200 Years On

[CharlesHarris]

Pete,

You only need to go back to China in 1989 for your answer.

During the 1989 student demonstrations in Beijing, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) played a decisive role in enforcing martial law, suppressing the demonstrations by force and upholding the authority of the Chinese Communist Party. The subject of the Tiananmen protests in general and the military's role in the crackdown remains forbidden from public discussion in China.[14] The killings in Beijing continue to taint the legacies of the party elders, led by Deng Xiaoping, and weigh on the generation of leaders whose careers advanced as their more moderate colleagues were purged or sidelined at the time.[14] Within China, the role of the military in 1989 remains a subject of private discussion within the ranks of the party leadership and PLA.[14] Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundreds to several thousands, with thousands more wounded.

If the Hong Kong protests continue, things could very well get ugly if the PRC government views continued defiance as a threat to its control.