Tear Gas

How many were killed per Tiananmen Square "Incident" in China and why didn't military just use tear gas?

I've heard varying accounts of the number of fatalities per the Tiananmen Square incident in China. Is there any reliable number of the total number killed?

Why couldn't the military have just used tear gas, water cannons, etc. to break up the demonstration? Did any military die?

Thank you.

China in 1989 was a far different place than it is today...yet even today the government of China isn't above killing 7,000 to 10,000 dissidents to maintain control of the populace.

If memory serves me well...At the time, dissenter and student reports were coming out of China reporting that bodies were stacked up to two meters high in the square. And that the million plus people assembled there had a difficult time getting away from as many as 20,000 troops (5,000 to 10,000 of which the Chinese government says were injured) using automatic weapons because of the square being littered with bodies.

It is hard to say if an accurate number of people killed may exist. The Chinese government officially reported that less than 300 students and capitalists were killed. They reported that injuries were inflicted on some 5,000 to 10,000 of the military troops in the square.

Remember China isn't the United States or a Western Civilization and the human conditions there are not what you are used to...and are quickly losing. The tyrannical, totalitarian, dictatorship is not a republic or democratic form of government and the troops don't have or use non-lethal weapons to protect the state.

China would like you to believe nothing happened in Tiananmen Square. Much like they would like you to believe that their air pollution doesn't reach the West Coast of the U.S...but it does...and many were killed in Tiananmen Square.