Tiananmen Square massacre 1989 Tiananmen
Square in the heart of the Chinese
capital Beijing has been a place of
enormous significance in modern Chinese
history for seven weeks in the spring
and early summer of 1989 it was the
focus of unparalleled protests by
students and workers against the
political and economic system leading to
a brutal government crackdown an
international condemnation of the
communist regime on April 15 1989 the
spark that ignited the protests was the
death of whoo-yah bomb the former
chairman and General Secretary of the
Communist Party of China who was popular
among the people of China as he was seen
as being an opponent of corruption and
nepotism and was more democratically
minded than many other leading members
of the Communist Party of China being in
favor of greater freedom of speech and
of the press a more transparent system
and economic liberalism his death
therefore led to an outpouring of
national grief with small public
gatherings arranged as a show of respect
and to give people the opportunity to
mourn one of the largest of these
gatherings was held at the monument to
the people's heroes in the center of
Tiananmen Square students began to join
these gatherings in large numbers seeing
them as an opportunity to put pressure
on the government to reform aspects of
the political and economic system on
April 17th a group of 500 students
marched to the Great Hall of the people
to hold a small informal ceremony of
remembrance for who yell bomb the police
fearful that the marchers were intent on
causing trouble dispersed the group this
led to more students joining the
gathering in Tiananmen Square where
their leaders produced the list of seven
demands their suggestions on how China
should be reformed the following day a
group of students tried to take these
demands to the Standing Committee of the
Communist Party they were prevented by a
hastily formed police presence and left
frustrated as a lack of an official
response
the students tried again organizing a
sit-in outside of the official
government residence on April 20th the
police used batons on the protesters and
when news of the violence filtered back
to the students in Tiananmen Square
furious anger erupted the next day
100,000 students marched to the square
gathering there before it could be
closed off for the funeral of Huy Abba
which was due to be held the next day
the students requested to meet Premier
Li Po but received no response they
therefore organized a two-day strike at
the universities by now the protests had
spread to other Chinese cities as well
the government which had up until now
been hoping that the protests would run
out of momentum decided to act on April
26th the state-controlled press went on
the attack accusing the students of
plotting civil unrest this enraged the
students 50,000 of whom took to the
streets demanding that the government
retract their accusation the anger which
they felt further galvanized the
students to focus their demands which
now encompassed an end to corruption
freedom of the press and a move towards
democracy in this they had the support
of the workers of Beijing who joined the
protests on May 4th 100,000 students and
workers marched in Beijing to demand
meetings between student leaders and the
government as well as an acceleration of
political and economic reform this was
rejected by the government which only
agreed to talk to certain members of
approved student organizations the
protesters decided to take advantage of
the fact that the leader of the USSR
Mikhail Gorbachev would be arriving in
China on May 15th
his visit had generated a huge amount of
international interest meaning that
large numbers of foreign journalists
were present in China the protesters
knew that this gave them a unique
opportunity to put pressure on the
government who would want to avoid
negative publicity therefore on May 13th
the protestors demanded that the
government withdraw the accusations made
press on April 26th a significant number
of protesters in Tiananmen Square also
went on hunger strike an act which won
them the support of many ordinary people
who saw the students as being willing to
sacrifice themselves for the good of all
Chinese people on May 18th Premier Li Po
and several of the student leaders met
for a televised debate however rather
than having a dialogue the discussions
were confrontational by now the
government led by Deng Xiaoping was
desperate to end the protests on May
19th
general secretary Zhao Ziyang who was
sympathetic to the demonstrations went
to Tiananmen Square where he made a
speech urging the students to end their
hunger strike he was unsuccessful and a
split now emerged among the leadership
of the Communist Party Xiao would then
soon be dismissed from his position as
general secretary some more moderate
figures wish to make concessions to
appease the protesters and end the
tension others such as leepung disagreed
regarding the lengthy protests and the
idea of being seemed to give in as a
threat to China stability
the hardline members were in control of
the Armed Forces won the debate and
support of the paramount leader Deng
Xiaoping and on May 20th martial law was
declared in Beijing the military were
ordered into the city but found their
way blocked by a mass of protesters in
the face of such mass unrest the army
was ordered to withdraw on May 24th and
the demonstrations continued during this
time the demonstrators built and rallied
around the goddess of democracy a 33
foot high statue built from foam and
paper mache on the evening of June 3rd
the leaders of the Communist Party then
decided to bring the protests to an end
once and for all they ordered the
People's Liberation Army to move into
Beijing when hostile protesters sent
buses alight to use as road blocks to
slow the Army's progress the troops
fired live ammunition into the crowds
clashes continued as the PLA attempted
to clear the streets
moving up Chang on avenues towards the
square using tear gas small arms fire
armoured personnel carriers and tanks as
injured civilians were taken to the
hospital by rickshaw drivers who braved
rifle fire to pluck them out of what was
rapidly becoming a battle zone the army
pushed the protesters back to Tiananmen
Square and now sought to end the
protests by forcing the remaining
demonstrators to leave this where
soldiers fired their assault rifles into
the crowd of protesters who remain as
the APCs advanced toward
running over the crowd and barricades
crushing them protesters who attempted
to take shelter from the assault in
buses were hauled out and beaten and
students who tried to leave the square
peacefully also came under attack
soldiers were also attacked in turn by
protesters with rocks and Molotov
cocktails or were simply dragged from
their vehicles and beaten to death tanks
arrived in the square between 4:00 and
5:00 a.m. on the morning of June 4th and
the square was completely cleared of
protesters by 5:40 a.m. despite the
presence of a large number of foreign
journalists in Beijing this crackdown
was difficult to capture on film as the
government had ordered foreign networks
to stop broadcasting from the city as
military action became more likely those
that captured footage in the heart of
the crackdown risked being attacked and
killed themselves and rushed to smuggle
it out for the world to see one infamous
piece of footage that was captured was
the standoff between a Seoul protester
nor his tank man and a column of Tanks
returning to Tiananmen Square the next
day of June 5th which immediately made
headlines around the world those
government officials who had sympathized
with the protesters were purged from the
party and placed under house arrest
members of the state media who had
expressed support for the protesters
were also removed from their positions
the events in Tiananmen Square also led
to increased censorship as the
government sought to hide the truth of
what had happened from the Chinese
people the Chinese government faced
international condemnation for the
crackdown the shock of the violent
government response to the protests
meant that the government quickly
regained control student leaders were
arrested and were sent to prison with
student leader wang don sentenced to
seven years some other student leaders
were able to flee the country and many
students and they're sympathetic
professors were punished by being
blacklisted making it hard to get
employment
workers who participated in the protests
were treated more harshly with those
caught being quickly executed estimates
of the number killed vary greatly
the official Chinese government figure
of two hundred and forty-one fatalities
is widely thought to be false with other
estimates of the number killed ranging
from eight hundred to ten thousand