So that order came right from the top and Chinese diplomats including then foreign minister

Chen Qi Chen didn't know the details of how or when a crackdown might come, Chen actually

learn from watching CNN.

The first instinct was this kind of prickly denial.

So that's oftentimes the place that Chinese diplomats go when they feel challenged is to

say nothing bad happens here.

You've read a bunch of lies and you're biased against China.

That's not necessarily because they believe it but that's just the safest thing to say

when you're worried that you might get in trouble or you're not quite sure what the right

course of action is.

And so that was repeated across the foreign ministry and as time went on, diplomats got

better with their talking points.

They became more confident in the line that they wanted to push about the students for

a small and troublesome minority and they were dealt with accordingly but you're lying

if you say that there were a lot of casualties.

...