Tiananmen Square survivor reflects 30 years later On June 4, 1989, Chinese tanks rolled into Beijing's Tiananmen Square to crush a student-led protest movement calling for greater political freedom. To this day, the death toll remains in dispute, but it is believed thousands may have been killed. CBS News' senior foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer returned to Tiananmen Square 30 years later, to find its bloody history erased by modern China.