1989 Tiananmen Square Protests

This Article is Under Construction.

“Wörk, wörk, wörk.” — Germany

There may be lots of WIPs, missing icons, bad formatting, and/or unedited material from other sources on this page. Consider helping out!

Template:CountryInfo6/4 Tiananmen Square Protests refers to the series of protests of 1989 held by students at Tiananmen Square against the Chinese government (specifically Deng and his allies). This is most known for the large scale protest and subsequent massacre that happened on June 4th, conducted on unarmed protesters by the People's Liberation Army (there were spillovers to the 3rd and 5th, but it mainly happened on the 4th). It was a result of two clashing ideologies and a fundamental fear that the CCP had that they would be destroyed in the process.

The young and naïve students, with limited knowledge through education in the communist regime, promoted their best guesses of what freedom is supposed to be, some examples include Democratic Socialism, Gorbachevism, Liberal Socialism, Tridemism, or even Maoism. At least, they know that their status quo of Dengism was anything but.

The Tiananmen Square protests and massacre has become the most sensitive topic in the PRC today. Any references to them will be heavily censored and removed.

History

Background

Deng Xiaoping selected Hu Yaobang as one of his advisors, and Hu was part of a reformist faction that called to liberalize China both economically and politically. A lot of young people became sympathetic to Hu. Deng did some economic reforms and got some people rich first ("crossing the river by stepping on the stones"), which benefited the CCP elite the most since they are profiting from the amount of control they have over the economic sector. This led to a public resentment towards government and party corruption. Calls for political reform were suppressed, as Deng indented to do capitalistic reforms in the economic sector only. So when the opening-up came with the Western ideas of freedom, that was a no-no. Hu and Deng were clashing with their different ideas, which led to Hu's forced resignation in 1987.

Hu died in 1989, and two days later students came to Tiananmen Square to mourn him. This kicked off the string of protests, and the students wanted the government to reform its corrupt system. Newspapers were ready to publish mournings of Hu, but they were reprimanded in Shanghai, leading to further protests. The new general secretary Zhao Ziyang declared martial law on May 20th and another time on June 3rd.

"Storming" Zhongnanhai

On the night of April 18th, three days after Hu died, students organized a sit in protest at the Xinhua Gate, which is the entrance to Zhongnanhai, the CCP central government compound. Armed police formed a line to oppose the students who wanted to deliver flower wreaths inside the compound for Hu's death, and they also wanted to submit their "Seven Demands":

1. Reassess Hu Yaobang's legacy
2. Punish officials who attacked civilians
3. Legalize press freedom
4. Publicize officials' wealth and profiteering
5. Reform education
6. Reverse anti-liberalization campaigns
7. Report on protests fairly

Behind the human barricade of armed police, the students were shouting things like " Li Peng come out!". Li Peng was the premier at the time who was basically head of government. Allegedly some people did try to push through the barricade of police, but according to witnesses accounts they believed that they were disguised agents who are trying to stir things up and escalate the situation. There were people throwing shoes and pushing in shouting "go in, go in", and once they rushed into Zhongnanhai they never came out because they were all CCP affiliates, and once they go in they just stayed there because their job is done. No actual students "stormed" Zhongnanhai, as at the time they tried to verify all who went in Zhongnanhai against student records, and they weren't really students, making the possibility of agents present.

Zhao Ziyang instructed the police to not carry bayonets and both sides were to remain non-violent. Li Peng was very pro-martial law and wanted to violently suppress the students, while Zhao Ziyang was more sympathetic and wanted things to deescalate and find a peaceful solution.

Still, on April 19th and 20th, students gathered at Zhongnanhai, exchanges and intense standoffs occurred, along with clashes as well. The police had clubs and belts with icon buckles on them, so injuries still happened. On the 20th, police used batons to beat down students. This was the first bloodbath of the protests of 89.

Meetings and Negotiations

On April 22, students wanted to meet with the CCP leadership. But it never happened until May 18th.

On April 26, there was an editorial that came out from the People's Daily titled "We must take a clear cut stance against disturbances". The editorial defined the student movement as a destabilizing anti-Party movement.

On May 17th, Deng Xiaoping held meetings within the Politburo Standing Committee to state that martial law was needed. Zhao Ziyang spoke against this because he wanted to protect the protestors. The following day, May 18th, a second meeting happened at Deng's home in Beijing where Zhao was not involved. In this meeting, Deng effectively said that troops were needed and bloodshed will occur. On the same day, Li Peng met with the student protesters. The point of the meeting was useless as the Party has already made its decision.

June Fourth Protests and Massacre

A massive gathering at Tiananmen Square with thousands of students happened on June 3rd, and the People's Liberation Army arrived under order of the CCP. The killing didn't start until late into the night of June 3rd and into the morning of June 4th, because the order was to clear the square by 5:00 AM next morning. The PLA wasn't the army of the nation, it was the army of the communist party. This was not a decision or will of the people to suppress these protestors

MORE WIP

Massacre Denial

The Chinese government denies the massacre ever happened. Their communist shills also repeat the same lie, claiming that the massacre didn't happen, or try to downplay it by saying "only 200 people died". These shills also claims that the local Chinese all agree that only few people died and it wasn't as bad as "Western propaganda" makes it out to be, but of course anyone who have saw the massacre and dared to speak about the truth would be censored.

No One Died in Tiananmen Square?

One of the ways the shills try to deny the massacre is by saying something like "no student died in Tiananmen Square" and therefore the idea of a "Tiananmen Square massacre" was null and void. This is semantic manipulation. It is true that more people died in the surrounding streets and areas, and that's why the massacre is more commonly known in Chinese as the "June Fourth Incident".

Additionally, deniers will site many Western news and WikiLeaks stating things like "the square was clear" and "no bloodshed in Tiananmen Square". The shills would then argue that there is no "Tiananmen Square massacre". But, people were killed in surrounding areas, and is that not a massacre still? And first, people did die in the square, according to witness accounts of people who were actually in the square and saw it firsthand. And unlike Western reporters who had a language barrier and possibly limited access to information in the following day, the Chinese were able to gather information from the deceased's family members, relatives, and fellow students. Due to this, the data is more complete in Chinese-speaking circles.

Protest participator Tang Kai (唐恺) who was sitting at the stairs of the Monument to the People's Heroes (which was across the Tiananmen gate), said he saw bodies lying on the ground after soldiers came. He saw tanks, he saw the military men shooting at protestors when they refused to leave the Great Hall of the People. Reporter Kate Adie was live at the square, and you could clearly hear gunshots in the background, further destroying the "no deaths in Tiananmen" myth. She also reported that most deaths happened off the streets near the square.

Benevolent CCP Leaders?

There is another CCP shill narrative that the CCP leaders at the time were benevolent or nice. Shills claim that the CCP was trying to have conversations with the students, but it was the violent students that pushed and escalated things, and martial law was enacted because there was no other choice. This is simply not true. To claim that the CCP was gracious for allowing the students to talk with them is twisting the reality. The only person that wanted talks at the time, maybe a few others but not as straightforward, was Zhao Ziyang. He was sympathetic to the students and wanted things to stop, basically he went against the orders of Deng Xiaoping who was very much calling for martial law and violence. Zhao's eventual demise and house arrest was because he supported the students.

Another thing the shills try to use is videos from the talks with Li Peng on May 18, and the students were rude. But, the Party had already decided what they were going to do, as in Deng's meeting with other CCP officials on the same day talking about needing to enact martial law, making the meeting with students pointless. It was true that at the time individual officials were reachable, but it was only the individual, not the whole government, and they just had to play into certain meetings for public image's sake. This was the last time officials met with the dissident, minus the time in April 25 1999 when premier Zhu Rongji met with Falun Gong adherents outside of Zhongnanhai. But after that, it was the end of this meeting with officials type of thing.

Massive Censorship

The CCP tries to hide June 4th so hard and pretend nothing happened, it's kind of obvious that something happened on this day.

MORE WIP

Relationships

Enemies

• Dengism - Corrupt tyrant who refuses to reform! It's your fault you can't handle criticism, it's your fault that you opened fire on us! Now you are desperately trying to paint us as terrorists, either that or deny the whole thing ever happened.

How to draw

File:64 flag.png

Anti-Authoritarian symbol with "64" written in Chinese

1989 Tiananmen Square Protests has a drawing rating of intermediate.

1. Draw a ball.
2. Fill it with white.
3. Add three black arrows pointing downwards, facing left.
4. Add the Chinese characters 六四 beside the arrows.
5. Add a red headband around the ball's top and a plastic bag on each side.
6. Add Chinese eyes and you're done!

Color Name		HEX
	White	#FFFFFF
	Black	#000000

Gallery

Informational

• 
  Map of the Tiananmen Square massacre