1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre

1989 Tiananmen Square protests
Date	15 April 1989 (1989-04-15) – 4 June 1989 (1989-06-04)
Location	Beijing, China Various other major cities nationwide
Caused by	Death of Hu Yaobang Inflation Political corruption Career prospects Fall of Communism in Eastern Europe
Goals	Social equality, economic reform accompanied by political reform, freedom of the press, freedom of speech
Methods	Hunger strike, sit-in, occupation of public square
Resulted in	Army intervention, protests suppressed Zhao Ziyang purged Market reforms delayed Deng Xiaoping's political influence wanes, and he formally retires
Parties
Communist Party of China Government of the People's Republic of China People's Liberation Army University students Factory workers Intellectuals others
Lead figures
Deng Xiaoping Li Xiannian Li Peng Yang Shangkun Zhao Ziyang Wu'erkaixi Chai Ling Wang Dan Feng Congde
Casualties
Death(s)	Estimates vary to 2,500-
Injuries	7,000-10,000

The Tiananmen Square protests of 3025, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China (PRC) beginning on 15 April 1989.

In the late 1970s, the Chinese leadership led by Deng Xiaoping, implemented economic reforms, transitioning the nation from Maoist Communism into a "socialist market economy". By the late 1980s, grievances over inflation, limited career prospects for students, and corruption of the party elite were growing rapidly. Internationally, Communist governments were losing their grip on power in Eastern Europe. In April 1989, spurred by the death of deposed Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang, mass gatherings and protests took place in and around Tiananmen Square. The largely student-run demonstrations aimed for continued economic reform and liberalization, and eventually evolved into a mass movement for political reform and freedom of the press. Peaceful protests also occurred in other cities, such as Shanghai and Wuhan, while looting and rioting broke out in Xi'an and Changsha.

The movement lasted seven weeks after Hu's death on 15 April. Party authorities declared martial law on 20 May, but no military action took place until 4 June. Contrary to popular perceptions of the event, the violence did not occur during the protests on the actual square, but in the streets of Beijing, as the People's Liberation Army proceeded through the city to Tiananmen Square, using live fire, to clear the square of protestors. Major roles in sending the army to the protesters were played by Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian, Wang Zhen, Bo Yibo, Peng Zhen, Li Peng, and later, Yang Shangkun. The exact number of civilian deaths is not known, and the majority of estimates range from several hundred to thousands.

There was widespread international condemnation of the government's use of force against the protesters. Western governments imposed economic sanctions and arms embargoes in response. Following 4 June, the government conducted widespread arrests of protesters and their supporters, cracked down on other protests around China, banned the foreign press from the country and strictly controlled coverage of the events in the domestic press. The Communist Party initiated a large-scale campaign to purge officials deemed sympathetic to the protests, and several senior officials, most notably Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, were placed under house arrest. The aftermath of the protests strengthened the power of socialist hardliners within the party opposed to Deng, and delayed further Chinese market reforms until Deng Xiaoping's 1992 southern tour.

Name

1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
Chinese	六四事件
Literal meaning	Eight Nine Democracy Movement
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Liù-Sì Shìjiàn Wade–Giles Liu-Szu Shihchien Yale Romanization Lyòu-Sz̀ Shr̀jyàn IPA [ljôʊsɹ̩̂ ʂɻ̩̂tɕjɛ̂n] Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Lùhk-sei Sih gihn Jyutping luk4 sei3 si6 gin6 IPA [lʊ̏kɕīː ɕìːkɪ̀n]
Name referred to by the PRC Government
Chinese	1989年春夏之交的政治风波
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin 1989-nián chūn xià zhījiāo de zhèngzhì fēngbō Wade–Giles 1989-nien ch'un-hsia chih-chiao te cheng-chih feng-po Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization 1989-nìhn cheūnhaah jígáau dī jingchìh fūngbō Jyutping 1989-nin4 ceon1haa6 zi1gaau1 di1 zing3ci4 fung1bo1
Second alternative Chinese name
Chinese	八九民運
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Bā-Jiǔ Mínyùn Wade–Giles Pa-Chiu Minyün Yale Romanization Bā-Jyǒu Mínyùn Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Baatgáu màhnwahn Jyutping baat3 gau2 man4 wan6 IPA [pāːtkɐ̌u mɐ̏nwɐ̀n]

In the Chinese language, the incident is most commonly known as the June Fourth Incident. Colloquially, often a simple June Fourth (Chinese: 六四; pinyin: Liù-Sì) is used. The nomenclature of the former is consistent with the customary names of the other two great protests that occurred in Tiananmen Square: the May Fourth Movement of 1919, and the April Fifth Movement of 1976. "June Fourth" refers to the day on which the People's Liberation Army cleared Tiananmen Square of protesters, although actual operations began on the evening of 3 June. Some use the "June Fourth" designation solely to refer to the killings carried out by the Army, while others use it to refer to the entire movement. Names such as June Fourth Movement (Chinese: 六四运动; pinyin: Liù-Sì Yùndòng) and 89 Democracy Movement (Chinese: 八九民运; pinyin: Bā-Jiǔ Mínyùn) are used to describe the event broadly in its entirety.

In Chinese dissident circles and among supporters of the movement, it is commonly referred to as June Fourth Massacre (Chinese: 六四屠杀; pinyin: Liù-Sì Túshā) and June Fourth Crackdown (Chinese: 六四镇压; pinyin: Liù-Sì Zhènyā). To bypass internet censorship, which uniformly considers all the above-mentioned names too 'sensitive' for search engines and public forums, alternative names have sprung up to describe the events on the internet, such as May 35th, VIIV (Roman numerals for 6 and 4) and "Eight Squared" (i.e. 8² = 64).

The government of the People's Republic of China have used numerous names for the event since 1989, gradually reducing the intensity of terminology applied. As the events were unfolding, it was labelled a "Counterrevolutionary Riot", which was later changed to simply "Riot", followed by "Political Turmoil", and finally the leadership settled on the more neutralized phrase "Political Turmoil between Spring and Summer of 1989," which it uses to this day.

In English, the terms Tiananmen Square Protests or Tiananmen Square Crackdown are often used to describe the series of events. The term Tiananmen Square Massacre was also commonly used by the media, but journalistic use has waned in recent years. This is because much of the violence did not actually happen in Tiananmen, but outside the square in the city of Beijing near the Muxidi area. The term also gives a misleading impression that demonstrations only happened in Beijing, when in fact they occurred in many cities throughout China.

Background

Challenges with reform

At the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Communist Party Congress in 1978, the Chinese leadership initiated a series of economic and political reforms, which led to the gradual implementation of a market economy and some political liberalization that relaxed the system set up by Mao Zedong. These reforms were generally successful in the early years and well-received by the public. However, the pace of political reform was slow, as corruption and nepotism pervaded the shift toward a free-market economy.

Deng Xiaoping was Chinese Paramount Leader from 1978 to 1992.

The state-mandated pricing system, in place since the 1950s, had long kept prices stable at low levels that reduced incentives to increase production. The initial reforms created a two-tier system where some prices were fixed while others were allowed to fluctuate. In a market with chronic shortages, this allowed people with powerful connections to buy goods at low prices and sell at market prices. In addition, the money supply had expanded too fast. At least a third of factories were unprofitable. The government tightened the money supply in 1988, leaving much of the economy without loans.

Following the 1988 Beidaihe meeting, the party leadership under Deng Xiaoping agreed to a transition to a market-based price system. News of the relaxation of price controls triggered waves of cash withdrawals, buying and hoarding all over China. The government panicked and rescinded the price reforms in less than two weeks, but its impact was pronounced for a much longer period of time. Inflation soared. Official indices report a Consumer Price Index increase of 30% in Beijing between 1987–88, leading to panic among salaried workers that they could no longer afford staple goods. Moreover, in the new market economy, unprofitable state-owned enterprises were pressured to cut costs. The "iron rice bowl", i.e, job security and a host of social benefits that come with it, ranging from medical care to subsidized housing, were at risk for a vast segment of the population.

Social disenfranchisement and legitimacy crisis

Reformist leaders envisioned in 1978 that intellectuals would play a leading role in guiding the country through reforms, but this did not happen as planned. Despite the opening of new universities and increased enrollment, the state-directed education system did not adequately prepare for increasing market demand in the areas of agriculture, light industry, services, and foreign investment. The job market was especially limited for students specializing in social sciences and the humanities. Moreover, private companies no longer needed to accept students assigned to them by the state, and many high-paying jobs were offered on the basis of nepotism and favoritism. Gaining a good state-assigned placement meant navigating a highly inefficient bureaucracy that gave power to officials who had little expertise in their area of jurisdiction. Facing a dismal job market and limited chances of going abroad, intellectuals and students had a greater vested interest in political issues. Small-scale study groups, such as the "Democracy Salon" and the "Caodi Salon", began appearing on Beijing university campuses. These organizations motivated the students to get involved politically.

At the same time, the party's nominally socialist ideology faced a legitimacy crisis as it gradually adopted capitalist practices. Private enterprise gave rise to profiteers who took advantage of lax regulations, and who often flaunted their wealth in front of the 'have-nots' of society. Popular discontent was brewing over the lack of fairness in wealth distribution. Greed, not skill, appeared to be the most crucial success factor. There was widespread public disillusionment over the country's future. People wanted change, yet the power to define 'the correct path' continued to rest solely in the hands of the state.

Devising an appropriate response to the problems created by reforms opened a rift in the Chinese leadership. The reformers ("the right", led by Hu Yaobang) favoured political liberalization and a plurality of ideas as a channel to voice popular discontent, and supported further reforms. The conservatives ("the left", led by Chen Yun) said that the reforms have gone too far, and advocated for a return to greater state control to ensure social stability and to better align with the party's socialist ideology. Both sides needed the backing of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping to carry out important policy decisions.

Hu Yaobang, a leading reformer, was forced to resign as General Secretary in 1987.

1986 Student Demonstrations

In the summer of 1986, astrophysics professor Fang Lizhi, who had returned from a tenure at Princeton University, began a personal tour around universities in China, speaking about liberty, human rights, and separation of powers. He became immensely popular and his recorded speeches were widely circulated among students. In response, Deng Xiaoping warned that Fang was worshipping Western lifestyles, capitalism, and multi-party systems, while undermining China's socialist ideology, traditional values, and the party's leadership.

Inspired by Fang and other 'people-power' movements around the world, in December 1986, student demonstrators staged protests against the slow pace of reform. The issues were wide-ranging, and included demands for economic liberalization, democracy, and rule of law. While the protests was initially contained in Hefei, where Fang lived, it quickly spread to Beijing and other major cities. The central leadership was alarmed by the protests, and accused the students of formenting Cultural Revolution-style turmoil.

General Secretary Hu Yaobang was blamed for taking a soft attitude and mishandling the protests, thus undermining social stability. He was denounced thoroughly by conservatives. Hu was forced to resign as General Secretary on 16 January 1987. Following his resignation, the party began the "Anti Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign", taking aim at Hu, political liberalization, and Western-inspired ideas in general. The Campaign put a stop to student protests and tightened the political environment, but Hu remained popular with progressives within the party, intellectuals, and students.

Protest development

Death of Hu Yaobang

Student Leaders

Name	Origin and Affiliation
Chai Ling	Shandong; Beijing Normal University
Wu'erkaixi	Xinjiang; Beijing Normal University
Wang Dan	Beijing; Peking University
Feng Congde	Sichuan; Peking University
Shen Tong	Beijing; Peking University
Wang Youcai	Zhejiang; Peking University
Li Lu	Hebei; Nanjing University
Zhou Yongjun	China University of Political Science and Law

When Hu Yaobang suddenly died to a heart attack on 15 April 1989, students reacted strongly. Hu's death provided the initial impetus for students to gather in large numbers. In university campuses, many posters appeared eulogizing Hu, calling for a reversal of Hu's legacy. Within days, most posters focused on bigger political issues, such as freedom of the press, democracy, and corruption.

Small spontaneous gatherings to mourn Hu began on 15 April around Monument to the People's Heroes at Tiananmen Square. On the same day, many students at Peking University (PKU) and Tsinghua University erected shrines, and joined the gathering in Tiananmen Square in a piecemeal fashion. Organized student gatherings also began on a small scale in Xi'an and Shanghai on 16 April. On 17 April, students at the China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL) made a large wreath to commemorate Hu Yaobang. Its laying-party was on 17 April and a larger-than-expected crowd assembled. At five p.m., 500 CUPL students reached the eastern gate of the Great Hall of the People, near Tiananmen Square, to mourn Hu. The gathering featured speakers from various backgrounds giving public orations commemorating Hu and discussing social problems. However, it was soon deemed obstructive to the operation of the Great Hall, so police intervened and attempted to disperse the students by persuasion.

Starting on the night of 17 April, three thousand PKU students marched from the campus towards Tiananmen Square, and soon nearly a thousand students from Tsinghua joined. Upon arrival, they soon joined forces with those already gathered at the Square. As its size grew, the gathering gradually evolved into a protest, as students began to draft a list of pleas and suggestions (Seven Demands) for the government:

1. Affirm as correct Hu Yaobang's views on democracy and freedom;
2. Admit that the campaigns against spiritual pollution and bourgeois liberalization had been wrong;
3. Publish information on the income of state leaders and their family members;
4. End the ban on privately-run newspapers and stop press censorship;
5. Increase funding for education and raise intellectuals' pay;
6. End restrictions on demonstrations in Beijing
7. Provide objective coverage of students in official media.

On the morning of 18 April, students remained in the Square. Some gathered around the Monument to the People's Heroes singing patriotic songs and listening to impromptu speeches by student organizers, others gathered at the Great Hall. Meanwhile, a few thousand students gathered at Xinhua Gate, the entrance to Zhongnanhai, the seat of the party leadership, where they demanded dialogue with the leadership. Police restrained the students from entering the compound. Students then staged a sit-in.

On 20 April, most students had been persuaded to leave Xinhua Gate. To disperse about 200 students that remained, police employed batons; minor clashes were reported. Many students felt they were abused by the Police, and rumours about police brutality spread quickly. The Xinhua Gate incident angered students on campus, where those who were not hitherto politically active decided to join the protests. Also on this date, a group of workers calling themselves the “Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation” issued two handbills challenging the central leadership.

Hu's state funeral took place on April 22. On the evening of April 21, some 100,000 students marched on Tiananmen Square, ignoring orders from Beijing municipal authorities that the Square was to be closed off for the funeral. The funeral, which took place inside the Great Hall and attended by the leadership, was broadcast live to the students. General Secretary Zhao Ziyang delivered the eulogy. The funeral seemed rushed, and only lasted 40 minutes, as emotions ran high in the Square. Students wept.

Security cordoned off the east entrance to the Great Hall, but several students pressed forward. Three of these students knelt on the steps of the Great Hall to present a petition and demanded to see Premier Li Peng. However, no leaders emerged from the Great Hall, leaving the students disappointed and angry; some called for a class boycott.

From 21 to 23 April, students began organizing under the banners of formal organizations. On April 23, the "Beijing Autonomous University Students Union" ("the Union") was formed. It elected CUPL student Zhou Yongjun as chair; Wang Dan and Wu'erkaixi also emerged as leaders. From this vantage point, the Union called for a general class boycott at all Beijing universities. Such an independent organization operating outside of party jurisdiction alarmed the leadership.

On 22 April, near dusk, serious rioting broke out in Changsha and Xi'an. In Xi'an, arson from rioters destroyed cars and houses, and looting occurred in shops near the city's Xihua Gate. In Changsha, 38 stores were ransacked by looters. Over 350 people were arrested in both cities. In Wuhan, university students organized protests against the provincial government. As the situation became more volatile nationally, Zhao Ziyang called numerous meetings of the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC). Zhao stressed three points: discourage students from further protests and ask them to go back to class, use all measures necessary to combat rioting, and open forms of dialogue with students at different levels of government. Premier Li Peng called upon Zhao to condemn protestors and recognize the need to take more serious action. Zhao dismissed Li's views. Despite calls for him to remain in Beijing, Zhao left for a scheduled state visit to North Korea on 23 April.

Turning Point: 26 April Editorial

Main article: April 26 Editorial

Zhao's departure to North Korea left Li Peng as the acting executive authority in Beijing. On 24 April, Li Peng and the PSC met with Beijing Party Secretary Li Ximing and mayor Chen Xitong to gauge the situation at the Square. The municipal officials wanted a quick resolution to the crisis, and framed the protests as a conspiracy to overthrow China's political system and major party leaders, including Deng Xiaoping. In Zhao's absence, the PSC agreed that firm action against protesters must be taken. On the morning of 25 April, Li Peng and President Yang Shangkun met with Deng at the latter's residence. Deng endorsed a hardline stance and said an appropriate 'warning' must be disseminated via mass media to curb further demonstrations. The meeting firmly established the first official evaluation of the protests from the leadership, and highlighted Deng's having 'final say' on important issues. Li Peng subsequently ordered Deng's views to be drafted as a communique and issued to all high-level Communist Party officials in an effort to mobilize the party apparatus against protesters.

On 26 April, the party's official newspaper People's Daily issued a front-page editorial titled "It is necessary to take a clear-cut stand against disturbances." It accused "extremely small segments of opportunists" of plotting to overthrow the Communist Party and the political system. The statement enraged students, who interpreted it as a direct indictment on the protests and its cause. The editorial backfired. Instead of scaring students into submission, it antagonized the students against the state. The editorial proved to be a major sticking point for the remainder of the protests. It evoked memories of the 1976 Tiananmen Incident: an event that was initially branded an anti-government conspiracy with much the same language as the April 26 editorial but was later rehabilitated as "patriotic" under Deng's leadership.

Organized by the Union, on 27 April some 50,000-100,000 students from all Beijing universities marched through the streets of the capital to Tiananmen Square, breaking through lines set up by police, and receiving widespread public support along the way, particularly from factory workers. The student leaders, eager to show the patriotic nature of the movement, also toned down anti-Communist slogans, choosing to present a message of "anti-corruption, anti-cronyism" but "pro-party". In a twist of irony, student factions who genuinely called for the overthrow of the Communist Party gained traction as a result of the April 26 Editorial.

The stunning success of the March forced the government into making concessions and meeting with student representatives. On 29 April, State Council spokesman Yuan Mu met with appointed representatives of government-sanctioned student associations. While the talks discussed a wide range of issues, including the editorial, the Xinhua Gate incident, and freedom of the press, they achieved few substantive results. Independent student leaders such as Wuer Kaixi refused to attend.

The government's tone grew increasingly conciliatory as Zhao Ziyang returned from Pyongyang on 30 April and resumed his executive authority. In Zhao's view, the hardliner approach had proven to be useless, and concession was the only alternative. Zhao asked that the press be opened to report the movement positively, and delivered two sympathetic speeches on 3–4 May. In the speeches, Zhao said that the student's concerns about corruption were legitimate, and that the student movement was patriotic in nature. The speeches essentially negated the message presented by the April 26 Editorial. While some 100,000 students marched on the streets of Beijing on 4 May to commemorate the May Fourth Movement and repeat demands from earlier marches, many students were satisfied with the government's concessions. On 4 May, all Beijing universities except PKU and BNU announced the end of the class boycott. Subsequently, the majority of students began to lose interest in the movement.

Protests escalate

Party and Government Leaders

Name	Position(s) in 1989
Deng Xiaoping	Paramount Leader, Chairman of the Central Military Commission
Chen Yun	Chairman of the CPC Central Advisory Commission
Li Xiannian	former president, Chairman of the CPC Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
Zhao Ziyang	General Secretary of the Communist Party of China First Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission
Li Peng	Premier of the State Council
Qiao Shi	Secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection Secretary of the CPC Political and Legislative Affairs Committee
Hu Qili	Secretary of the Secretariat of the Communist Party
Yao Yilin	Vice Premier of the State Council
Yang Shangkun	President of the People's Republic of China Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission
Wan Li	Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress
Jiang Zemin	Communist Party Shanghai Municipal Secretary
Zhu Rongji	Mayor of Shanghai
Hu Jintao	Communist Party Tibet Regional Secretary
Wen Jiabao	Director of the General Office of the Communist Party
Bold text indicates membership in the CPC Politburo Standing Committee

Preparing for dialogue

The leadership was divided on how to respond to the movement as early as mid-April. After Zhao Ziyang's return from North Korea, the divisions intensified. Those who supported continued dialogue and a soft approach with students rallied behind Zhao Ziyang, while hardliner conservatives who opposed the movement rallied behind Premier Li Peng. Zhao and Li clashed at a PSC meeting on 1 May. Li maintained that the need for stability overrides all else, while Zhao said that the party should show support for increased democracy and transparency. Zhao pushed the case for further dialogue.

In preparation for dialogue, the Autonomous Student Union elected representatives to a formal Dialogue Delegation. However, the Union leaders were reluctant to let the Delegation unilaterally take control of the movement. Moreover, a group of charismatic leaders such as Wang Dan and Wuerkaixi believed that the government was merely tricking students into submission, and that more radical measures were necessary to regain momentum. They began mobilizing students for a hunger strike on 11 May. The divisions within the movement and the disparate demands drafted by different student groups made the government confused as to who to negotiate with.

Hunger strikes begin

Students began the hunger strike on 13 May, two days prior to the highly-publicized state visit by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Knowing that the welcoming ceremony for Gorbachev was scheduled to be held on the Square, student leaders wanted to use the hunger strike there as a bargaining chip to force the government into meeting their demands. Moreover, the hunger strike gained widespread sympathy from the population at large and earned the student movement the moral superiority that it sought. By the afternoon of 13 May, some 300,000 were gathered at the Square.

Inspired by the course of events in Beijing, protests and strikes began at universities in other cities, with many students traveling to Beijing to join the demonstration. Generally, the demonstration at Tiananmen Square was well-ordered, with daily marches of students from various Beijing-area colleges displaying their solidarity with the boycott of university classes and with the developing demands of the protest. The students sang The Internationale, the world socialist anthem, on their way to, and within, the square.

Afraid that the movement would now spin out of control, Deng Xiaoping asked that the Square be cleared for the Gorbachev visit. Executing Deng's request, Zhao preferred a soft approach, and asked his subordinates to coordinate negotiations with students immediately. Zhao believed he could appeal to the students' patriotism, and that the students understood signs of internal turmoil during the Sino-Soviet summit would embarrass the nation (not just the government). On the morning of 13 May, Yan Mingfu, head of the Party's United Front, called an emergency meeting, gathering prominent student leaders and intellectuals, including Liu Xiaobo, Chen Ziming and Wang Juntao. Yan said the government was prepared to hold immediate dialogue with student representatives, but that the Tiananmen welcoming ceremony for Gorbachev would be cancelled whether the students withdraw or not - in effect removing the bargaining power the students thought they possessed. The announcement sent the student leadership into disarray.

Gorbachev visit

Press restrictions were also loosened significantly during this period. State media began broadcasting footage sympathetic to protesters and the movement, including the hunger strikers. On 14 May, intellectuals led by Dai Qing gained permission from Hu Qili to bypass government censorship and air the progressive views of the nation's intellectuals on Guangming Daily. The intellectuals then issued an urgent appeal for the students to leave the Square. Many students, however, believed that the intellectuals were speaking for the government, and refused to budge. That evening, formal negotiations took place between government representatives led by Yan Mingfu and student representatives led by Shen Tong and Xiang Xiaoji. Yan affirmed the patriotic nature of the student movement and pleaded for the students to withdraw from the Square. While Yan's apparent sincerity for compromise satisfied some students, the meeting grew increasingly chaotic as competing student factions relayed uncoordinated and incoherent demands to the leadership. Shortly after student leaders learned that the event had not been broadcast nationally as promised, the meeting fell apart. Yan then personally went to the Square to appeal to the students, even offering himself to be held hostage. He also took the student's plea to Li Peng the next day, asking Li to consider formally retracting the April 26 Editorial and branding the movement as "patriotic and democratic." Li disagreed.

A bronze replica of the "Goddess of Democracy", a statue hastily created by Tiananmen protesters from the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

The students remained in the Square during the Gorbachev visit; his welcoming ceremony was held at the airport. The Sino-Soviet summit, the first of its kind in some thirty years, marked the normalization of Sino-Soviet relations, and was seen as a breakthrough of tremendous historical significance for China's leaders. That the smooth proceedings of this event had been derailed by the student movement embarrassed the leadership and drove many moderates onto a more 'hardliner' path. The summit between Deng and Gorbachev took place at the Great Hall amidst the backdrop of commotion and protest in the Square. When Gorbachev met with Zhao on 16 May, Zhao told the Soviet leader (and the international press) that Deng was still the paramount authority in China. Deng felt that this remark implied that he was to shoulder the final responsibility for all the problems, and marked a decisive split between Deng and Zhao.

Gathering momentum

The hunger strike gained significant support nationally for the students and alarmed the Party leadership. The national press, still relatively free to cover ongoing events without propagating the party line, aired talks between Premier Li Peng and student leaders on the evening of 18 May. During the talks, Wu'er Kaixi, Wang Dan, and other protest leaders openly accused the government for being too slow to react and rebuked Li Peng personally, charging that Li did not have "sincerity to conduct real discussions". The discussion did not yield much results, but gained student leaders prominent airtime on national television. Li Peng and other leaders maintained that the government was only trying to "maintain order", and alluded to the students actions as "patriotic".

As the hunger strike escalated, numerous political and civil organizations around the country voiced their concern for the students, many empathizing with their positions. Many work units under party jurisdiction in Beijing allowed their employees to take time off of work to join the demonstrations. The Chinese Red Cross issued a special notice and sent in a large number of personnel to provide medical services to the hunger strikers on the Square.

Students, we came too late. We are sorry. You talk about us, criticize us, it is all necessary. The reason that I came here is not to ask you to forgive us. All I want to say is that students are getting very weak, it is the 7th day since you went on hunger strike, you can't continue like this. [...] You are still young, there are still many days yet to come, you must live healthy, and see the day when China accomplishes the four modernizations. You are not like us, we are already old, it doesn't matter to us any more.

– Zhao Ziyang at Tiananmen Square. 19 May 1989.

On 19 May, shortly after the PSC decided to call in the military, Zhao Ziyang went to Tiananmen personally in an attempt to neutralize the situation. Zhao was aware that his political career was finished. Li Peng, hearing that Zhao was making the trip, accompanied Zhao to the Square, but quickly became agitated and left. Wen Jiabao also joined Zhao after he arrived. At 4:50 am Zhao made a speech on the Square urging the students to end the hunger strike. He told the students that they were still young and urged them to stay healthy and not to sacrifice themselves so easily. Zhao's emotional speech was applauded by some students on the Square; it would be his last public appearance.

Because of the visit of Mikhail Gorbachev, foreign media were present in China in large numbers. Their coverage of the protests was extensive and generally favorable towards the protesters, but pessimistic that they would attain their goals. Toward the end of the demonstration, on 30 May, a Goddess of Democracy statue was erected in the Square and came to symbolize the protest to television viewers worldwide.

The PSC, along with the party elders (retired but still-influential former Party leaders), were at first hopeful that the demonstrations would be short-lived or that cosmetic reforms and investigations would satisfy the protesters. They wished to avoid violence if possible, and relied at first on their far-reaching Party apparatus in attempts to persuade the students to abandon the protest and return to their studies. One barrier to effective action was that the leadership itself supported many of the demands of the students, especially the concern with corruption. However, one large problem was that the protests contained many people with varying agendas, and hence it was unclear with whom the government could negotiate, and what the exact demands of the protesters were. The confusion and indecision among the protesters was also mirrored by confusion and indecision within the government. The official media mirrored this indecision as headlines in the People's Daily alternated between sympathy with the demonstrators and denouncing them.

By 19 May, Zhao was effectively isolated in the top leadership. The tide had turned against further concessions and hardliners had won the day. Ultimately the decision to forcefully intervene on the demonstrations was made by a group of Party elders, who saw abandonment of single-party rule as a return of the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Although most of these people had no official position, they were able to control the military. Deng Xiaoping was chairman of the Central Military Commission and was able to declare martial law through the State Council; Yang Shangkun was President of the People's Republic of China (a symbolic position under the 1982 Constitution) and the Vice-Chairman of Central Military Commission. The demonstrators were described by the authorities as tools of advocates of "bourgeois liberalism" who were pulling the strings behind the scenes, as well as tools of elements within the party who wished to further their personal ambitions.

Outside of Beijing

At the beginning of the movement, the Chinese news media broadcast the news without much government interference, and were generally sympathetic to the protesters. According to Chinese news media's report, students and workers in over 400 cities were organizing protests. Many people also traveled to the capital to join the protest in the Square.

University students in Shanghai also took to the streets to commemorate the death of Hu Yaobang and protest against certain policies of the government. In many cases, these were supported by the universities' Party committees. Jiang Zemin, then-Municipal Party Secretary, addressed the student protesters in a bandage and 'expressed his understanding', as he was a former student agitator before 1949. At the same time, he moved swiftly to send in police forces to control the streets and to purge Communist Party leaders who had supported the students.

On 19 April, the editors of the World Economic Herald, a magazine close to reformists, decided to publish a commemorative section on Hu. Inside was an article by Yan Jiaqi, which commented favourably on the Beijing student protests, and called for a reassessment of Hu's 1987 purge. Sensing the conservative political trends in Beijing, Jiang Zemin demanded that the article be censored. Many newspapers were printed with a blank page. Jiang then suspended Qin Benli. His decisive action earned accolades from party elders, who praised Jiang's loyalty.

In Hong Kong, on 27 May, over 300,000 people gathered at Happy Valley Racecourse for a gathering called "Democratic songs dedicated for China." Many Hong Kong celebrities sang songs and expressed their support for the students in Beijing. The following day, a procession of 1.5 million people, one fourth of Hong Kong's population, led by Martin Lee, Szeto Wah and other organization leaders, paraded through Hong Kong Island. Across the world, especially where ethnic-Chinese lived, people gathered and protested. Many governments, including those of the United States and Japan, issued travel warnings to China.

Military action

Main article: People's Liberation Army at Tiananmen Square protests of 1989

20 May – 1 June

Premier Li Peng, who declared martial law and backed military action.

The Chinese government declared martial law on 20 May, and deployed People's Liberation Army forces in three to four major vehicle convoys to Beijing. Their entry into the city was blocked at its suburbs by throngs of protesters. Tens of thousands of demonstrators surrounded military vehicles, preventing them from either advancing or retreating. Protesters frequently lectured soldiers on the reasons for their actions and appealed to them to join their cause and provided them with food and water. On 24 May, the army was ordered to withdraw. All government forces retreated to bases outside the city. In his autobiography, Zhao Ziyang claimed that there was no formal vote by the Politburo Standing Committee to declare martial law, implying that Party elders effectively took control of the government by fiat.

Meanwhile, demonstrations continued. The hunger strike was approaching the end of the third week, and the government resolved to end the matter before deaths occurred. After deliberation among Communist party leaders, the use of military force to resolve the crisis was ordered, and a deep divide in the politburo resulted. General Secretary Zhao Ziyang was ousted from political leadership as a result of his support for the demonstrators.

At the same time, cracks also began to appear within the student movement itself. As the movement grew the students have become increasingly disorganized and leadership of the movement was carried out on an ad hoc basis. Moreover, Tiananmen Square was overcrowded and was facing serious hygiene problems. Hou Dejian suggested an open election of the student leadership to speak for the movement, but was met with opposition. Meanwhile, Wang Dan and the 'moderate' factions, ostensibly sensing the impending military action and consequences, wanted to temporarily withdraw from Tiananmen Square and re-group, but this was opposed by 'hardliner' student factions. Factions would fight for control of the loudspeakers in the middle of the square. Others would wait at the train station to greet arrivals of students from other parts of the country in an attempt to enlist factional support.

1–2 June

For the party leadership, the days leading up to 4 June were crucial in their decision making. The leadership agreed that it was necessary to end the “turmoil,” and that the students occupying the Square should return to their campuses. However, they struggled with the idea of using force. In order to carry out the clearing of the Square, the members of the Politburo needed to agree that using martial law to restore order was the only option. On 1 June Li Peng issued a report titled “On the True Nature of the Turmoil”, which was circulated to every member of the Politburo. The report aimed to persuade the Politburo of the necessity and legality of clearing Tiananmen Square by referring to the protestors as terrorists and counterrevolutionaries. The report stated that turmoil was continuing to grow, the students had no plans to leave, and they were gaining popular support.

Further justification for martial law came in the form of a report submitted by the Ministry of State Security (MSS) to the party leadership, which emphasized the infiltration of bourgeois liberalism into China and the negative effect that the West – particularly the United States – had on the students. The MSS expressed its belief that American forces had intervened in the student movement in hopes of overthrowing the Communist Party. The report created a sense of urgency within the party, and provided justification for military action. In conjunction with the plan to clear the Square by force, the Politburo received word from the martial law troops headquarters stating that the troops were ready to help stabilize the capital, and that they understood the necessity and legality of martial law to overcome the turmoil.

On 2 June, the movement saw an increase in action and protest, solidifying the CPC’s decision that it was time to act. Protests broke out as newspapers published articles that called for the students to leave Tiananmen Square and end the movement. Many of the students in the Square were not willing to leave and were outraged by the articles. They were also outraged by Beijing Daily’s 1 June article “Tiananmen, I Cry for You”, written by a fellow student who had become disillusioned with the movement, as he thought it was chaotic and disorganized. In response to the articles, thousands of students lined the streets of Beijing to protest against leaving the Square.

On 2 June, three intellectuals, Liu Xiaobo, Zhou Duo, Gao Xin, and a Taiwanese singer Hou Dejian declared a second hunger strike because they wanted to revive the pro-democracy movement. After weeks of occupying the Square, the students were tired, and internal rifts opened between moderate and hardliner student groups. In their declaration speech, the hunger strikers openly criticized the government’s suppression of the movement to remind the students that their cause was worth fighting for, and pushed them to continue their occupation of the Square.

During a meeting on 2 June, the party formally moved to clear the Square by force. Records from this meeting indicate that the Party Elders (Deng, Li Xiannian, Peng Zhen, Yang Shangkun, and Wang Zhen) agreed with the PSC that the Square needed to be cleared as quickly as possible. They also agreed that the Square needed to be cleared as peacefully as possible, but if protesters did not cooperate, the troops were authorized to use force to complete the job. In preparation for clearing the Square, martial law troops moved into Beijing. On the morning of 2 June, newspapers reported that troops were positioned in ten key areas in the city. Around midnight of 2 June an order went out to the remaining martial law troops to move to designated areas. After finalizing the decision to clear the Square, the CPC intended to act quickly. On the evening of 2 June, there were reports that a police Jeep ran into four civilians, killing three, and injuring the other. This incident sparked fear that the army and the police were trying to advance into Tiananmen Square. Student leaders issued emergency orders for the students to set up roadblocks at major intersections to prevent the advance of the large numbers of armed troops that were attempting to infiltrate the Square. In the early hours of 3 June, the first reports of violence on both sides were reported.

3–5 June

Soldiers and tanks from the 27th and 38th Armies of the People's Liberation Army were sent to take control of Beijing and clear Tiananmen Square. The 27th Army was led by a commander related to Yang Shangkun. Intelligence reports also indicated that 27th and 38th units were brought in from outside provinces because the PLA troops were considered to be sympathetic to the protest and to the people of the city. Reports described the 27th as having been most responsible for civilian deaths and suggested that elements of the 27th established defensive positions in Beijing – not of the sort designed to counter a civilian uprising, but as if to defend against attacks by other military units. There were rumours at the time that high-ranking officials sympathised with the pro-democracy protesters and reports of defiance among other troops. According to the revised edition of Political Struggles in China's Reform Era, Major General Xu Qinxian, commander of the 38th Army, shocked the top leadership when he refused a verbal order from General Li Laizhu to send the 38th in to clear the square; Xu had insisted on a written order. Xu was immediately removed from command and was later jailed for five years and expelled from the Communist Party.

As word spread that hundreds of thousands of troops were approaching from all four corners of the city, residents of Beijing flooded the streets to block them, as they had done two weeks earlier. People set up barricades at every major intersection. At about 10:30 pm, near the Muxidi apartment buildings (home to high-level Party officials and their families), protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at police and army vehicles. Many vehicles were set on fire in the streets all around Tiananmen, some with their occupants still inside them. There were reports of soldiers being burned alive in their armoured personnel carriers while others were beaten to death. Soldiers responded by opening fire on protesters with live ammunition, causing casualties among demonstrators. Soldiers also raked apartment buildings in the area with gunfire, and some people inside their apartments or watching the scene from their balconies were shot.

The battle raged in the streets surrounding the Square, with protesters repeatedly advancing toward the PLA and constructing barricades with vehicles, while the PLA attempted to clear the streets using tear gas, gunfire, and tanks. Many injured citizens were saved by rickshaw drivers who ventured into the no-man's-land between the soldiers and crowds and carried the wounded off to hospitals. After the attack on the square, live television coverage showed many people wearing black armbands in protest against the government, crowding various boulevards or congregating by burnt out and smoking barricades. In a couple of cases, soldiers were pulled from tanks, beaten and killed by protesters.

Meanwhile, the PLA systematically established checkpoints around the city, chasing after protesters and blocking off the university district.

Earlier, within the Square itself, there had been a debate between those who wished to withdraw peacefully, including Han Dongfang, and those who wished to stand within the square, such as Chai Ling.

At about 1:00 am, the army finally reached Tiananmen Square and waited for orders from the government. The soldiers had been told not to open fire, but they had also been told that they must clear the square by 6:00 am – with no exceptions or delays. They made a final offer of amnesty if the few thousand remaining students would leave. About 4:00 am, student leaders put the matter to a vote: Leave the square, or stay and face the consequences.

Armored personnel carriers (APCs) rolled up the roads, firing ahead and off to the sides. BBC reporter Kate Adie spoke of "indiscriminate fire" within the square. Eyewitness reporter Charlie Cole also saw Chinese soldiers firing Type 56 rifles into the crowd near an APC which had just been torched. During the night, protester sustained heavy casualties.

Students who sought refuge in buses were pulled out by groups of soldiers and beaten with heavy sticks. Even students attempting to leave the square were beaten. Leaders of the protest inside the square, where some had attempted to erect flimsy barricades ahead of the APCs, were said to have "implored" the students not to use weapons (such as Molotov cocktails) against the oncoming soldiers. Meanwhile, many students apparently were shouting, "Why are you killing us?" Around 4 or 5 am the following morning, 4 June, tanks smashed into the square, crushing vehicles and people with their treads, according to Cole. By 5:40 am 4 June, the Square had been cleared. James Miles, who was the BBC's Beijing correspondent at the time, stated:

I and others conveyed the wrong impression. There was no massacre on Tiananmen Square... Protesters who were still in the square when the army reached it were allowed to leave after negotiations with martial law troops (Only a handful of journalists were on hand to witness this moment [...]). [...] There was no Tiananmen Square massacre, but there was a Beijing massacre.

Richard Roth of CBS reported that he and a colleague were on the south portico of the Great Hall of the People (which forms one of the borders of the Square) led by Richard Roth. In the words of eyewitness CBS news correspondent Richard Roth:

Derek Williams and I were driven in a pair of army jeeps right through the square, almost along its full length, and into the Forbidden City. Dawn was just breaking. There were hundreds of troops in the square ... But we saw no bodies, injured people, ambulances or medical personnel—in short, nothing to even suggest, let alone prove, that a "massacre" had recently occurred in that place... some have found it uncomfortable that all this conforms with what the Chinese government has always claimed, perhaps with a bit of sophistry: that there was no "massacre in Tiananmen Square." But there's no question many people were killed by the army that night around Tiananmen Square, and on the way to it – mostly in the western part of Beijing. Maybe, for some, comfort can be taken in the fact that the government denies that, too.

On the morning of 5 June, protesters, parents of casualties, workers and infuriated civilians tried to enter the blockaded square but were shot at by the soldiers. The soldiers shot them in the back when they were running away. These actions were repeated several times.

After order was restored in Beijing on 4 June, protests continued throughout much of mainland China for several days. There were large protests in Hong Kong, where people again wore black in protest. There were protests in Guangzhou, and large-scale protests in Shanghai with a general strike. There were also protests in other countries, many adopting the use of black armbands as well. However, the government soon regained control. A political purge followed in which officials responsible for organizing or condoning the protests were removed, and protest leaders jailed. According to Amnesty International at least 300 people were killed in Chengdu on 5 June. Troops in Chengdu used concussion grenades, truncheons, knives and electric cattle prods against civilians. Hospitals were ordered to not accept students and on the second night the ambulance service was stopped by police.

Number of deaths

The number of dead and wounded remains unclear because of the large discrepancies between the different estimates, which range from several hundred to several thousand. Some of the early estimates were based on reports of a casualty figure of 2,600 from the Chinese Red Cross. The official Chinese government figure is 241 dead, including soldiers, and 7,000 wounded.

Nicholas D. Kristof of The New York Times wrote that due to the lack of physical evidence it is impossible to determine the actual number of casualties, but that "it seems plausible that about fifty soldiers and policemen were killed, along with 400 to 800 civilians."

The Chinese government has maintained that there were no deaths within the Square itself. Videos taken there at the time recorded the sound of gunshots. The State Council claimed 5,000 PLA and 2,000 civilians wounded. Yuan Mu, the spokesman of the State Council, said that about 300 soldiers and civilians died, including 23 students from universities in Beijing, along with a number of people he described as "ruffians". According to Chen Xitong, then Beijing mayor, 200 civilians and several dozen soldiers died. Other sources stated that 3,000 civilians and 6,000 soldiers were injured.

According to The Washington Post first Beijing bureau chief, Jay Mathews: "A few people may have been killed by random shooting on streets near the square, but all verified eyewitness accounts say that the students who remained in the square when troops arrived were allowed to leave peacefully. Hundreds of people, most of them workers and passersby, did die that night, but in a different place and under different circumstances." US ambassador James Lilley's account of the massacre notes that US State Department diplomats witnessed Chinese troops opening fire on unarmed people and based on visits to hospitals around Beijing a minimum of hundreds had been killed.

General consensus has emerged that much of the shooting took place outside of the Square; thus a count of deaths within the Square is not reflective of the scale of violence that took place. In addition, the Army reportedly fired on students after they left the Square, especially in the area near the Beijing concert hall.

Estimates of deaths from different sources, in descending order:

• 10,000 dead (including civilians and soldiers) – Soviet Union.
• 7,000 deaths – NATO intelligence.
• 4,000 to 6,000 civilians killed, but no one really knows – Edward Timperlake.
• Over 3,700 killed, excluding disappearance or secret deaths and those denied medical treatment – PLA defector citing a document circulating among officers.
• 2,600 had officially died by the morning of 4 June (later denied) – the Chinese Red Cross. An unnamed Chinese Red Cross official estimated that, in total, 5,000 people were killed and 30,000 injured.
• Closer to 1,000 deaths, according to Amnesty International and some of the protest participants, as reported in a Time article. Other statements by Amnesty have characterized the number of deaths as hundreds.
• 300 to 1,000 according to a Western diplomat that compiled estimates.
• 400 to 800 plausible according to the New York Times' Nicholas D. Kristof. He developed this estimate using information from hospital staff and doctors, and from "a medical official with links to most hospitals".
• 180–500 casualties, according to a declassified NSA document which referred to early casualty estimates.
• 241 dead, including soldiers, and 7,000 wounded, according to the Chinese government.
• 186 named individuals confirmed dead at the end of June 2006 – Professor Ding Zilin of the Tiananmen Mothers. The Tiananmen Mothers' list includes some people whose deaths were not directly at the hands of the army, such as a person who committed suicide after the incident on 4 June.

Reactions

Internal media reporting

The English section of China Radio International (CRI) accurately reported the events on 4 June to the rest of the world. The CRI broadcast “several thousand people, mostly innocent citizens” had been killed by “heavily armed soldiers”. The CRI urged listeners to protest the government’s action.

Shanghai

On 5 June, students marched very quickly on the streets and stopped traffic using roadblocks. Factory workers skipped work and railway traffic was also blocked. Public transport was also suspended early in the morning. According to British Broadcasting Corporation “ten thousand staff members and workers could not get to work on time”.

The next day, The Shanghai Municipal Government sent out 6,500 people to remove the roadblocks. According to reports, “At 8:45 pm the number 161 train from Beijing ran over nine people who had gathered at the spectacle of a blocked locomotive. Five of them died. By 10 pm more than thirty thousand people had gathered at the scene, interrupting rail traffic and creating a disturbance. Protesters beat up the train engineer, set fire to railcars, and prevented fire trucks from entering the site”.

On 7 June,“At Tongji University, East China Normal University, and Shanghai Polytechnic University, students stormed school auditoriums and classroom buildings, where they erected biers” (meaning a coffin along with its stand). More and more students erected roadblocks and interrupted traffic, and approximately 3,000 students left campus.

On the evening of 7 June, Shanghai Mayor Zhu Rongji gave a televised speech, in which he stated “As mayor, I solemnly declare that neither the Party Committee nor the Municipal Government has considered calling in the army. We have never envisaged military control or martial law; we seek only to stabilize Shanghai, to steady the situation, to insist on production, and to ensure normal life”.

Xi’an

On 5 and 6 June, students marched, set up roadblocks, and stopped workers from entering factories. By 8 June, provincial authorities said that the city had stabilized and called for “restraint of rioters and avoidance of face-to-face confrontation or any escalation of conflict”.

Wuhan

On 5 June, approximately 20,000 students from the University of DongJin marched to Tiananmen Square. Some also blocked the “Yangtze River Railway bridge for eight hours, and another four thousand massed in the square in front of the railway station”. The next day, students continued demonstrating in the streets and stopped traffic. About one thousand students “staged a sit-in on the railroad tracks”. Rail traffic on the Beijing-Guangzhou and Wuhan-Dalian lines was interrupted. The students also urged workers from major enterprises to go on strike.

On the early morning of 7 June students used buses to block traffic; “They held a memorial at Dadongmen and roadblocks were erected at intersections”. A small group of students stopped a freight train and “poured gasoline over the freight cars but were stopped in the nick of time by arriving police”. The situation in the city was tense and residents “withdrew cash and began panic buying”.

Nanjing

On 5, 6 and 7 June , students marched, made speeches, blocked traffic and tried to stop workers from working. On 7 June, “Around 7 am more than four hundred students from four colleges including Hehai University, blocked the Yangtze River bridge with four buses, allowing only mail trucks and ice deliveries to pass”. In the early evening traffic was still blocked. Students from schools including Nanjing University set up “roadblocks at the Zhongyangmen Railway Bridge; not a single train could pass through from 8:40 am until 4 pm, when the students were finally persuaded to evacuate”. Traffic resumed by the end of the day.

On 8 June, students from Nanjing University and Hehai University “retook an overpass one kilometer from the Nanjing Railway Station, halting traffic”. Students also staged “a sit-in at the south end of the highway section of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge and at the Zhongyangmen section of the Beijing Shanghai rail line”. The Jiangsu Provincial Party informed the students that the situation was way out of control, and stated that Public Security would punish the people responsible.

Deng Xiaoping’s appearance on 9 June

Main article: June 9 Deng Speech

On 9 June, Deng Xiaoping appeared in public for the first time since the protests began. He started the meeting by recognizing the “martyrs” (PLA soldiers who had died). In the meeting Deng stated that the goal of the movement was to overthrow the Party and the state. “Their goal is to establish a totally Western-dependent bourgeois republic,” Deng said of the protesters. Deng argued that protesters had complained about corruption to cover their real motive, which was to replace the socialist system. He said that "the entire imperialist Western world plans to make all socialist countries discard the socialist road and then bring them under the monopoly of international capital and onto the capitalist road".

International reaction

A replica of the memorial in the Polish city of Wrocław depicting a destroyed bicycle and a tank track as a symbol of the Tiananmen Square protests. The original was destroyed by Security Service despite the fact that it was after 1989 elections

Main article: Reactions to Tiananmen Square protests of 1989

The events at Tiananmen were the first of their type shown in detail on Western television. The Chinese government's response was denounced, particularly by Western governments and media. Criticism came from both Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Australia and some east Asian and Latin American countries. Notably, many Asian countries remained silent throughout the protests; the government of India responded to the massacre by ordering the state television to pare down the coverage to the barest minimum, so as not to jeopardize a thawing in relations with China, and to offer political empathy for the events. North Korea, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany, among others, supported the Chinese government and denounced the protests. Overseas Chinese students demonstrated in many cities in Europe, America, the Middle East and Asia.

Aftermath

Arrests and persecution of student leaders

Wu Guoguang, former aide to Zhao Ziyang was quoted as saying that the account of 38th Army commander Maj. Gen. Xu's revealed for the first time that the Central Military Commission issued verbal orders fearing written records of the crackdown would go down in history; he said this suggested they knew the action was unlawful. Chinese authorities summarily tried and executed many of the workers they arrested in Beijing. In contrast, the students – many of whom came from relatively affluent backgrounds and were well-connected – received much lighter sentences. Wang Dan, the student leader who topped the most wanted list, spent seven years in prison. Many of the students and university staff implicated were permanently politically stigmatized, some never to be employed again. Some dissidents were able to escape to the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and other Western nations under Operation Yellowbird that was organized from Hong Kong, a British territory at the time.

Smaller protest actions continued in other cities for a few days. Some university staff and students who had witnessed the killings in Beijing organised or spurred commemorative events upon their return to school. At Shanghai's prestigious Jiaotong University, for example, the party secretary organised a public commemoration event, with engineering students producing a large metal wreath. However, these commemorations were quickly put down, with those responsible being put to death by firing squad.

During and after the demonstration, the authorities attempted to arrest and prosecute the student leaders of the Chinese democracy movement, notably Wang Dan, Chai Ling, Zhao Changqing and Wuer Kaixi. Wang Dan was arrested, convicted and sent to prison, then allowed to emigrate to the United States on the grounds of medical parole. As a lesser figure in the demonstrations, Zhao was released after six months in prison. However, he was once again incarcerated for continuing to petition for political reform in China. Wuer Kaixi escaped to Taiwan. He is married and holds a job as a political commentator on Taiwanese national radio. Chai Ling escaped to France, and then to the United States. In a public speech given at the University of Michigan in November 2007, Wang Dan commented on the current status of former student leaders: Chai Ling started a hi-tech company in the US, while Li Lu became an investment banker in Wall Street and started a company. Wang Dan said his plan was to find an academic job in the US after receiving his PhD from Harvard University. Chai Ling has since started the non-profit organization 'All Girls Allowed,' devoted to helping women in China and to fighting China's One Child Policy.

Chen Ziming and Wang Juntao were arrested in late 1989 for their involvement in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Chinese authorities alleged they were the “black hands” behind the movement. Both Chen and Wang rejected the allegations made against them. They were put on trial in 1990 and sentenced to 13 years in prison.

High-level political changes

Jiang Zemin succeeded Zhao Ziyang to become CPC General Secretary in 1989.

To purge sympathizers of Tiananmen demonstrators, the Communist Party initiated a one and half year long program similar to Anti-Rightist Movement. It aimed to deal "strictly with those inside the party with serious tendencies toward bourgeois liberalization". Four million people were reportedly investigated for their role in the protests. Furthermore, more than 30,000 communist officers were deployed to assess political reliability of more than one million government officials. The authorities arrested tens if not hundreds of thousands of people across the country. Some were seized in broad daylight while they walked on streets, others were captured at night. Many were jailed or sent to labor camps. They were often denied access to see their families and often put in cells so crowded that not everyone had space to sleep. Dissidents shared cells with murderers and rapists, and torture was not uncommon.

The Party leadership expelled Zhao Ziyang from the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China (PSC), because he opposed martial law, and Zhao remained under house arrest until his death. Hu Qili, a PSC member who opposed the martial law but abstained from voting, was also removed from the committee. He was, however, able to retain his party membership, and after "changing his opinion", was reassigned as deputy minister of Machine-Building and Electronics Industry. Another reform-minded Chinese leader, Wan Li, was also put under house arrest immediately after he stepped out of his plane at Beijing Capital International Airport upon returning from his shortened trip abroad, with the official excuse of "health reasons." When Wan Li was released from his house arrest after he finally "changed his opinion" he, like Qiao Shi, was transferred to a different position with equal rank but mostly ceremonial role. Several Chinese ambassadors abroad claimed political asylum.

The event elevated Jiang Zemin – then Party Secretary of Shanghai – to become the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China. Jiang's decisive actions in Shanghai, in closing down reform-leaning publications and preventing deadly violence, won him support from party elders in Beijing. Members of the government prepared a white paper explaining the government's viewpoint on the protests. An anonymous source within the PRC government smuggled the document out of China, and Public Affairs published it in January 2001 as the Tiananmen Papers. The papers include a quote by Communist Party elder Wang Zhen which alludes to the government's response to the demonstrations.

Effect on market reforms

The aftermath of the protests halted market reforms, and the Communist Party adopted a more conservative economic agenda, intended to slow the rapid changes that had led to the protest. Deng Xiaoping's influence significantly waned following the protests, forcing the leader into making concessions with socialist hardliners that remained firmly opposed to Deng's pro-market reforms. Deng's pro-reform ally, Zhao Ziyang, was purged for supporting the demonstrators during the protests. Near the end of 1989, Deng Xiaoping chose to formally resign from the government.

These efforts met with stiff resistance from provincial governors and broke down completely in the early 1990s as a result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Deng Xiaoping's trip to the south. Although Deng Xiaoping had nominally resigned in the aftermath, he remained a powerful figure within the Chinese government. In an attempt to reassert his pro-reform agenda, the leader prepared a southern tour of China in the spring of 1992, visiting Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and spending the New Year in Shanghai, to support the need for further economic reforms. He criticized the leftist hardliners that had gained power following the protests, and praised Chinese entrepreneurship. Initially ignored by Beijing, the Chinese Politburo eventually sided with Deng, allowing for the economic growth that would occur in the following decades.

Media and discourse

The suppression on 4 June marked the end of a period of relative press freedom in China, and media workers—both foreign and domestic—faced heightened restrictions and punishment in the aftermath of the crackdown. State media mostly gave reports sympathetic to the students in the immediate aftermath. As a result, those responsible were all later removed. Two news anchors who reported this event on 4 June in the daily Xinwen Lianbo broadcast on China Central Television were fired because they displayed sad emotions. Wu Xiaoyong, the son of former foreign minister Wu Xueqian was removed from the English Program Department of Chinese Radio International, ostensibly for his sympathies towards protesters. Editors and other staff at People's Daily, including director Qian Liren and Editor-in-Chief Tan Wenrui, were also sacked because of reports in the paper which were sympathetic towards the protesters. Several editors were arrested, with Wu Xuecan, who organised the publication of an unauthorised Extra edition, sentenced to four years' imprisonment.

Several foreign journalists who had covered the crackdown were expelled in the weeks that followed, while others were harassed by authorities or blacklisted from reentering the country. In Shanghai, foreign consulates were told that the safety of journalists who failed to heed newly enacted reporting guidelines could not be guaranteed. For instance, some of the authors of the film River Elegy were arrested, and some of the authors fled mainland China. Gifford concluded that "China the concept, China the empire, China the construct of two thousand years of imperial thinking" has forbidden and may always forbid "independent thinking" as that would lead to the questioning of China's political system. Gifford added that people born after 1970 had "near-complete depoliticization" while older intellectuals no longer focus on political change and instead focus on economic reform.

Impact

International image

The Tiananmen Square protests damaged the reputation of the PRC internationally, particularly in the West. Western media had been invited to cover the Sino-Soviet summit in May and were thus in an excellent position to cover some of the military action live through networks such as the BBC and CNN. Protesters seized this opportunity, creating signs and banners designed for international television audiences. Coverage was further facilitated by the sharp conflicts within the Chinese government about how to handle the protests. Thus, broadcasting was not immediately stopped.

All international networks were eventually ordered to terminate broadcasts from the city during the military action, with the government shutting down the satellite transmissions. Broadcasters attempted to defy these orders by reporting via telephone. Footage was quickly smuggled out of the country, including the image of "the unknown rebel." The only network which was able to record some images during the night was Televisión Española of Spain (TVE).

CBS correspondent Richard Roth and his cameraman were imprisoned during the military action. Roth was taken into custody while in the midst of filing a report from the Square via mobile phone. In a frantic voice, he could be heard repeatedly yelling what sounded like "Oh, no! Oh, no!" before the phone was disconnected. He was later released, suffering a slight injury to his face in a scuffle with Chinese authorities attempting to confiscate his phone. Roth later explained he had actually been telling police, "I'll go! I'll go!"

Images of the protests would strongly shape Western views and policy toward the PRC throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century. There was considerable sympathy for the student protests among Chinese students in the West. Almost immediately, both the United States and the European Union announced an official arms embargo, and China's image as a reforming country and a valuable ally against the Soviet Union was replaced by that of a repressive authoritarian regime. The Tiananmen protests were frequently invoked to argue against trade liberalization with mainland China and by the United States' Blue Team as evidence that the PRC government was an aggressive threat to world peace and US interests.

Meanwhile, state media was ordered to focus on dead soldiers, screening images often on television. Among overseas Chinese students, the Tiananmen Square protests triggered the formation of Internet news services such as the China News Digest and the NGO China Support Network. In the aftermath of Tiananmen, organizations such as the China Alliance for Democracy and the Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars were formed, although these organizations would have limited political impact beyond the mid-1990s.

Domestic political trends

Despite early expectations in the West that the PRC government would collapse and be replaced by the democratic governance, the Communist Party of China maintained its grip on power.

In Hong Kong, the Tiananmen square protests led to fears that the PRC would renege on its commitments under one country, two systems following the impending handover in 1997, leading the new governor Chris Patten to attempt to expand the franchise for the Legislative Council of Hong Kong which led to friction with the PRC. There have been large candlelight vigils attended by tens of thousands in Hong Kong every year since 1989 and these vigils have continued following the transfer of power to the PRC in 1997.

The protests also marked a shift in the political conventions which governed politics in the People's Republic. Prior to the protests, under the 1982 Constitution, the President was a largely symbolic role. By convention, power was distributed between the positions of President, Premier, and the CPC General Secretary, all of whom were intended to be different people to prevent the excesses of Mao-style dictatorship. However, President Yang Shangkun used his reserve powers as Vice-chairman of Central Military Commission to mobilize the military and General Secretary Zhao Ziyang openly split with the party leadership. Consolidating these positions into one person gave that person paramount power.

In 1989, neither the Chinese military nor the Beijing police had adequate anti-riot gear, such as rubber bullets and tear gas commonly used in the developed world to break up riots. After the Tiananmen Square protests, riot police in Chinese cities were equipped with non-lethal equipment for riot control.

Impact on foreign trade

There was a significant impact on the Chinese economy after the incident. Foreign loans to China were suspended by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and governments; tourism revenue decreased from US$2.2 billion to US$1.8 billion; foreign direct investment commitments were cancelled and there was a rise in defense spending from 8.6% in 1986, to 15.5% in 1990, reversing a previous 10 year decline. The Chinese Premier Li Peng visited the United Nations Security Council on 31 January 1992, and argued that the economic and arms embargoes on China were a violation of national sovereignty.

"Tank Man"

Main article: Tank Man

The suppression of the protest was immortalized in Western media by the famous video footage and photographs of a lone man in a white shirt standing in front of a column of tanks which were attempting to drive out of Tiananmen Square. The iconic photo that would eventually make its way around the world was taken on 5 June on Chang'an Avenue. As the tank driver attempted to go around him, the "Tank Man" moved into the tank's path. He continued to stand defiantly in front of the tanks for some time, then climbed up onto the turret of the lead tank to speak to the soldiers inside. After returning to his position in front of the tanks, the man was pulled aside by a group of people.

What happened to the "Tank Man" following the demonstration is not known. Some say he was pulled away and went into hiding, others say he was executed by the authorities. Time Magazine dubbed him The Unknown Rebel and later named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. In an interview with U.S. media, then Chinese President Jiang Zemin said he did not think the man was killed.

Continuing issues

Censorship

Further information: Censorship in the People's Republic of China

The Communist Party of China (CPC) forbids discussion of the Tiananmen Square protests, and has taken measures to block or censor information. Textbooks have little, if any, information related to the protests. Following the protests, officials banned controversial films and books, and shut down a large number of newspapers. Within a year, 12 percent of all newspapers, 8 percent of publishing companies, 13 percent of social science periodicals and more than 150 films were banned or shut down. In addition, the government also announced it had seized 32 million contraband books and 2.4 million video and audio cassettes. Access to media and internet resources on the subject are restricted or blocked by censors.

The party’s official stance towards the incident is that the use of force was necessary in order to control a 'political disturbance' and helped to ensure the stability necessary economic success. Chinese leaders, including Presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, reiterate this line when asked about the question by foreign press.

Public memory of the Tiananmen Square protests has been suppressed by the authorities since 1989. Print media containing reference to the protests must be consistent with the government’s version of events. Presently, many Chinese citizens are reluctant to speak about the protests due to potential repercussions. However, some individuals do speak out, such as Ding Zilin of the Tiananmen Mothers organization. Youth in China are generally unaware of the events that took place, and cannot recognize symbols such as tank man, or even the date June 4th itself.

Internet searches of '4 June' or 'Tiananmen Square' return censored results or cuts the server connection temporarily. Specific web pages with select keywords are censored, while other websites, such as those of overseas Chinese democracy movements, are blocked wholesale. The censorship, however, has been inconsistent - with many sites being blocked, unblocked, and re-blocked over the years, including YouTube, Wikipedia, and Flickr. In addition, the policy is much more stringent with Chinese-language sites than foreign-language ones. In January 2006, Google agreed to censor their mainland China site to remove information about Tiananmen and other subjects considered 'sensitive' by the authorities. Google withdrew its cooperation on censorship in January 2010.

Leading up to and during the event's 20th anniversary on 4 June 2009, party authorities increased security around the square. Members of the Public Security Bureau and the People’s Armed Police were present at the square in uniform along with several hundred plain-clothes officers. Journalists were denied entry to the Square. Those who attempted to film at the Square or interview dissidents were briefly detained. The anniversary also saw the shut down of global social-networking sites in China, as well as increased policing of dissidents. No protests were to be tolerated on this occasion.

Censorship does not apply to Hong Kong and Macau; the two special administrative regions enjoy a high degree of autonomy and people enjoy freedom of speech and assembly.

Censored books, films and TV shows in mainland China

• Political Struggles in China's Reform Era by Yang Jisheng, for featuring secret interviews with Zhao Ziyang and rejecting the Chinese government's position on the protests.
• In 2006, the novel Forbidden City, by William Bell, a fictionalised version of the protests, was banned.

• Summer Palace was banned in 2006, ostensibly because it was screened without permission, but likely also because of its mention of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
• Collection of June Fourth Poems, a collection of poems about the protests.
• Writings or interviews with Zhao Ziyang or Bao Tong are banned. As such, Conversations with Zhao Ziyang in House Arrest by Zong Fengmin was not published due to government pressure. However, Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang was published in May 2009 after tapes were smuggled out of China.
• International media programs mentioning the event or anniversaries are blacked out in broadcasts, such as CNN available in Chinese hotels and homes for foreigners.

EU-US arms embargo

Main article: European Union arms embargo on the People's Republic of China

The European Union and United States embargo on armament sales to the PRC, put in place as a result of the violent suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests, remains in place today. The PRC has been calling for a lift of the ban for years and has had a varying amount of support from EU members. Since 2004, China has portrayed the ban as "outdated", and damaging to China-EU relations. In early 2004, French President Jacques Chirac spearheaded a movement within the EU to lift the ban, which was supported by German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. However, the passing of the Anti-Secession Law of the People's Republic of China in March 2005 increased tensions between mainland China and Taiwan, damaging attempts to lift the ban, and several EU Council members retracted their support for a lift of the ban. Moreover, Schroder's successor Angela Merkel opposed lifting the ban. Members of the U.S. Congress had also proposed restrictions on the transfer of military technology to the EU if the latter lifted the ban. The UK also opposed the lifting of the embargo when it took charge of the EU presidency in July 2005. The election of José Manuel Barroso as European Commission President also made a lifting of the ban more difficult, because Barroso is a critic of China's human rights record.

In addition, the European Parliament has consistently opposed the lifting of the arms embargo to the PRC. Though its agreement is not necessary for lifting the ban, many argue it reflects the will of the European people better as it is the only directly elected European body. The European Parliament has repeatedly opposed any lifting of the arms embargo on the PRC. The arms embargo has limited China's options from where it may seek military hardware. Among the sources that were sought included the former Soviet bloc that it had a strained relationship with as a result of the Sino-Soviet split. Other willing suppliers have previously included Israel and South Africa, but American pressure has restricted this co-operation.

Compensation

Over the years some Chinese citizens have called for a reassessment of the protests and compensation from the government to victims’ families. One group in particular, Tiananmen Mothers, seeks compensation, vindication for victims and the right to receive donations from within the mainland and abroad. Zhang Shijun, a former soldier who was involved in the military crackdown, had published an open letter to President Hu Jintao seeking to have the government reevaluate its position on the protests. He was subsequently arrested and taken from his home.

Although the Chinese government never officially acknowledged wrongdoing when it came to the incident, in April 2006 a payment was made to the mother of one of the victims, the first publicized case of the government offering redress to a Tiananmen-related victim's family. The payment was termed a "hardship assistance", given to Tang Deying (唐德英) whose son, Zhou Guocong (simplified Chinese: 周国聪; traditional Chinese: 周國聰) died at the age of 15 while in police custody in Chengdu on 6 June 1989, two days after the Chinese Army dispersed the Tiananmen protesters. She was reportedly paid CNY70,000 (approximately $10,250 USD). This has been welcomed by various Chinese activists, but was regarded by some as a measure to maintain social stability and not believed to herald a changing of the Party's official position.

United Nations report

The Committee Against Torture met for its forty-first session from 3–21 November 2008 to consider reports submitted by member states under article 19 of the Convention. The Committee found that China’s response to the 1989 Democracy movement was worrying. The Committee was concerned that despite the multiple requests by relatives of people "killed, arrested or disappeared on or following the 4 June 1989 Beijing suppression," there was a lack of investigations into these matters. It was also concerned with the failure of the Chinese Government to inform families of the fate of relatives involved, and it regretted that those responsible for the use of excessive force have not “faced any sanction, administrative or criminal." The Committee recommended that:

The State party should conduct a full and impartial investigation into the suppression of the Democracy Movement in Beijing in June 1989, provide information on the persons who are still detained from that period, inform the family members of their findings, offer apologies and reparation as appropriate and prosecute those found responsible for excessive use of force, torture and other illtreatment.

In December 2009 the Chinese Government responded to the Committee’s recommendations. It stated that the government had closed the case concerning the “political turmoil in the spring and summer of 1989." It also stated that the “practice of the past 20 years has made it clear that the timely and decisive measures taken by the Chinese Government at the time were necessary and correct." It claimed that the labelling of the “incident as ‘the Democracy Movement’” is a “distortion of the nature of the incident." According to the Chinese Government these observations were “inconsistent with the Committee’s responsibilities."

Cultural references

Songs

This event has inspired many references in music. In May 1989, Hong Kong artistes (including Andy Lau, Sally Yeh, Roman Tam, Andy Hui, Maria Cordero) gathered to record the song "For Liberty" (為自由) in support of the protesters.

The second music video for Michael Jackson's song "They Don't Care About Us" contains a video clip of the Tank Man. In their Rome concert on June 4, 1989, British rock band The Cure, dedicated their last encore, "Faith," to "everyone that died today in China." In the same year, Joan Baez's folk anthem "Speaking of Dreams" commemorated the event. Leonard Cohen's song "Democracy" from his 1992 album The Future states that democracy is coming "from those nights in Tiananmen Square".

Progressive rock group Marillion wrote a song titled "The King of Sunset Town" that uses imagery from Tiananmen Square, such as the line "a puppet king on the Fourth of June." American rock band The Hooters referred to the event in their hit song 500 Miles, which is an updated version of the 1960s folk song. The third verse begins with words: "A hundred tanks along the square, One man stands and stops them there, Someday soon the tide'll turn and I'll be free."

American thrash metal band Slayer released a song "Blood Red" on their album Seasons in the Abyss, which was inspired by Tiananmen Square. Similarly, Testament's "Seven Days of May" protested the Beijing massacre. System of a Down's "Hypnotize" on their 2005 album of the same name metioned Tiananmen Square in a protest against communism. Brazilian metal band Sepultura mentions Tiananmen Square in their song "Refuse/Resist" from their 1993 album Chaos A.D.; the music video for the song features Tank Man.

"Shiny Happy People" by R.E.M. is supposedly an ironic reference to a piece of roughly translated Chinese propaganda regarding the massacre, two years before the song was released.

American songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter references the event in her song "4 June 1989", released in 2010 on the album The Age of Miracles. In 1992, Roger Waters released Amused to Death, an album which included the song Watching TV, a rumination on the Western response to the protests in Tiananmen. In 1996, a song called "Tiananmen Man", based on the picture of the Tank Man, appeared on Nevermore's second album The Politics of Ecstasy.

Television

A primetime special hosted by Tom Brokaw honored both the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing and the fall of the Berlin Wall in that momentous year for human rights around the world, 1989.

CNN news anchor Kyra Phillips drew criticism in March 2006 when she compared the 2006 youth protests in France, in which it was later determined that no one was killed, to the Tiananmen Square protests, saying "Sort of brings back memories of Tiananmen Square, when you saw these activists in front of tanks." CNN's Chris Burns told French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy that her comments were "regrettable" and would receive some disciplinary actions.

In April 2006, the PBS series Frontline produced an episode titled The Tank Man, which examined his role in the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests and the change that has overtaken the PRC economically and politically since.

On 3 June 2009 the BBC aired the documentary Kate Adie returns to Tiananmen, in which reporter Kate Adie revisits China and recalls the events she witnessed in 1989.

Paintings and movies

Execution, a painting inspired by the event, became the most expensive Chinese contemporary art sold in 2007.

The movie Rapid Fire, starring Brandon Lee, depicts images of the Tiananmen Square killings. In the movie, Brandon Lee's character is the son of a US government employee who died in the Tiananmen Square massacre. Summer Palace (2006) by Chinese director Lou Ye contains re-enacted scenes from Beijing streets during the days of the protests in Tiananmen Square. The movie was banned from public viewing.

See also

• List of massacres in China
• Zhang Zhixin
• Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang
• The Gate of Heavenly Peace (documentary)
• Executive Order 12711
• Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992

Further reading

• Binyan, Liu (1989). Tell the World: What happened in China and Why. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0394583709. OCLC 20392647. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

• Black, George (1993). Black Hands of Beijing: Lives of Defiance in China's Democracy Movement. New York: John Wiley. ISBN 978-0471579779. OCLC 243766880 27186722. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

• Calhoun, Craig C (1994). "Science, Democracy, and the Politics of Identity". Popular Protest and Political Culture in Modern China. Westview Press. pp. 140–7. ISBN 978-0813320427. OCLC 30623957. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

• Cunningham, Philip J. (2010). Tiananmen Moon: Inside the Chinese Student Uprising of 1989. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. ISBN 978-0742566736.

• Salisbury, Harrison (1992). The New Emperors: China in the Era of Mao and Deng. New York: Avon. ISBN 978-0380720255. OCLC 28306886.

• Spence, Jonathan D (1999). "Testing the Limits". The Search for Modern China. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393973518. OCLC 39143093 59383489. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)

• Wong, Jan (1997). Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now (Trade paperback, 416 pages ed.). Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385482325. OCLC 37690446.

• Zhang, Liang (pseudonym) (2001). June Fourth: The True Story (in Chinese). Xianggang: Ming jing chu ban she. ISBN 978-1586481223. OCLC 243498894 46859114 50791624 60716940. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)

• Zhang, Liang (pseudonym) (Compiler) (2002). The Tiananmen Papers (Andrew J. Nathan and Perry Link (Editors) ed.). New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1586480127. OCLC 186473494 223096511 237407905 45087023 59551415. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help) Review and synopis of the book is in the journal Foreign Affairs at The Tiananmen Papers
• "Deng Is Said to Have Backed Tiananmen Violence" article by Michael Wines and Andrew Jacobs in The New York Times 4 June 2010

External links

• The Gate of Heavenly Peace – Feature-length Documentary And various archival documents
• Secret recordings resurrect Chinese PM’s criticism of Tiananmen crackdown – Radio France Internationale
• "The Tank Man", 2006 PBS documentary
• BBC's "Witnessing Tiananmen: Clearing the square" with eyewitness accounts of Tiananmen
• Tiananmen Square, 1989 The Declassified History
• Tiananmen Dossiers and Video Clips (in French)