The post-Tiananmen regime has constructed a narrative that portrays the Tiananmen Movement as a Western conspiracy to weaken and divide China, hence justifying its military crackdown as necessary for stability and prosperity and paving the way for China’s rise. Because public opinion pertaining to nationalism and democratization is inseparable from a collective memory of the nation’s most immediate past—be it truthful, selective, or manipulated—the memory of Tiananmen has become highly contested. While memory can be manipulated or erased by those in power, the repression of both memory and history is accompanied by political, social, and psychological distortions. Indeed, it is not possible to understand today’s China and its relationship with the world without understanding the spring of 1989.

Tiananmen remains one of the most sensitive and taboo subjects in China today, banned from both academic and popular realms. Even the actual number of deaths from the military crackdown remains unknown. Every year on the anniversary of June 4, the government intensifies its control, and citizens who commemorate the events are put under various forms of surveillance. The Tiananmen Mothers are prohibited from openly mourning family members who died in the massacre, and exiles are prohibited from returning home, even for a parent’s funeral. Many older supporters of the movement, leading liberal intellectuals in the 1980s, died in exile.

In spring 1989, millions of Chinese took to the streets calling for reforms. The nationwide movement, highlighted by a hunger strike in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, ended on June 4 with the People’s Liberation Army firing on unarmed civilians. Over 200,000 soldiers, equipped with tanks and machine guns, participated in the lethal action. Student leaders, intellectuals, workers, and citizens were subsequently purged, imprisoned, or exiled.

The iconic image of the Tiananmen Movement, the “Tank Man,” who stood in front of a column of tanks on June 5, became a symbol of the power of the powerless. The spirit of the Tiananmen Movement inspired citizens around the world, including those in Eastern Europe in late 1989, to confront and overthrow their respective Communist dictatorships and to set out on a democratic path. Many Tiananmen veterans, both at home and abroad, have continued efforts to promote political change in China, often in the face of political pressures and at high cost. Among them is the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died in 2017 while serving eleven years in prison. The Tiananmen Massacre and its aftermath are also a reminder to world leaders that the “Tiananmen solution,” using guns and tanks against unarmed citizens—even if it achieves short-term stability and preserves the power of the ruling elite—is never a lasting solution to problems of social and economic justice and governance. June 4 as a watershed epitomizes the relationship between history and memory, power and politics, and intellectual freedom and human rights in the Chinese context. Indeed, it is not possible to understand today’s China and its relationship with the world without understanding the spring of 1989.

In the early 1990s, China’s paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, concerned about protecting the CCP legitimacy, sent clear signals that Chinese could make money any way they wanted as long as they did not become involved in unapproved politics, religion, and related matters. Deng’s policies led to a booming economy, higher living standards, and China’s prominent place in the world. But they also resulted in profound popular cynicism and nationalism, erosion of public trust, enormous wealth inequality, persistent environmental problems, massive expenditures on “stability maintenance,” and new signs of belligerence accompanying China’s international rise.

The opposing narratives of the official myth and historical reality are reflected in the terms in which the movement has been characterized. The 1989 Tiananmen Movement is also referred to as the ’89 Democracy Movement ( bajiu minyun ) and the ’89 Student Movement ( bajiu xueyun ). The June 4 crackdown is also referred to as the Tiananmen Massacre ( Tiananmen tusha ) or the June 4 Massacre ( liusi tusha ). June 4 ( Liu Si ) is used in Chinese to refer to both the Tiananmen Movement and the military crackdown. 10 The Beijing government first labeled the movement a “counterrevolutionary turmoil” (before the crackdown), and then a “riot” (after June 4), then it became an “incident,” and then a “political disturbance,” and eventually practically nothing. 11 Inside China, in order to pass censorship, codes have been created, such as “May 35th,” “that year,” or “that spring and summer.” The creativity continues each time the original code is detected and banned by the censors. The most recent code is: (5+1) (5–1).

The official suppression of history makes teaching and researching the Tiananmen Movement challenging. Many Chinese students have been inoculated with a version of the 1989 events that is inconsistent with the historical truth. This is not a matter of varyng interpretations that are normal to unfettered historical inquiry but rather due to state-sponsored manipulation. Because public opinion pertaining to nationalism and democratization is inseparable from a collective memory of the nation’s most immediate past—be it truthful, selective, or manipulated—memory of this traumatic past has become highly contested.

Born during the Cultural Revolution and growing up in the atmosphere of reform and opening of the 1980s, the Tiananmen generation shared a widespread sentiment that the government would not only improve itself, but also welcome popular support to achieve this historic mission. When the movement was designated as “counterrevolutionary” in a blistering editorial published in the People’s Daily on April 26, the students felt betrayed. But it was not until after the crackdown on June 4 that this generation began to understand the wider context of state violence and suppression that framed post-1949 Communist party rule in China.

The nature of Confucian dissent in the movement was epitomized when three college students knelt on the steps of the Great Hall of the People and lifted a copy of their petition over their heads on April 22, 1989. Another example occurred when three men hurled paint at Mao’s giant portrait in Tiananmen Square in late May 1989 because they thought that the Maoist legacy and the Communist ideology were the roots of the problem. Students immediately turned these men over to the police. They tried to separate themselves from workers and other groups instead of attempting to form a grand alliance to overthrow the regime as the Beijing government has asserted. Strategically, some students also thought that, if they called the movement “patriotic,” the government would not crack down.

Another official justification for the military crackdown is that the students were “counterrevolutionaries,” collaborating with hostile foreign forces, and that any government would crack down on those seeking to overthrow it. But the students themselves called their movement a “Patriotic Democracy Movement” ( Aiguo minzhu yundong ). They were mainly hoping the regime would transform itself from within and not seek a radical regime change. 7 The actions by intellectuals and students in 1989 were rooted in the Chinese tradition of Confucian dissent—helping the rulers to improve but not seeking to overthrow them. 8 Sinologist Perry Link observes that a “worrying mentality” was pervasive among Chinese intellectuals in the 1980s. “Those who work to improve society, whether they succeed or not, represent the courageous ideal of the Chinese intellectual in its purest form.” 9

The official justification for the military crackdown is that it quelled a riot that otherwise would have threatened the country’s stability and prosperity. Information collected by the Tiananmen Mothers, 5 however, reveals that many victims had never joined the protests and never confronted the troops. For example, Ma Chengfen, a veteran of the People’s Liberation Army, was shot and killed while sitting on the steps of her building chatting with her neighbors. 6 Moreover, the Tiananmen Massacre did not only occur as the troops were advancing toward Tiananmen Square. Instead, the killings continued after the army had accomplished its task of clearing the square. For example, Fang Zheng, a survivor who was a senior at Beijing Sports College in 1989, was run over by a tank and lost both legs when a tank chased him and other students from behind after they had left the square and were peacefully returning to their campuses.

Immediately after the crackdown, the government carried out mass arrests and purges throughout the country. These were followed by an elaborate campaign, through education and the state-controlled media, to reestablish the legitimacy of the regime. An official version of the 1989 events was constructed, and massive efforts were undertaken to imprint this official account into national memory. But the official narrative has been disputed by many groups, including historians, participants in the movement, the Tiananmen Mothers, family members of the victims, and survivors of the massacre.

Tiananmen remains one of the most sensitive and taboo subjects in China today. Discussions in the media, on the internet, and in the classroom are banned. Even the actual number of deaths from the military crackdown remains unknown. The Tiananmen Mothers are prohibited from openly mourning family members who died in the massacre, and exiles are prohibited from returning home, even for a parent’s funeral. In 2014, Professor Hao Jian 3 and four other intellectuals were detained after attending a private symposium commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the movement at Professor Hao’s apartment. Chen Yunfei, a student at Beijing Agricultural University in 1989, was arrested after visiting the grave of a Tiananmen victim in 2015 and was detained for two years without trial; 4 he was sentenced to four years of imprisonment in 2017.

The 1989 Tiananmen Movement, known in Chinese as “June Fourth” ( Liu Si ), was a nationwide nonviolent citizens’ movement calling for reforms in China. Sparked by the April 15, 1989, death of Hu Yaobang, the former general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) whose reformist views distinguished him from the hardliners in the leadership, Chinese intellectuals and students in cities throughout the country, soon joined by other citizens, began a series of peaceful petitions, demonstrations, and hunger strikes. The movement ended on June 4 when the Chinese government deployed over 200,000 soldiers, equipped with tanks and machine guns, to crack down on what the regime called a “counterrevolutionary riot.” Historian Tim Brook Historian Tim Brook argues that the military crackdown is a “massacre,” noting that “using combat weapons against unarmed citizens was a moral failure.” 1 The general secretary of the CCP at the time, Zhao Ziyang, who refused to order the crackdown, was dismissed and lived under house arrest until his death in 2005. General Xu Qinxian, commander of the 38th Army of the People’s Liberation Army, who refused to participate in the crackdown, was court martialed, imprisoned for five years, and expelled from the CCP. 2

In sum, the decade prior to the Tiananmen Movement was a period of rapid economic and social change within a political system that, at its highest levels, was fundamentally averse to any change that might threaten those holding power. Contradictory tendencies in society struggled for dominance as modernization was promoted by an emerging elite of technocrats, party bureaucrats, urban bourgeoisie, intellectuals, and students, while remnant Maoists, revolutionaries, and xenophobes who distrusted China’s increasing integration into the international system attempted to impose constraints. Hu Yaobang’s downfall came about because tough-minded Deng Xiaoping considered Hu Yaobang to be soft on liberal intellectuals and student protesters. 22

Within the CCP, resistance to Deng’s reforms grew among conservatives who feared the loss of party power as Chinese liberals, inspired by models of democratic governance, pushed the limits of what was permitted. The party launched a number of political campaigns, like the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign in 1983, to rein in what conservatives perceived as negative intellectual and cultural trends. In late 1986, in the Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign, Deng cracked down on student demonstrations calling for political reforms and a halt to the burgeoning corruption that flourished as a consequence of the economic reforms. Inspired by their liberal vice chancellor, Fang Lizhi, an internationally renowned astrophysicist, students at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) began protests that later spread to Shanghai, Beijing, and other major cities. In January 1987, Fang was expelled from the CCP and removed from his position as vice chancellor. The more liberal general secretary of the CCP, Hu Yaobang, was also purged.

College campuses in the 1980s blossomed with the emergence of diverse interest groups, ranging from those preparing for the TOEFL exam for study abroad to playing Mahjong and dancing as well as discussing China’s future. The Tiananmen generation, born toward the end of Mao’s Cultural Revolution and maturing at the beginning of Deng’s reform era, had grown up under the influence of both the collectivist Communist ideology enshrined in revolutionary stories and also the new individualistic ideas that appeared during the post-Mao era. Unlike their predecessor Red Guard generation that had few resources to turn to in their struggle to escape the mental prison of Maoism during the Cultural Revolution, the first generation of China’s reform era was exposed to a variety of ideas, foreign as well as indigenous, and, despite continuing official political indoctrination, they enjoyed considerably more freedoms.

A freer atmosphere developed inside China as writers, artists, intellectuals, students, journalists, and professionals sensed opportunities to experiment, to write critically, and to engage in exploring the new space opened up by the post-Mao leadership. Such intellectual trends were reflected in various literary genres, such as reportage literature ( baogao wenxue ) that exposed the injustices and sufferings of ordinary people, misty poems ( menglong shi ) protesting state-imposed restrictions on art, and scar literature ( shanghen wenxue ) that portrayed the human suffering during the Cultural Revolution and earlier political campaigns such as the Anti-Rightists Campaign. The discontent that had characterized the late Maoist period gave way to a fresh current of idealism and hope for a better future, not only materially but also with respect to individual freedoms, political rights, and personal happiness. Intellectuals who had been reviled and purged during the Maoist period were rehabilitated and given the opportunity to join the establishment and work with the reformists. Rather than acting as an opposition seeking regime change like dissenters in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, they were following Confucian tradition whereby it was both their responsibility and historical mission to help their leaders. 21

Beginning in 1978, China enacted partial reforms of the basic institutions in the economy, first in agriculture, then in industry. Under the former institutions, dating back to the 1950s, farmers or manufacturers were required to deliver specified quantities of output (quotas) to the state distribution system at state-determined prices. Deng retained these systems but stipulated that production above these quotas could be traded at prices determined by supply and demand, with the producers retaining the proceeds. These incentives resulted in increases in output and income, and the formation of pools of capital for investment. But while the market reforms triggered increases in domestic production, they also brought about increased opportunities for corruption, as well-connected people could buy goods at lower, state-administered prices and sell them at higher market prices. The partial liberalization of prices also led to a surge in inflation, which approached 30 percent annually by 1988–1989. For people whose incomes were fixed by administrative fiat, the consequences were obviously severe. The economic hierarchy was turned upside down as professional salaries, including those of teachers, doctors, and officials, stagnated, while those entrants into the emerging market economy, often with little or no education, reaped the benefits of the economic reforms. 20

In December 1978, at the third plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee of the CCP, Deng Xiaoping announced the end of the period of revolutionary turmoil and stated that henceforth China would focus on modernizing its backward economy by opening up to the world and introducing domestic reforms. Not daring to repudiate Mao directly, Deng deliberately reinterpreted Mao’s legacy by selectively gathering quotes that showed Mao’s “pragmatic side.” He also presented himself as a pragmatist who was following in Mao’s footsteps. Thus, even as he was dismantling the Maoist legacy, he wrapped himself in the cloak of Mao’s authority. Deng himself had no blueprint for change. Instead he favored experimentation, particularly in terms of the economy, and he was willing to adapt the Communist ideology to fit the needs of economic development. 16 In 1980 Hu Yaobang was appointed general secretary of the CCP, who later earned the respect of intellectuals for reversing Mao-era cases of unjustified persecution. Zhao Ziyang was appointed premier, responsible for economic reforms. Deng held the key post of chairman of the Central Military Commission. Within the strictly hierarchical CCP, Deng was generally accepted as the paramount leader. In 1978–1979, while Deng was still moving to expand his power, the Democracy Wall Movement erupted in Beijing, as all sorts of unofficial political and social opinions were expressed in the form of big-character posters ( dazibao ) that anyone could read and ponder. As a common mode of political expression during the Communist era, big-character posters were “one of the few outlets of expression available to Chinese who desired to make a dissenting political statement or to raise a personal grievance.” 17 Big-character posters had also been widely used to denounce people in political campaigns during the Maoist era. They were instruments of both individual expression as well as suppression. The movement quickly spread to other cities. Unlike the brief April 5 Movement in 1976 and the later 1989 Tiananmen Movement, which lasted about six weeks, the Democracy Wall Movement continued for more than a year. At first Deng permitted the existence of Democracy Wall because he wanted to take temporary advantage of the activists’ demands for political and economic reforms to oust the remaining Maoists from the party leadership. 18 The party had already nullified the “counterrevolutionary” verdict on the April 5 Movement and had released hundreds of imprisoned participants. The reversal of cases of unjustified persecution during the Mao years was still ongoing. Deng himself called for “socialist democracy and rule of law.” Yet when Wei Jingsheng, a young electrician at the Beijing Zoo, posted a call for true democracy in China, Deng ordered the arrest of Wei. (He was subsequently sentenced to fifteen years.) In an essay entitled “The Fifth Modernization,” Wei had argued that democracy should be added to the list of the Four Modernizations advocated by Deng, namely, modernization of agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology. 19 The Democracy Wall Movement is now also known as the first Beijing Spring.

Mao’s death on September 9, 1976, introduced a decisive round in the struggle over his succession. Jiang Qing and her radical associates, dubbed the “Gang of Four,” were arrested just one month later. Hua Guofeng proved unable to consolidate his position and by 1978, Deng Xiaoping, with the backing of moderate party and military leaders, assumed the dominant leadership position, sidelining Hua Guofeng and setting China on the path of the post-Mao reforms.

In the aftermath, Deng Xiaoping was accused of being the “black hand” behind the movement. Activists were jailed on “counterrevolutionary” charges. Among them was Wang Juntao, a seventeen-year-old high school student. 14 In some ways, the April 5 Movement was a precursor of the 1989 Tiananmen Movement, which also began with mourning the death of a CCP leader and ended with a “counterrevolutionary” verdict. As in 1976, in 1989 protesters laid wreaths, posters, and poems around the Monument to the People’s Revolutionary Heroes in Tiananmen Square, the same location where the participants of the May 4 Movement had gathered. 15 This time, Deng ordered a crackdown, and Wang Juntao, accused of being one of the “black hands,” was sentenced to thirteen years in prison.

In April 1976, toward the end of the Cultural Revolution, large-scale demonstrations took place in Tiananmen Square during Qingming festival, a traditional time to “sweep the graves,” mourning the death of Zhou Enlai and directed against the radical Maoists led by Jiang Qing. Tiananmen Square, located at the center of the capital city, has been the traditional site for popular protests since the May 4 Movement in 1919. Demonstrators gathered in Tiananmen Square and laid wreaths, poems, and posters at the Monument to the People’s Revolutionary Heroes to honor Zhou’s memory. The widely shared discontent with Mao’s radical policies was reflected in similar political events of public mourning and mass protests in other cities throughout the nation. 12 The events in Beijing were repressed by force on April 5. The incident is now referred to as the “April 5 Movement” or the “April 5 Tiananmen Incident.” Commemoration as a form of protest was an invention of the April 5 Movement. 13

Deng, a veteran revolutionary and skilled administrator who had been one of Mao’s chief lieutenants since the 1940s, had been purged by Mao in 1967 during the Cultural Revolution, but he survived in domestic exile. In 1973, when Premier Zhou Enlai was suffering from terminal cancer, Mao, himself increasingly enfeebled, summoned Deng back to Beijing to run the government that was driven by factional disputes between Cultural Revolution radicals, led by Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, and a more moderate bureaucratic faction, represented by Zhou Enlai that favored modernization and economic development over revolutionary turmoil. Mao purged Deng once again in February 1976, a month after Zhou Enlai died, and appointed a relative unknown named Hua Guofeng as his successor.

The Tiananmen Movement was rooted in the political, social, and economic changes, as well as the intellectual trends and cultural crises that occurred in the twilight of the Mao Zedong era in the mid-1970s and at the beginning of Deng Xiaoping’s period of reform and opening in the early 1980s.

Tiananmen in History

By end of the 1980s, people were complaining about various problems in the economy, especially inflation and official profiteering. Intellectuals who initially had enthusiastically supported Deng’s reform and opening policies became concerned, especially after the purge of Hu Yaobang and Fang Lizhi in 1987, that Deng’s vision was limited only to economic reforms. The younger generation of college students was worried about prospects after graduation and the state’s overall treatment of intellectuals. Jobs were still assigned by the government. A bitter joke complained that those using shaving knives for a living (barbers) earned more than those using surgical knives (doctors). An increasing number of students engaged in campus group discussions to debate what they could do to improve China’s future. Discussions were most intense in, but not limited to, elite Beijing universities.23

On January 6, 1989, Fang Lizhi, then working at the Beijing Astronomical Observatory, wrote a letter to Deng Xiaoping proposing “a general amnesty, specifically to include all political prisoners such as Wei Jingsheng” to “capture the spirit” of the anniversaries of important historical events—the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, the 70th anniversary of the May 4 Movement, and the 40th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.24 In China, anniversaries of important historical events are considered to be of great significance. In his letter, Fang reminded Deng that Wei Jingsheng had already been imprisoned for ten years. Fang’s initiative was followed by other requests for amnesty for political prisoners, including a letter signed by thirty-three intellectuals on February 13.25

Referring to the major anniversaries, the writer Su Xiaokang predicted, “The year 1989 is destined to be a singular memorial year which meets many historical giants.”26 Su was one of the authors of a prominent 1988 TV series, “River Elegy” (He shang), that used the Yellow River as a symbol of China’s inward-looking culture to intimate that China should open itself to the world outside. River Elegy aroused heated debates in Chinese society, especially among intellectuals and the party leadership.

On April 15, 1989, the sudden death of former general secretary, Hu Yaobang, triggered the 1989 Tiananmen Movement, the most serious open conflict between the Communist regime and the Chinese people since the 1949 establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Hu was a proponent of reform and had a good public image for reversing cases of unjustified persecution during the Mao era. Students, cognizant of Hu’s liberal reputation, felt especially connected with him, but they had done nothing to support him when he lost power in January 1987. Now, with the reform programs in retreat, students saw an opportunity to regain the initiative and to promote political change by commemorating Hu’s memory.27

Within hours after Hu’s death, big-character posters appeared on campuses, especially at Peking University, which soon became the center of the 1989 Movement. Founded in 1898, Peking University, known for its liberal tradition, had been at the center of the country’s political debates. In particular, the “Triangle,” a jumble of bulletin boards erected to form three sides on the campus, had historically been a symbolic space for free expression. Throughout the course of the 1989 Movement, students, teachers, and ordinary citizens gathered at the Triangle to express opinions, to learn of the latest developments, and to read big-character posters. The most highly concentrated poster sites became gathering points for student demonstrators on campuses all over the country.

The movement began with spontaneous mourning activities, similar to the mourning for Zhou Enlai in 1976. On April 17, several hundred students and young faculty from the Chinese University of Political Science and Law (CUPSL) marched to Tiananmen Square with a large floral wreath. Singing the Internationale, the Communist anthem, along their way to and again in the square, they held a brief but formal ceremony and laid the large wreath at the base of the Monument to the People’s Revolutionary Heroes. Even at the initial stage of the movement, when the marches expressed mourning rather than protest, the participants were uncertain about the regime’s reactions. A Peking University discussion group decided to avoid sensitive figures such as Fang Lizhi when organizing their activities in order to deprive the regime of any excuse to label them as “illegal.”28

In general, most students emphasized that they were neither against the country nor against the party. They wanted a genuine dialogue (duihua) with the government regarding their calls for a free press, free speech, and an end to corruption and inflation, a dialogue in which they would be treated as equal and legitimate partners.29 Instilled with revolutionary ideals throughout their education, many students in 1989 believed it was time for them to share the responsibility for the fate of the country.30 The popularity of the Internationale among the students was a sign of their Communist educations. But the government side kept rejecting the notion of an equal face-to-face conversation since it viewed the students as inferior in status and power.31

Late at night on April 17, Peking University students started marching to Tiananmen Square while carrying a large banner reading in Chinese calligraphy “China’s Soul.” They observed a moment of silence at the Monument to the People’s Revolutionary Heroes and sang the Internationale.32 During that night’s sit-in, they drafted a petition that later became known as the “Seven Demands.” It called on the government to

(1) affirm as correct Hu Yaobang's views on democracy and freedom; (2) admit that the campaigns against spiritual pollution and bourgeois liberalization had been wrong; (3) publish information on the income of state leaders and their family members; (4) end the ban on privately run newspapers and permit freedom of speech; (5) increase funding for education and raise intellectuals' pay; (6) end restrictions on demonstrations in Beijing; and (7) hold democratic elections to replace government officials who made bad policy decisions. In addition, they demanded that the government-controlled media print and broadcast their demands and that the government respond to them publicly.33

On April 19, students began a sit-in in front of Xinhua Gate, the entrance to Zhongnanhai, the seat of the central government near Tiananmen Square, demanding a dialogue with the leadership about their demands. Confrontations between students and police occurred in the early morning of April 20. The authorities, expecting that those under their rule would be compliant and loyal, felt insulted. The students in turn felt humiliated by the leadership’s reluctance to talk to them. The upshot was a more mobilized and organized movement.34 Tensions mounted as the officials rejected a dialogue. The immediate impact was the declaration of a campus strike and students camping out in Tiananmen Square prior to Hu Yaobang’s funeral on April 22.

On April 21, there was still no official response. Students from different colleges in Beijing spent the night in Tiananmen Square, which was supposed to be closed for Hu’s funeral scheduled to be held the next morning inside the Great Hall of the People on the western side of the square. On April 22, three students slipped through the lines of soldiers and reached the steps outside the Great Hall. Before the eyes of thousands, the three students knelt down. One of them held the long scroll of the petition over his head.

This was a classic image of traditional Confucian dissent, signifying both compliance and the peaceful intent of ordinary people imploring the ruler to hear them. Students were shocked by this scene. There were many turning points throughout the Tiananmen Movement, but this was an especially emotional dividing moment between the CCP authorities and the students—those inside the Great Hall refused to engage in dialogue with the students on their knees.

On April 23, the Beijing College Students Autonomous Federation was established, and student leaders were elected. It was called “autonomous” to stress its independence and to distinguish it from the student unions on campus that were under the control of the CCP, even though many leaders of the movement had been “three-good students” and student cadres within the CCP system.35 But the freer atmosphere of the 1980s had given them opportunities to think critically. Many student leaders who emerged in the course of the movement had been involved in earlier campus discussion groups. For example, Wang Dan, who topped the “21 most-wanted list” of college students after the Tiananmen crackdown, had been the organizer of a “Democratic Salon” at Peking University, and Wuer Kaixi, second on the most-wanted list, had organized a “Confucius Study Society” at Beijing Normal University.36

Also on April 23, General Secretary Zhao Ziyang departed for a scheduled visit to North Korea. In his absence, hardliners Premier Li Peng and President Yang Shangkun met with Deng Xiaoping on April 24 and convinced him that the student protests posed a significant danger to the regime.

On the evening of April 25, state-controlled CCTV and the Central China Radio Station broadcast an editorial to be published the next day in the authoritative CCP newspaper, the People’s Daily, designating the student demonstrations a “premeditated and organized turmoil with anti-party and anti-socialist motives.” If unchecked, they would lead to a “chaotic and unstable China without any future.”37 The students were outraged. People had been wondering about Deng’s attitude toward the demonstrations. Many had hoped that as a reformer he would support the students’ patriotic intentions. Just five years earlier, during the National Day parade (October 1, 1984), students from Peking University had displayed a large banner reading “Hello Xiaoping,” revealing their affection for him and their hope for the success of his reforms. But the editorial had made it clear that Deng regarded their efforts as “turmoil.”

On April 27, tens of thousands of students from major colleges in Beijing mounted a demonstration to protest the editorial. While on their march to the square, they were supported by cheering intellectuals, workers, housewives, and children. On April 29, State Council spokesman Yuan Mu held a meeting with some students, but the students had been chosen by the government from the official student unions, not the autonomous federation. Therefore, no substantive result was achieved.

Upon his return from North Korea on April 30, Zhao realized that the April 26 editorial had exacerbated the situation. The official verdict had failed to intimidate the people. Instead, the April 27 demonstrations had emboldened the students, who were confident that the government would not deploy troops against them. Yet Zhao, privy to the inflexible position of his hard-line colleagues, feared that if the situation was not handled carefully, bloodshed might ensue.38 On May 4, in a speech at a meeting of the Asian Development Bank in the Great Hall, Zhao tried to walk a fine line, indicating his willingness to engage in a dialogue with the students but not disavowing the verdict in the editorial. Outside the Great Hall, students proceeded with their planned demonstrations to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the May 4 Movement. On the same day, journalists from nearly every Beijing-based news outlet, together with workers and citizens, joined the students in their march to the square. One of the journalists’ banners proclaimed, “We want to tell the truth; don’t force us to lie.” In the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, the first formal demonstration did not take place until May 4. It, too, was organized by an independent student federation called the Guangzhou Patriotic Student Federation and its leaders had been elected by representatives from universities and colleges in the area.39

Zhao tried desperately to repair the damage done during his absence, especially that wrought by the April 26 editorial. His efforts to meet with Deng were spurned—Deng had already decided to dismiss him from his position as general secretary.40 The People’s Daily on May 7, during the brief period of media openness, quoted Zhao as saying it would be beneficial for the government to conduct a dialogue with the students. Students on various campuses were debating whether they should end their strikes. At Peking University, a majority of the students voted to continue boycotting classes lest they lose their leverage for a dialogue. But others were concerned that the government would “settle accounts” afterward by retaliating against the student protestors. One Triangle poster called for retraction of the April 26 editorial and official recognition of the independent student organizations as preconditions for the resumption of classes.41

Student response to the April 26 editorial was rooted in the culturally laden concept of “yuan” or “yuanwang”—wrongful accusations that give rise to a desire for justice. They hoped their names would be cleared, as had those of the participants in the April 5 Movement. Besides, negative entries in the official dossiers (dang’an) that accompanied people throughout their lives would affect their futures, condemning them to inferior job assignments.

The students and their leaders were divided about what to do next. Efforts for a real dialogue with the government continued as a “dialogue delegation” was formed. Others proposed the idea of a hunger strike because their peaceful petitions for a direct, open, and equal dialogue had been rebuffed. On the evening of May 12, in a public speech at the Triangle, Chai Ling, a graduate student at Beijing Normal University, expressed the prevailing frustration with the government’s refusal to engage the students in dialogue and encouraged them to join the hunger strike: “We only want the government to talk with us and to say that we are not traitors. . . . We, the children, are ready to sacrifice ourselves.”42

On May 13, just two days prior to the arrival of Soviet leader Gorbachev for an historic Sino-Soviet summit, students launched a hunger strike in Tiananmen Square. Beginning with several hundred students, at its height it grew to some 3,000 hunger strikers. Most participants expected the hunger strike would only last for just a day or two, but it continued for a full seven days. According to official estimates, between May 13 and May 24, thirty-two hospitals in Beijing treated 9,158 student hunger strikers, of whom 8,205 required hospitalization. Many of the hunger strikers were treated multiple times.43 The self-sacrifice of the youth inspired sympathy from ordinary citizens and ignited more protests throughout the country. Residents in Beijing poured into Tiananmen Square to support the students. Public order was unprecedentedly good; even thieves published a statement that they would not steal during the hunger strike.44 The emotionally powerful Hunger Strike Manifesto reflected the influence of the language and rhetoric of Communist revolutionary narratives:

Even though our shoulders are still soft and tender, even though death seems to us too weighty, when history demands it, we have no choice but to die . . . Farewell mothers and, farewell fathers! Please, forgive me, if your child who cannot be loyal [to the country] and [meet the demands of] filial manner at the same time! Farewell, people! Please allow us to use this means, however reluctantly, to demonstrate our loyalty. . . . The vows written with our lives will brighten the skies of the Republic!45

After the hunger strike began on May 13 and before Gorbachev’s visit on May 15, there was another attempt to set up a meeting with the government. Students were hopeful for a real dialogue when their two conditions for a meeting were met—to choose their own student representatives and to broadcast the dialogue live. But the meeting ended abruptly when the dialogue delegation learned that it was not being broadcast live. As students were hunger striking in Tiananmen Square, Gorbachev was received in the Great Hall of the People instead of in the square as originally planned. The change of venue was a great loss of face for Deng Xiaoping. Journalists from all over the world, assigned to cover the first summit after thirty years of hostility between the two Communist countries, ended up focusing on the new generation of Chinese students who were risking their lives to fight for the ideals that Communism had promised.

Zhao Ziyang became isolated within the leadership when his political opponents favored imposition of martial law. In the early morning of May 19, in Tiananmen Square he made his last public appearance. He took a bullhorn from one of the students to address them in a tired voice filled with anguish:

Students, we came too late. Sorry, students . . . You have been on a hunger strike for six days, and it’s now the seventh day. You cannot go on like this. I know, you are doing this in the hope that the Party and the government will give a most satisfactory answer for what you are asking for . . . I am old—it doesn’t matter; you are still young—you have much time ahead of you.46

On the same day, students decided to end the hunger strike and replace it with a sit-in. At the same time, troops were moving into the city before the official declaration of martial law on May 20.47 Zhao’s last attempt to protect the students had failed.

Establishment intellectuals close to Zhao were critical of the students for failing to end the movement earlier. They believed it cost the political life of Zhao, who, had he remained in power, might have brought about real reform after the crisis had passed. However, there were many reasons why the students were unprepared to take such a chance on Zhao. They were confused by conflicting news accounts—there was no governance transparency or free press. Besides, after riding a roller coaster between hopes and disappointments since April 15, they were exhausted from lack of sleep and later from the hunger strike, and beset by fears of official retaliation. This was compounded by the distrust created by the condemnatory editorial obviously approved by Deng Xiaoping. Moreover, Zhao Ziyang had been implicated in the corruption that the students opposed. He did not enjoy the liberal reputation of former general secretary Hu Yaobang.

The movement remained nonviolent even after martial-law troops entered Beijing on May 19, on orders from Premier Li Peng and authorized by Deng Xiaoping. Ordinary citizens and students blocked the army and tried to reason with the soldiers, bringing them food, water, and even flowers. Stymied in their attempt to enter the city, the troops withdrew and people applauded them. No one expected that the army would later return. The subsequent government rationale for the military crackdown was that the situation was out of control. But throughout the movement, students had been trying to prove that they were not counterrevolutionary malcontents. On May 23, when three men hurled paint at Mao’s portrait in Tiananmen Square in late May 1989, the students immediately turned them over to the police. Besides, by the third week of May, the movement was losing momentum.48 Journalists covering the event had good reason to think the story was over. In fact, in an attempt to revive the movement, with three others Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace laureate who died as a political prisoner in 2017, launched a hunger strike on June 2, just one day before the Tiananmen Massacre. On the night of June 3, when over 200,000 army troops were deployed in Beijing with orders to clear Tiananmen Square, Liu and his colleagues negotiated with the army commander in the square and convinced him to let the students leave the square peacefully. Liu reported this to the students, and after a voice vote they proceeded to leave the square.

But nevertheless there were still casualties in Tiananmen Square. For example, Cheng Renxing, a twenty-five-year-old graduate of the People’s University of China, was shot and killed at a flagpole near the north end of the square; and Dai Jingping, a twenty-seven-year-old master’s student of the Beijing Agricultural University, was shot to death right beside the Mao Zedong Memorial Hall.49 Although the students were promised a safe exit, they were not safe after they left the Square. On the morning of June 4, students who had just left the square and were peacefully returning to their campuses were chased from behind by tanks. Among the known victims, five were killed and nine were wounded. Fang Zheng, a senior at Beijing Sports College, was among the survivors, but he was crushed by a tank and lost both legs. He could have crossed the road divider before the tank ran him over, but he was trying to help a schoolmate to safety. During the subsequent nationwide purge, Fang asked the schoolmate whose life he had saved to testify that he was not a “rioter.” Out of fear, she refused. The authorities forced Fang to say that he had been run over by a car, not a tank. When Fang refused to lie, he was denied his diploma.

Troops entered the city of Beijing opening fire blindly in all directions.50 The victims included young children. T, a student at Peking University, tried to save a boy of about ten who had been wounded by gunfire near Muxidi, but the boy died at the Children’s Hospital. His body, still unclaimed after seven days, was collected by the government.51 Residents of Beijing, infuriated by the troops’ wanton slaughter of unarmed civilians, came out to block the troops. Some attacked the soldiers with sticks and rocks and set fire to military vehicles. The Chinese government cited such attacks to support its claim that it was suppressing a riot, but those attacks did not occur until after the military had started to fire at unarmed civilians at around 10 pm on June 3.52 Moreover, there were instances of students and citizens trying to protect soldiers from attacks by the angry crowds.

Even as the massacre was occurring, some expressed fear that all the blood would be shed in vain. One Chinese man asked a Canadian reporter on the street, “Does the world know what happened here?”53 Liane Lee, a college journalism student from Hong Kong, was outside the Museum of the Chinese Revolution next to Tiananmen Square on the night of June. She fainted upon seeing a young boy covered in blood. When she regained consciousness, people tried to put her into an ambulance. She told them that the wounded needed the ambulance more than she did. A second ambulance arrived and again she declined to get in. A middle-aged female doctor held her hands and said to her in English: “Child, we need you to return to Hong Kong. We need you to leave alive to tell the world what our government did to us tonight.”54

The Chinese media also tried to get the news out. Wu Xiaoyong, deputy director of the English-language service of Radio Beijing55 and son of Wu Xueqian, China’s former foreign minister and vice premier, tried to broadcast a statement internationally:

This is Radio Beijing. Please remember June the third, 1989. The most tragic event happened in the Chinese capital, Beijing. Thousands of people, most of them innocent civilians, were killed by fully armed soldiers when they forced their way into the city. Among the killed are our colleagues at Radio Beijing. The soldiers were riding on armored vehicles and used machine guns against thousands of local residents and students who tried to block their way. When the army convoys made a breakthrough, soldiers continued to spray their bullets indiscriminately at crowds in the street.56

Wu was placed under house arrest after the crackdown. Two CCTV anchors resisted by dressing in black and reporting with sad expressions on their faces about the army’s successful crackdown on the “counterrevolutionary riot.” They were both removed from their positions.