I remember when I was a kid in China, school showed us a clip announcing the man stopping the tank as the 'robber' who was trying to rob a tank. I was like wtf you got to be kidding. I was like 12 and I felt that my intelligence was insulted... that's probably why I no longer live in China.
"Any sane person can see that, if our 'iron horse' keeps marching, this 'gangster' wouldn't stand any chance, just like 'a mantis trying to stop a chariot'. In contrary to some western media had claimed, this clip showed that our troops remained utmost desciplinary."
So I would say the clip was used to reinforce CCP's official tone on the tragedy, which is something like "some gangsters colluded with foreign influences tried to overthrow Chinese government".
I know sometimes CCP's propaganda sounds dumb, but definitely not that dumb as "tank man was trying to rob the tank".
Sounds familiar. My 12 year-old self probably did misunderstand 歹徒。 After hearing the first part of the sentence, I remember being pissed for them showing me this ridiculous footage with that righteous tone of voice - I couldn't even remember hearing the second part.
I think I was fed up with this type of footages that just don't explain what actually going on. Same negative emotion arises when 新闻联播 started every night about who visit XYZ, did whatever great job, blah blah blah BS.
I don't have that kind of emotional reaction to these types of footages anymore. Benefit of no longer being a teenager, I'm used to ignoring useless information. Fox news and some other mainstream media in the states are not doing much better TBH, but at least they are very competitive, and there are some useful information can be derived from their biased views.
