Chengdu protests of 1989

Last updated

The Chengdu Protests started out as a memorial gathering to mourn Hu Yaobang's death in Tianfu Square and it took around five days before larger-scale protests broke out. [1] While the Chengdu students were protesting in support of the students in Beijing, they were demanding different things than the Beijing students.

Contents

According to Paul Goldin, who was an American student studying Chinese at Sichuan University and is now a Professor of Chinese thought at the University of Pennsylvania, the protests were “never a protest in favour of democracy.” Goldin believed that “it was a protest against corruption” and it was not until “very very late” that students began using words like “democracy” and “freedom.” [2]

On April 21 and 22, there were large marches and arrests, but it was not until May 15 that class boycotts and hunger strikes began. [3]

On May 16, there were around 30,000 students, faculty, and clerical workers gathered at Renmin Square. [4] The crowd was there largely to support the students in Beijing but also to protest police tactics. [5] On May 17 there was another demonstration, at 10 p.m that night and around 100 students announced they were going on a hunger strike. [5]

On May 18 at 4 p.m, “Provincial Vice-Party Secretary Gu Jinchi, Provincial Standing Committee member and Propaganda Department Director Xu Chuan, Provincial Standing Committee member and Chengdu Municipal Party Secretary Wu Xihai, Provincial Vice-Governor Pu Haiqing, Chengdu Mayor Xie Jinxiang and other leading comrades from the provincial and municipal party and government went to Chengdu’s South People’s Road Square” and visited the students who were hunger striking and petitioning.[ citation needed ]

Gu Jinchi was supportive of the students and told them that he “fully [understood their] patriotic enthusiasm, fasting in support of some Beijing students’ hunger-strike action, opposing corruption, promoting democracy and the rule-of-law, and demanding a deepening of reforms. Party Center is attaching a great deal of importance to your actions.”[ citation needed ] However, he also wanted them to cease hunger striking and return to classes. The “leading comrades” did show concern for the health and safety of the students. [6]

On May 18, “hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life” marched in support of the students who were on hunger strike. There were several workers groups at the march, the Chengdu Aeronautics Company, Chengdu Automotive Factory, Chengdu Telecommunications Bureau, Chengdu Car and Tractor Accessory Factory, the Number 701 Post and Telecommunications Factory, Chengdu Insurance Cabinet Factory, and the Municipal Lumber Company, and there were also groups of scholars in attendance as well. The march was also covered by a variety of news outlets stationed in Sichuan.

The protests remained peaceful and after martial law was declared in Beijing, the protests in Chengdu started to dwindle. By then, only a handful of students were still having sit-ins and local residents were beginning to lose interest. [7]

June 4–8

On June 4, the Chengdu Public Security Bureau “announced that traffic into the square on People’s South Road would be halted.” [8] After the announcement more than half of the 300 students sitting in front of the square left. The police forced the 51 remaining students to leave at 7:45 that morning. [8] Later on that morning 2000 students from “Sichuan University, West China Medical University, Chengdu University of Science and Technology, and Sichuan College of Education” marched onto People's Road. [8]

The students held banners that read “Blood debts must be repaid in blood,” “Seven thousand Beijing students were suppressed,” and “Give us back our fellow students.” [8] Their march was stopped by a line of police who used tear gas and electric prods to quell the protest. By 3p.m, “the precinct station on People’s East Road was set on fire” and “the station and some nearby stores and restaurants burned to the ground.” [9]

The fires continued on June 5 with the burning of the People's shopping mall in southwest Chengdu, the Rose Empress Restaurant, a movie theatre, and two police stations. [9] The next day the newspaper kiosk in front of the Rose Empress Hotel was also set on fire. There was also a lot of damage done to state property, like police trucks and ambulances.

On June 6 “five thousand students left their campuses.” [10] Many of the shops were closed. Three hundred police from Public Security and the People's Armed Police arrested the suspects who set fire to Sichuan Exhibition Hall and robbed the Tiancheng Jewelry store.

On June 7, in a news report published by the Sichuan Daily, that the provincial and municipal governments “resolutely attacked a tiny minority of criminal elements hellbent on sowing destruction and mayhem” and that the students “welcomed the provincial and city governments’ decisive measures in sternly attacking the beating, smashing, looting, and burning by illegal criminal elements.” The report also stated that the province and city are taking steps to insure “social safety networks among the masses.”[ citation needed ]

By June 8, the city had calmed down and “traffic [was] back to normal.” [11]

Witness accounts

Early on in the protests (May 16), more than a thousand police came into Chengdu and tried to clear the main square. [2] According to Judy Wyman Kelly, who was a doctoral student in Chengdu at the time, the police brutality against the students only garnered them more support. [2]

On June 4, an American couple, Dennis Rea and Anne Joiner who were teaching at Chengdu University of Technology, were able to witness the protests firsthand. [12] The pair went to a small clinic that was treating the injured and nearby they saw a chain of people walking through the streets to help injured people get to safety. [12] They witnessed the beating of “a barely disguised policeman” and the casualties of people who were not involved with the protests at all, like a fruit vendor who had just parked “his cart in the wrong place at the wrong time.” [13]

Kim Nygaard, an American who witnessed the protests, found refuge at the hotel she was staying at along with other foreigners. From her hotel window, she saw the security forces putting protestors into sandbags and stacking their bodies into trucks. She remembered seeing the security forces wiring a detainee's arm behind his back by breaking his arms. [14] They were then loaded into trucks and taken away. [15] Nygaard noted that there was no noise coming from the pile of bodies and thinking that “there were definitely lifeless bodies.” [16]

Another witness, Jean Brick, described a similar account. Brick was able to note that some of the bodies had the “students’ white headbands" and there was a pile of “30 to 40 abandoned plastic flip-flops commonly worn by workers, farmers, and unemployed people.” [16]

Aftermath

In response to the events that took place in Chengdu, the government quickly released its account of what happened. The Sichuan Provincial government published an article titled The Whole Story of the Chengdu Riots. Within this article it was reported that “1,800 people sought medical treatment, including 1,100 policemen, 353 were admitted to the hospital and among them 231 policemen, 69 students and 53 others.” [17]

According to a “U.S State department cable released by WikiLeaks the real toll was probably higher.” [17] The hospitals and universities within Chengdu confirmed higher death tolls on their own, as well as the American consular officials who had reported to the New York Times “at least 100 seriously wounded people had been carried out of the square.” [17]

After June 16, “106 people had been arrested, two peasants charged with setting fires to vehicles were executed, three others were executed for unbridled beating, smashing, looting and burning, one person was put to death for overturning a jeep and setting fire to it [and] three separate life sentences were given for arson, looting, and disturbing the peace.” [18]

Media response to the protest

A Los Angeles Times article published on June 7, 1989, “City of Chengdu Wracked by Riots” by a staff writer quoted U.S. officials who said “downtown Chengdu now resembles the urban riots of the United States in the 1960s. The city’s main department store has been burned out and some residents of Chengdu have been smashing windows and looting other stores.” The article also said “Crowds of Chengdu residents burst into the Jingiang Hotel, the main hotel for foreigners in the city, and the site of the U.S. Consulate there. American consular officials were said to have retired to their offices to keep safe from the turbulent crowd.” [19]

In a New York Times article, “Turmoil in China; Far From Beijing's Spotlight, A City Bears Scars of Clashes”, by Richard Bernstein details the sentiments behind the protests in Chengdu. Bernstein noted the solidarity that the citizens of Chengdu had for each other, with "citizens donating $15,000 to help the students. [20]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre</span> Chinese pro-democracy movement and subsequent massacre

The Tiananmen Square protests, known in China as the June Fourth Incident were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China, lasting from 15 April to 4 June 1989. After weeks of unsuccessful attempts between the demonstrators and the Chinese government to find a peaceful resolution, the Chinese government declared martial law on the night of 3 June and deployed troops to occupy the square in what is referred to as the Tiananmen Square massacre. The events are sometimes called the '89 Democracy Movement, the Tiananmen Square Incident, or the Tiananmen uprising.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zhao Ziyang</span> Chinese politician (1919–2005)

Zhao Ziyang was a Chinese politician. He was the third premier of the People's Republic of China from 1980 to 1987, vice chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1981 to 1982, and CCP general secretary from 1987 to 1989. He was in charge of the political reforms in China from 1986, but lost power in connection with the reformative neoauthoritarianism current and his support of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chai Ling</span> Chinese psychologist (born 1966)

Chai Ling is a Chinese psychologist and businesswoman who was one of the student leaders in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. She was a representative of the hardline faction of the protest movement and some of the comments she made at the event formed the basis of two lawsuits later in her life. After the Tiananmen Square crackdown, she fled to the United States via Operation Yellowbird where she started her career working for Bain & Company. She is the founder of All Girls Allowed, an organization dedicated to ending China's one-child policy, and the founder and president of Jenzabar, an enterprise resource planning software firm for educational institutions.

The Tiananmen Mothers is a group of Chinese democracy activists promoting a change in the government's position over the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. It is led by Ding Zilin, a retired university professor whose teenage son was shot and killed by government troops during the protests. The group – comprising the parents, friends and relatives of victims of the massacre – formed in September 1989 when Ding, along with her husband Jiang Peikun, met another mother, Zhang Xianling, whose 19-year-old son was also killed on June 4, 1989. As well as campaigning, the group also disseminates information about the events to the public, including through the internet. Currently, the group consists of relatives of 125 individuals killed during the protests. For her efforts, Ding has been hailed as an "advocate for the dead".

Chen Xitong was a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party and the Mayor of Beijing until he was removed from office on charges of corruption in 1995.

Hou Dejian, is a songwriter, composer, and singer from Taiwan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">People's Liberation Army at the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre</span> Role of the Chinese military in the event

During the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in Beijing, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) played a decisive role in enforcing martial law, using force to suppress the demonstrations in the city. The killings in Beijing continue to taint the legacies of the party elders, led by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, and weigh on the generation of leaders whose careers advanced as their more moderate colleagues were purged or sidelined at the time. Within China, the role of the military in 1989 remains a subject of private discussion within the ranks of the party leadership and PLA.

The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre were the first of their type shown in detail on Western television. The Chinese government's response was denounced across the world; a report by the U.S. State Department said: "Foreign governments have expressed near universal revulsion over the crackdown although a few exceptions have supported China's approaches. Negative reactions range from punitive measures by Western countries to private criticisms in the East." Specifically, it said: "China's credentials as a socialist reformer were being called into question not only by Western European communists but also by progressives in Eastern Europe and, to a lesser extent, the Soviet Union." Notably however, 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. Criticism came from both Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Australia and some east Asian and Latin American countries. 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 against the Chinese government.

Yang Rudai was a politician of the People's Republic of China (PRC). He served as the Communist Party Chief of Sichuan, then China's most populous province, and was the first native Sichuanese to become the top leader of the province since the founding of the PRC. He was a member of the 13th Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, the top governing body of China. Yang was considered a protégé of the purged reformist leader Zhao Ziyang.

The Beijing Students' Autonomous Federation was a self-governing student organization, representing multiple Beijing universities, and acting as the student protesters' principal decision-making body during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Student protesters founded the Federation in opposition to the official, government-supported student organizations, which they believed were undemocratic. Although the Federation made several demands of the government during the protests and organized multiple demonstrations in the Square, its primary focus was to obtain government recognition as a legitimate organization. By seeking this recognition, the Federation directly challenged the Chinese Communist Party's authority. After failing to achieve direct dialogue with the government, the Federation lost support from student protesters, and its central leadership role within the Tiananmen Square protests.

Yan Mingfu was a Chinese politician. His first prominent role in government began in 1985, when he was made leader of the United Front Work Department for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He held the position until the Politburo expelled him for his sympathies with the 1989 Tiananmen Square protestors. Yan returned to government work in 1991 when he became a vice minister of Civil Affairs.

The April 27 demonstrations were massive student protest marches throughout major cities in China during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. The students were protesting in response to the April 26 Editorial published by the People's Daily the previous day. The editorial asserted that the student movement was anti-party and contributed to a sense of chaos and destabilization. The content of the editorial incited the largest student protest of the movement thus far in Beijing: 50,000–200,000 students marched through the streets of Beijing before finally breaking through police lines into Tiananmen Square.

<i>A Tiananmen Journal</i>

A Tiananmen Journal: Republic on the Square by Feng Congde (封从德) was first published in May 2009 in Hong Kong. This book records the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre from April 15, 1989, to June 4, 1989, in detail. Author Feng Congde is one of the student leader in the protest and his day-by- day diary entries, record every activity during the protest including the start of student protests in Peking University, the activities of major student leaders, important events, and unexposed stories about student organizations and their complex decision making.

During the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, student organizations received a significant amount of support in the form of donated money, supplies, and equipment from both domestic and foreign sources.

The first of two student hunger strikes during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre began on May 13, 1989, in Beijing. The students said that they were willing to risk their lives to gain the government's attention. They believed that because plans were in place for the grand welcoming of Mikhail Gorbachev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, on May 15, at Tiananmen Square, the government would respond. Although the students gained a dialogue session with the government on May 14, no rewards materialized. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) did not heed the students' demands and moved the welcome ceremony to the airport.

The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre saw a massive redeployment of People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops into and around Beijing. After the declaration of martial law, the Central Military Commission (CMC) mobilized at least 22 divisions from 13 Armies, which converged on Beijing. This force far exceeded the local garrison, with troops being sent in from across China. Altogether, roughly 300,000 troops were involved in the campaign to quell the protests. By their end, the PLA had proven that it was largely willing to enforce party decrees with lethal force. Multiple significant breaches of military discipline occurred after the imposition of martial law. Some cases involved officers or entire units being unwilling to obey directives from farther up the chain of command, others related to the misuse of military equipment, and some were responsible for casualties incurred during the night of June 3. It is unclear when, how, or even if some PLA units received orders to open fire on the protesters, and so knowing whether or not an incident amounts to insubordination is difficult. If the PLA as a whole received orders to use lethal force, CMC chairman Deng Xiaoping must have given his assent to it. CMC vice-chairman and President Yang Shangkun's orders to the Central Military Commission on the 20th of May 1989 explicitly deny troops the authority to use lethal force during martial law, even when their lives are threatened by the protesters. According to Li Xinming's report to the politburo on June 19 however, 10 PLA soldiers did end up dying, along with 13 from the People's Armed Police. For these 23 dead, they inflicted 218 deaths on the protesters, although some sources place this number in the thousands.

<i>The Peoples Republic of Amnesia</i>

The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited is a nonfiction book by journalist Louisa Lim and published by Oxford University Press in 2014. It explores the lives of people who were affected by the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and the June 4 Tiananmen Square massacre in China. Lim uses personal accounts to tell the story of the 1989 student protests and their aftermath.

The protests that occurred throughout the People's Republic of China in the early to middle months of 1989 mainly started out as memorials for former General Secretary Hu Yaobang. The political fall of Hu came immediately following the 1986 Chinese Student Demonstrations when he was removed by paramount leader Deng Xiaoping for being too liberal in his policies. Upon Hu's death on April 15, 1989, large gatherings of people began forming across the country. Most media attention was put onto the Beijing citizens who participated in the Tiananmen Square Protests, however, every other region in China had cities with similar demonstrations. The origins of these movements gradually became forgotten in some places and some regions began to demonstrate based on their own problems with their Provincial and Central Governments.

The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, commonly known in mainland China as the June Fourth Incident, were student-led demonstrations in Beijing in 1989. More broadly, it refers to the popular national movement inspired by the Beijing protests during that period, sometimes called the '89 Democracy Movement. The protests were forcibly suppressed after Chinese Premier Li Peng declared martial law. In what became known in the West as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, troops with assault rifles and tanks fired at the demonstrators trying to block the military's advance towards Tiananmen Square. The number of civilian deaths was internally estimated by the Chinese government to be near or above 10,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">30th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre</span> 2019 commemoration event

The 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 was principally events that occurred in China and elsewhere on 4 June 2019 - to commemorate the Chinese Communist Party's crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in which hundreds of people were killed.

References

  1. ↑ Lim, Louisa (2014). The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 183.
  2. 1 2 3 Lim 2014, 184.
  3. ↑ Lim 2014,183.
  4. ↑ Zhang, Liang; Nathan, Andrew J.; Link, Perry; Shcell, Orville (2002). Tiananmen Papers. New York: Public Affairs. p. 198.
  5. 1 2 Zhang et al 2002, 198.
  6. ↑ Weiss, Jessica Chen (2014). Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China's Foreign Relations. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-938755-7.
  7. ↑ Lim 2014, 185.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Zhang et al 2002, 395.
  9. 1 2 Zhang et al 2002, 400.
  10. ↑ Zhang et al 2002, 405.
  11. ↑ Zhang et al 2002, 412.
  12. 1 2 Lim 2014, 186.
  13. ↑ Lim 2014, 187-188.
  14. ↑ Lim 2014, 194.
  15. ↑ Lim, 193-195.
  16. 1 2 Lim 2014, 195.
  17. 1 2 3 Lim 2014, 189.
  18. ↑ Lim 2014, 197.
  19. ↑ "City of Chengdu Wracked by Riots". Los Angeles Times. June 7, 1989.
  20. ↑ Bernstein, Richard (June 15, 1989). "Turmoil in China; Far From Beijing's Spotlight, A City Bears Scars of Clashes". New York Times.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.