Key Questions About the June 4 Massacre

Wu Renhua, June 4, 2018

The June 4 massacre once shocked the world — but because the Communist Party made it a forbidden area of enquiry, there are still numerous controversies around the massacre, despite it having taken place 29 years ago. Following are some of the major sources of confusion and misunderstanding surrounding the events of June 4, 1989.

Was There a Counterrevolutionary Rebellion in Beijing?

To provide a seemingly reasonable justification for the bloody military suppression in the capital, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities emphasized that a violent insurrection was afoot, and that the martial law troops had no choice but to put it down. To this day, the CCP’s claims still deceive a great many people. But in fact, proving false this lie of a ‘counterrevolutionary rebellion in Beijing’ is not difficult — one must simply take careful note of the sequence of events. It was only after the martial law troops had opened fire that the authorities called it a ‘counterrevolutionary rebellion.’ Prior to this, they merely labeled it ‘turmoil in Beijing.’

In fact, not only was there no counterrevolutionary rebellion in Beijing, there was no turmoil either. The official mouthpiece of the CCP’s Central Committee, People’s Daily, reported following the military crackdown: “Beijing residents are much more civilized; social order is excellent.” The newspaper also quoted a Beijing Public Security officer who said: “The number of criminal acts that occurred during the student movement was less than the same period last year.”

The student movement had from the beginning been committed to peacefulness, reason, and nonviolence — and even after the martial law troops had opened fire and there were heavy civilian casualties, the members of the public who retaliated in fury at the slaughter only targeted martial law troops or their actions. After the incident, the CCP authorities produced ‘The True Facts About the Counterrevolutionary Rebellion in Beijing’ and other propaganda videos — but the images of burning vehicles in them all took place after the martial law troops had begun firing on civilians. The images show that the apartments, stores, and even Party, government and military buildings on both sides of the road remained undamaged.

Citizen Violence in Response to the Military’s Slaughter

After the massacre on June 4, the CCP used its control of the media to publish stories and broadcast news reports on a national scale, severely inflating the troop casualties. They created the impression that ‘hoodlums’ were at large, killing martial law troops and officers. The result was that many Chinese people believed that the troops opened fire in order to suppress a rebellion.

In response to this, I made a specific study of the deaths of martial law troops and officers, concluding that a total of 15 died, seven of whose deaths were due to violent retaliation by protesters. My important finding was that, according to official Party materials, the deaths of these 15 all took place after 1:00 a.m. on June 4, 1989. The time that martial law troops opened fire was around 9:00 p.m. on June 3. The earliest confirmed case of a death of a member of the public is that of Song Xiaoming (宋曉明), who was shot at around 9:00 p.m. on the sidewalk at Wukesong crossing (五棵松路口). From this the following conclusion can be inferred: The martial law troops opened fire and killed people first, and only then did members of the public respond with violence; that is, the killing by troops was the cause, and the violent response was the effect. Which took place first, and what caused what, is obvious at a glance.

Whether or Not The Martial Law Troops Opened Fire and Killed People on Tiananmen Square

The CCP not only denies that the troops opened fire and killed protesters on Tiananmen Square; they even deny that they opened fire on Tiananmen Square at all. The spokesman for the martial law troops, Zhang Gong (張工), said in a June 6 press conference held jointly with spokesman for the State Council Yuan Mu (袁木) that: “Firstly, I would like to responsibly explain an issue to my comrades in the news profession, and I want to, through you, make this clear to every citizen of the capital and the nation; this is that between the hours of 4:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. on June 4, in the process of carrying out the task of clearing Tiananmen Square, there was absolutely no student or member of the public shot and killed, and nobody was crushed to death or run over.”

I personally experienced the clearing of Tiananmen Square. During the entire process, the sound of gunfire was constant. From the distance of just a few meters I personally witnessed two soldiers in the scout company of the 27th Army Group fire on and destroy the two large loudspeakers set up on the Monument to the People’s Heroes on the square.

The CCP denies that there were casualties on Tiananmen, and by doing so direct the focus of the June 4 massacre to Tiananmen Square — the goal of which is to, by denying casualties on the square, achieve the effect of denying any massacre at all on June 4.

At the time, foreign reporting, especially in Western media, were all calling it the ‘Tiananmen Massacre,’ not the ‘June 4 Massacre.’ The slaughter of June 4 indeed took place primarily outside of Tiananmen Square, and so the CCP’s spin on this issue indeed had an effect, leading some people to have doubts about the June 4 massacre itself.

Whether the martial law troops opened fire and killed people on Tiananmen Square itself, or outside of Tiananmen Square, makes no substantial difference and isn’t worth arguing over. But, because the CCP hyped the question of whether or not there were civilian casualties on Tiananmen into such a focal point and controversy, I made a detailed study of the matter simply to respond to the confusion on the part of the public. To date, I have verified that the following people died on Tiananmen Square: Cheng Renxing (程仁興), a student in the Institute of Soviet and Eastern Europe Studies (蘇聯東歐研究所) of Chinese Renmin University doing a double Bachelor’s degree; Dai Jinping (戴金平), a graduate student at Beijing Agricultural University; Li Haocheng (李浩成), an undergraduate student in Chinese studies at Tianjin Normal University. Among the survivors who were shot on Tiananmen Square, there is the well-known Taiwanese journalist Hsu Tsung-mao (徐宗懋) with China Times (《中國時報》), who suffered a bullet wound in the head, but was rescued and came out alive.

At the time, Party media made particular efforts to interview Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), Hou Dejian (侯德健) and others who were in custody at the time; during the interviews, they had them say that they’d not seen anyone shot and killed on Tiananmen Square. Because these were famous people and they’d indeed been there when the square was cleared, those statements led many to believe that indeed no one was killed on the square. The problem is that Tiananmen Square has a surface area of 44,000 square meters, and the clearance took place from 1:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m.; lines of sight were obstructed, and even if one were present, how would it be possible to see everywhere the entire time? I was also there through the square clearing, and had an excellent vantage point, sitting at the top level of the base of the Monument to the People’s Heroes — but the most I can say is that I didn’t see anyone shot. I certainly can’t say that, through the entire process of the square being cleared, no one was shot in Tiananmen Square at all.

Were There Orders to Open Fire? Who Ordered It?

A key factor in determining responsibility for the Tiananmen Massacre is whether the troops received orders to open fire on students, and if so, who issued these orders. This is one of the reasons why the CCP goes to such lengths to keep this information classified. None of the major figures involved in the decision — Deng Xiaoping, Yang Shangkun, and Li Peng — were willing to own up to their roles, and their children are doing all they can to exonerate them.

My research concluded that the martial law troops did not shoot their weapons on their own; they were ordered to open fire. Per instruction of the State Council, then Beijing Mayor Chen Xitong (陳希同) made a report on June 30, 1989, during the eighth meeting of the the 7th National People’s Congress Standing Committee, titled “A Situation Report on the Suppression of Unrest and Counter-revolutionary Riots.” In the report, Chen said that “Having sustained heavy casualties and being pressed to the limits of their endurance after giving multiple warnings, the martial law troops were left with no choice but to follow orders and fire warning shots, then counterattack to neutralize a number of violent rioters.” The phrase “follow orders” indicates that there was a command to open fire.

Other sources support this. The martial troops invariably opened fire only after being ordered to do so, despite prior encounters with civilian resistance. Before deployment, some commanders held multiple briefings telling their men not to open fire.

The book One Day of Martial Law (《戒嚴一日》), compiled by the cultural office of the PLA’s General Political Department, includes least 10 articles by martial law soldiers in which there is mention of orders to open fire. Lt. Col. Fu Shuisheng (傅水生), a joint logistics officer in the Beijing Military Region, wrote in the article Eight Unforgettable Days and Nights (《難忘的8天8夜》) :

“Around midnight [on June 4, 1989], senior military officers went to the Great Hall of the People, followed shortly by some government officials, to draw up strategic plans to clear the Square. Working to avoid confrontation and bloodshed, the generals and Party leaders stayed up the entire night. Around 1 a.m. [in the early morning of June 4], two officers from a brigade, bleeding and wounded, reported to headquarters that their troops had arrived at the designated pointed. When a senior commander asked how they were doing, they replied that the troops had taken heavy casualties while advancing on foot, and that their supplies had been seized or destroyed. ‘Why didn’t you fire at them?’ [the senior commander asked]. They responded, ‘We were instructed not to fire our weapons.’”

The “headquarters” mentioned here refers to the command center established in the Great Hall of the People to plan for clearing the Square. In another article, Back to Beijing (《再度京華》),” Maj. Gen. Wu Jiamin (吳家民), commander of the 40th Army, wrote: “On June 3, at 11:10 pm, someone in civilian clothing demanded to see me, claiming to have important instructions. I met him, and he produced documents identifying him as vice director of a high level department and was there to relay some instructions from his superior. We were ordered to arrive at the designated zone without fail, and given permission to take decisive actions should it be necessary. Right after he finished talking, we received further instructions from the military district’s frontline command informing us that the martial law troops on Wanshou Road (萬壽路) had fired warning shots to disperse the crowd and secure their path of advance quickly.”

The order was issued around 9 p.m. on June 3. As it was issued in person rather than through military radio channels, it is likely that they did so to avoid leaving any material evidence. The directive came from the very top of the Party, first authorized by Central Military Commission chairman Deng Xiaoping, and passed down to lower levels. Yang Shangkun, then in charge of the CMC’s routine work, was prudent to avoid personally issuing the command; therefore, it must have been a group decision by key members of the Politburo Standing Committee — Li Peng, Qiao Shi, and Yao Yilin, with Deng’s approval.

How Many Died?

How many people died in the Tiananmen Massacre is still unknown. Naturally, CCP and unofficial sources are at complete odds regarding the figure.

There are two versions of the official, Party-approved story. One is that of Yuan Mu, the State Council spokesman. On June 6, 1989, at a press conference at Zhongnanhai, he said that “according to incomplete statistics which have been verified repeatedly, the situation is as follows: PLA forces suffered 5,000 wounded; while locally (including crime-committing rioters and innocent bystanders unaware of the circumstances), there were 2,000 wounded; total military and local fatalities number about 300, including soldiers, bandits who got their just deserts, and collateral damage,” and “one figure of which we can be confident is that as of now, there were 23 dead across the universities of Beijing.”

The other official source is the aforementioned report made by Beijing mayor Chen Xitong before the NPC Standing Committee on June 30. Per the report, “including soldiers of the martial law troops, armed police, and public security law enforcement officials, about 6,000 were wounded and several tens killed in action,” and “according to information available at present, there are about 3,000 nonmilitary wounded and over 200 dead, including 36 university students.”

Clearly, there is something wrong with the official explanation, given the discrepancy between the figures cited by Yuan Mu and Chen Xitong.

Unofficial estimates vary wildly. The earliest figures came from a report by Red Cross Society of China, saying that 2,600 people were killed. I heard of this number on June 4 as I vacated Tiananmen Square with other students; it later circulated widely. But it’s unlikely that the Red Cross in China would have published real figures.

Zhang Wanshu (張萬舒), who was the director of the domestic department of Xinhua News Agency in China during the events, gives a very exact figure. In “The Big Bang of History” (《曆史的大爆炸》), published in 2009 in Hong Kong, he said, “Comrade Liu Jiaju (劉家駒), veteran editor of “People’s Liberation Army Art and Literature,” told me that he had it on good record from Tan Yunhe (譚雲鶴), CCP secretary and deputy director of the Red Cross Society of China, that the total number of deaths in the June 4th incident was 727, including 14 military fatalities and 713 local dead (among them students and ordinary civilians). He examined every corpse.” According to Zhang, this “is probably the most credible figure.”

This is incorrect, however, because not all corpses went through the hospitals. Some were taken by the martial law troops and public security authorities to be disposed of secretly. For instance, the Tiananmen Mothers (天安門母親群體) looked into 202 victims of the June 4th incident and found that the bodies of eight of them had never been found. I have some additional evidence on hand that is beyond the scope of this article.

Information from American and British diplomatic sources concerning the scale of the June 4th incident has been declassified in recent years. The British document claims that the death toll reached 10,000. The sources are ambassadorial staff on assignment in Beijing who got their information secondhand. Given the conclusions I arrived at in my own research and documentary work, I am not prepared to accept these numbers at this time.

In his book Quelling the People: The Military Suppression of the Beijing Democracy Movement, eminent Canadian sinologist Timothy Brook collected statistics from 11 hospitals throughout the early morning of June 4, counting a total of 478 dead. Extrapolating this figure to cover the hundreds of hospitals in the Chinese capital, he came to a probable total of about 2,800 dead. I found myself in particular agreement with the following passage from his book:

“Do we need to decide between three hundred and three thousand? From a distance, either death toll is atrocious: the number hardly matters. From close up, however, even one death is too many, and the omission of one in the final count is a terrible lie. The quantity of killing matters most to those who died and who mourn them. Not to be counted is to be lost forever.” (p. 152, Quelling the People, Stanford University Press, 1998)

As a scholar of the June 4th Massacre, I have often been pressed to produce a statistic on how many died that day. I am not willing to give a final answer, since there is no way of determining the number. In the last few years I have been looking into this matter by investigating Beijing’s hospitals — over one hundred locations — one by one. Though a definitive conclusion continues to elude me, at least I have been able to make a general assessment.

Translated from Chinese by China Change:

六四屠殺的焦點問題, 台灣思想坦克網站， 2018年6月3日。

About the author: In 1989, Mr. Wu Renhua was a young faculty member at China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, leading the student demonstration along with other young scholars. He participated in the Tiananmen Movement “from the first day to the last,” and was among the last few thousand protesters who left Tiananmen Square in the early morning of June 4. On the way back to his college, he witnessed PLA tanks charging into a file of students at Liubukou (六部口), a large intersection, killing 11 and injuring many. In February, 1990, Wu swam four hours from Zhuhai to Macau, and onto Hong Kong, and arrived in the United States later that year. Over the next 15 years he was the editor of Press Freedom Herald (《新闻自由导报》), a Chinese-language paper founded on June 9, 1989, by a group of overseas Chinese, to bring news of pro-democracy activities to China. Given Mr. Wu’s training as a historiographer, he began his research of 1989 as soon as the incident ended—but his writing didn’t start until in 2005, when the paper he edited folded. From 2005 to 2014, he published three books (none have been translated into English): The Bloody Clearing of Tiananmen Square (《天安门血腥清场内幕》, 2007), The Martial Law Troops of June Fourth (《六四事件中的戒严部队》, 2009), and The Full Record of the Tiananmen Movement (《六四事件全程实录》, 2014). Together, the three books form a complete record of the 1989 democracy movement and the June Fourth Massacre.

Related:

The Historian of the Tiananmen Movement and the June Fourth Massacre (Part One of Two), June 3, 2016.

The Historian of the Tiananmen Movement and the June Fourth Massacre (Part Two of Two), June 4, 2016.

Foreword to ‘The Martial Law Troops of June Fourth’, May 29, 2017.

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