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.
Liu Huaqing was Chinese revolutionary and an admiral of the People's Liberation Army Navy, who served as the third Commander-in-Chief of the Navy from 1982 through 1988. He is considered to have greatly contributed to the modernization of the Chinese Navy, and is hailed as the "father of the modern Chinese Navy" and "father of Chinese aircraft carriers".
The Tank Man is the nickname given to an unidentified individual, presumed to be a Chinese man, who stood in front of a column of Type 59 tanks leaving Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 5, 1989, the day after the Chinese government had massacred hundreds of protesters. As the lead tank maneuvered to pass by the man, he repeatedly shifted his position in order to obstruct the tank's attempted path around him. The incident was filmed and shared to a worldwide audience. Internationally, it is considered one of the most iconic images of all time. Inside China, the image and the accompanying events are subject to censorship.
Han Dongfang is a Chinese advocate for workers' rights.
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.
Almost a Revolution is an autobiography by Shen Tong (沈彤), one of the student leaders during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in Beijing, China, written with former The Washington Post writer Marianne Yen.
Tiananmen Square or Tian'anmen Square is a city square in the city center of Beijing, China, named after the eponymous Tiananmen located to its north, which separates it from the Forbidden City. The square contains the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China in the square on October 1, 1949; the anniversary of this event is still observed there. The size of Tiananmen Square is 765 x 282 meters. It has great cultural significance as it was the site of several important events in Chinese history.
Yao Yilin was a Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1979 to 1988, and the country's First Vice Premier from 1988 to 1993.
Timothy James Brook is a Canadian historian, sinologist, and writer specializing in the study of China (sinology). He holds the Republic of China Chair, Department of History, University of British Columbia.
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 Beijing Workers' Autonomous Federation (BWAF), or Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Union was the primary Chinese workers' organization calling for political change during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The group was formed in the wake of mourning activities for former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Hu Yaobang in April 1989. The BWAF denounced political corruption, presenting itself as an independent union capable of "supervising the Communist Party," unlike the Party-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU).
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.
Wang Juntao is a Chinese dissident and democracy activist accused by the Communist government for being one of the “black hands” behind the Tiananmen Student Movement. He was listed first on the government's “six important criminals” list, and was sentenced to a thirteen-year prison term in 1991 for his alleged work of “conspiring to subvert the government and of counter-revolutionary propaganda and agitation”. Wang was released from prison for medical reasons in 1994 and has been living in exile in the United States.
On June 9, 1989, China's Military Chairman Deng Xiaoping delivered what was officially termed his "Speech Made While Receiving Cadres of the Martial Law Units in the Capitolat and Above the Army Level". It was his only public speech on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, following the army's intervention and use of force on the student-led protests on June 4. Portions of the speech aired on the CCTV program Xinwen Lianbo on that same evening. The speech was delivered to a group of People's Liberation Army generals in Beijing. It set the defiant tone for the Chinese leadership that the army's use of force was fully justified, demonstrated that Deng was still firmly in charge of China, quelled rumours of impending civil war, and signaled that China's economic reforms would continue as planned.
The 28th Group Army was an army corps of the Chinese People's Liberation Army that existed from 1949 to 1998. From 1952 to 1971, the 28th Army was based in Putian, Fujian and belonged to the Fujian Military Region. From 1971 to 1998, this army corps belonged to the Beijing Military Region and was based in Shanxi Province, initially in Houma and then in Datong. At the time of its dissolution in 1998, the 28th Army was composed of the 82nd, 83rd and 205th Infantry Divisions, the 7th Armored Division, an artillery brigade, an anti-aircraft brigade, an engineer regiment, a communication regiment and a reconnaissance battalion. The army corps’ unit ID number was 51366.
Fang Zheng is a former student protester who was seriously injured during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. During the evacuation of the Square in the early morning of June 4, Fang was run over by a People’s Liberation Army tank, which led to the amputation of both his legs. He is currently the president of Chinese Democracy Education Foundation.
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.
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.
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.
Lü Jinghua is a Chinese dissident and activist, and was a key member of the Beijing Workers' Autonomous Federation (BWAF) during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The BWAF was the People's Republic of China's (PRC) first independent trade union, established as an alternative to the Party-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions, and Lü served as the union's broadcaster. After the June 4th crackdown, Lü was placed on China's most wanted list, and subsequently fled to the United States.
