The Tiananmen protests and the crackdown of 4 June 1989

The conditions of spring 1989

The background was the inflation of 1988 (officially eighteen per cent) and the failed price reform, cadre corruption symbolised by “official profiteering”, and the narrowed political space after Hu Yaobang’s fall in 1987. Beginning with Fang Lizhi’s open letter early in 1989, intellectuals petitioned for the release of Wei Jingsheng and other political prisoners, in a year that combined the seventieth anniversary of May Fourth, the fortieth of the People’s Republic and the bicentenary of the French Revolution. Among students the memory of the 1986 protests and the debate over “neo-authoritarianism” were alive. Source 1 · Source 2

When Hu Yaobang collapsed with a heart attack at a Politburo meeting and died on 15 April, his death became an occasion for political expression, as the mourning for Zhou Enlai had in 1976. Posters went up at Peking and People’s Universities, and on 17–18 April students marched to the square with seven demands — a reassessment of Hu, press freedom, disclosure of cadres’ assets, more money for education. The scuffle at Xinhuamen on the 20th and, on the day of the state funeral on the 22nd, the three students kneeling on the steps of the Great Hall with a petition, met with no response and fed the anger. Source 1 · Source 3

The 26 April editorial and May Fourth

While Zhao Ziyang was visiting North Korea, Li Peng and the Beijing municipal leadership reported the protests to Deng Xiaoping, and on the basis of Deng’s remarks the People’s Daily editorial of 26 April branded the movement “a planned conspiracy and turmoil” by “an extremely small number”. The editorial enraged the students: on the 27th fifty thousand of them, with hundreds of thousands of citizens, broke through police lines, and the demand that the government withdraw the “turmoil” verdict became the central issue of every later negotiation. Source 1 · Source 4

Back in Beijing, Zhao told the Asian Development Bank meeting on 4 May that the students’ demands were patriotic and should be resolved “through dialogue within law and order”, publicly revealing a line different from the editorial. The student federation demanded a channel for dialogue and journalists marched with the banner “we do not want to lie”. In early May the protests ebbed, but the government’s refusal of dialogue and its insistence on the editorial brought the next stage. Source 5 · Source 1

The hunger strike and Gorbachev

On 13 May several hundred students led by Wang Dan, Wu’erkaixi and Chai Ling began a hunger strike in the square, two days before Gorbachev’s arrival. The strike released the city’s sympathy: workers, intellectuals, journalists and even staff of party organs marched, and on 17–18 May a million people were in the streets. The Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation was formed, an organisation beyond the student movement, and protests spread to dozens of cities including Shanghai, Chengdu and Xi’an. Source 6 · Source 7)

Gorbachev’s welcoming ceremony on the 15th was held at the airport to avoid the square, and the normalisation of Sino-Soviet relations after thirty years was overshadowed by the protests; the thousand foreign journalists who had come for the visit broadcast the square live. On the 16th Zhao told Gorbachev that “Comrade Deng Xiaoping decides major questions”, later cited as an attempt to shift responsibility to Deng. The televised meeting between Li Peng and student representatives on the 18th collapsed. Source 8 · Source 9

Martial law: from 17 May to 3 June

At the meeting at Deng Xiaoping’s home on 17 May Deng decided on martial law — “there is nowhere to retreat” — and in the Standing Committee vote Zhao Ziyang and Hu Qili dissented. Zhao offered his resignation and before dawn on the 19th went to the square to say “we have come too late”. That night Li Peng announced martial law on television; it took effect on the 20th. But Beijing residents blocked the suburban roads and talked to the soldiers, halting the units’ advance, and the army pulled back for the moment. Source 5 · Source 1

During two weeks of stalemate the number of students in the square fell and their leaders split over withdrawal. On the 30th the “Goddess of Democracy” was raised, and students from the provinces kept arriving. The elders chose Jiang Zemin of Shanghai as the next general secretary, and troops from military regions across the country gathered around Beijing. On 2 June Deng and the elders decided to clear the square “whatever the cost”, and on the afternoon of the 3rd the order to move in was given. Source 10 · Source 11

The night of 3–4 June

Around 10 pm on the 3rd, at Muxidi on western Chang’an Avenue, the 38th Army opened fire with live ammunition and broke through the citizens’ barricades, and units entered from the east and south as well. Most of the dead were not in the square but citizens and workers shot on the avenues — Muxidi, Xidan, Nanchizi. By 1.30 am the army had surrounded the square; after the lights went out at 4 am the remaining students withdrew southward around 5 after negotiation. On the 5th the photograph of a lone man blocking a column of tanks on Chang’an Avenue went round the world. Source 1 · Source 12

The death toll has never been settled. At the end of June the government announced “over 200 civilians and dozens of soldiers”; the Chinese Red Cross’s initial estimate of 2,600 was quickly withdrawn; a British ambassador’s cable reported 10,000; the Tiananmen Mothers have verified more than 200 names. Tens of thousands were arrested across the country after the crackdown, and workers, including members of the Workers’ Autonomous Federation, received the heaviest sentences. On 9 June Deng Xiaoping congratulated the martial-law troops and called the event a “counter-revolutionary riot” backed by the West. Source 13 · Source 14

Consequences: stability overrides everything

In late June the Fourth Plenum removed Zhao Ziyang as general secretary and from the Politburo Standing Committee and elected Jiang Zemin. Zhao remained under house arrest until his death in 2005; Fang Lizhi and his wife spent thirteen months in the US embassy; the student leaders were arrested or escaped into exile through Hong Kong. The West imposed arms embargoes and sanctions, but the Bush administration secretly sent Scowcroft to keep relations open. Inside the party the eradication of “bourgeois liberalisation” and vigilance against “peaceful evolution” were stressed. Source 1 · Source 15

The crackdown produced the opposite outcome to the 1989 of the Soviet bloc. While the Berlin Wall fell months later and the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the Chinese Communist Party kept power, and Deng’s southern tour of 1992 resumed economic reform while sealing off political reform. The principle that “stability overrides everything”, patriotic education and internet censorship are legacies of the event. In China 4 June has been erased from official memory and Hong Kong’s candlelight vigil banned since 2020, but the Tiananmen Mothers and records abroad continue. Source 1 · Source 16