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Students, we came too late. We are sorry. You talk about us, criticize us, it is all necessary. The reason that I came here is not to ask you to forgive us. All I want to say is that students are getting very weak. It is the 7th day since you went on a hunger strike. You can't continue like this. [...] You are still yo... |
—Zhao Ziyang at Tiananmen Square, 19 May 1989 |
Outside Beijing |
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On 19 April, the editors of the World Economic Herald, a magazine close to reformists, decided to publish a commemorative section on Hu. Inside was an article by Yan Jiaqi, which commented favorably on the Beijing student protests, and called for a reassessment of Hu's 1987 purge. Sensing the conservative political tre... |
On 27 May, over 300,000 people in Hong Kong gathered at Happy Valley Racecourse for a gathering called the Concert for Democracy in China (Chinese: 民主歌聲獻中華). Many Hong Kong celebrities sang songs and expressed their support for the students in Beijing. The following day, a procession of 1.5 million people, one fourth o... |
Military action |
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Martial law |
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The Chinese government declared martial law on 20 May and mobilised at least 30 divisions from five of the country's seven military regions. At least 14 of the PLA's 24 army corps contributed troops. Guangzhou's civil aviation authorities suspended civil airline travel to prepare for transporting military units. |
The army's initial entry into the capital was blocked in the suburbs by throngs of protesters. Seeing no way forward, the authorities ordered the army to withdraw on 24 May. All government forces then retreated to bases outside the city. |
Defying martial law, students entertained themselves with music, drinking, and smoking on the square. At the same time, internal divisions intensified within the student movement itself. By late May, the students became increasingly disorganised with no clear leadership or unified course of action. Moreover, Tiananmen ... |
Unlike more moderate student leaders, Chai seemed willing to allow the student movement to end in a violent confrontation. In an interview given in late May, Chai stated: |
What we actually are hoping for is bloodshed, the moment when the government is ready to brazenly butcher the people. Only when the Square is awash with blood will the people of China open their eyes. |
— Chai Ling, The Gate of Heavenly Peace |
However, she felt that she was unable to convince her fellow students of this. She also claimed that her expectation of a violent crackdown was something she had heard from Li Lu and not an idea of her own. |
1 June |
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Li Peng's Report |
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On 1 June, Li Peng issued a report titled "On the True Nature of the Turmoil", which was circulated to every member of the Politburo. The report concludes that the demonstrators' leadership, referred to as a "tiny minority", had "organised and plotted the turmoil", and that they were using the square as a base to provo... |
MSS Report |
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On the same day, another report, issued by Ministry of State Security chief Jia Chunwang, was submitted to the party leadership, and likewise sent to every member of the Politburo, as well as to senior Party elders, including Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian and Chen Yun. |
The report emphasized the danger of infiltration of bourgeois liberalism into China and the negative effect that Western ideological influence, particularly from the United States, had on the students. The MSS had determined that the United States had infiltrated the student movement by various means, including the use... |
2–3 June |
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In conjunction with the plan to clear the square by force, the Politburo received word from army headquarters stating that troops were ready to help stabilize the capital and that they understood the necessity and legality of martial law to overcome the turmoil. |
On 2 June, with increasing action on the part of protesters, the government saw that it was time to act. Protests broke out as newspapers published articles that called for the students to leave Tiananmen Square and end the movement. Many of the students in the square were not willing to leave and were outraged by the ... |
Three intellectuals—Liu Xiaobo, Zhou Duo, and Gao Xin—and Taiwanese singer Hou Dejian declared a second hunger strike to revive the movement. After weeks of occupying the square, the students were tired, and internal rifts opened between moderate and hardline student groups. In their declaration speech, the hunger stri... |
On 2 June, Deng Xiaoping and several party elders met with the three PSC members—Li Peng, Qiao Shi, and Yao Yilin—who remained after Zhao Ziyang and Hu Qili had been ousted. The committee members agreed to clear the square so "the riot can be halted and order be restored to the Capital". They also agreed that the squar... |
On the evening of 2 June, an accident occurred in which a PAP jeep ran onto a sidewalk, killing three civilian pedestrians and injuring a fourth. This incident sparked fear that the army and the police were trying to advance into Tiananmen Square. Student leaders issued emergency orders to set up roadblocks at major in... |
On the morning of 3 June, students and citizens intercepted and questioned a busload of plainclothed soldiers at Xinjiekou. Isolated pockets of soldiers were similarly surrounded and interrogated. |
The soldiers were beaten by the crowd, as were Beijing security personnel who attempted to aid the soldiers. Some of the soldiers were kidnapped when they attempted to head for the hospital. Several other buses carrying weapons, gear, and supplies were intercepted and boarded around Tiananmen. |
At 1 pm, a crowd intercepted one of these buses at Liubukou, and several men raised military helmets on bayonets to show the rest of the crowd. |
At 2:30 pm, a clash broke out between protesters and police. The police attempted to disperse the crowd with tear gas, but demonstrators counterattacked and threw rocks, forcing them to retreat inside the Zhongnanhai compound through the west gate. |
At 5:30 pm, several thousand troops awaiting orders began to retreat from the Great Hall of the People. That evening, the government leaders continued to monitor the situation. |
3–4 June |
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In the evening on 3 June, the government issued an emergency announcement urging citizens to "stay off the streets and away from Tiananmen Square". Meanwhile, protesters made their own broadcasts across various university campuses in Beijing to call for students and citizens to arm themselves and assemble at intersecti... |
Chang'an Avenue |
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On 3 June, at 8:00 p.m., the 38th Army, led by interim commander Zhang Meiyuan, began to advance from military office compounds in Shijingshan and Fentai District in western Beijing along the western extension of Chang'an Avenue toward the square to the east. At 9:30 p.m, this army encountered a blockade set up by pro... |
Other troops fired warning shots into the air, which was ineffective. At 10:10 pm, an army officer picked up a megaphone and urged the protesters to disperse. |
At about 10:30 p.m., still being pummeled by rocks thrown by protesters, the 38th Army troops opened fire with live ammunition. The crowds were stunned that the army was using live ammunition and fell back towards Muxidi Bridge. The troops used expanding bullets, prohibited by international law for use in warfare betwe... |
The advance of the army was again halted by another blockade at Muxidi, about 5 km west of the square. After protesters repelled an attempt by an anti-riot brigade to storm the bridge, regular troops advanced on the crowd and turned their weapons on them. Soldiers alternated between shooting into the air and firing dir... |
Throughout the street fighting, demonstrators attacked troops with poles, rocks, and molotov cocktails; Jeff Widener reported witnessing rioters setting fire to military vehicles and beating the soldiers inside them to death. On one avenue in western Beijing, anti-government protestors torched a military convoy of more... |
In the evening, a firefight broke out between soldiers and demonstrators at Shuangjing. |
On 5 June 1989, The Wall Street Journal reported on the fighting: "As columns of tanks and tens of thousands of soldiers approached Tiananmen, many troops were set on by angry mobs who screamed, 'Fascists'. Dozens of soldiers were pulled from trucks, severely beaten, and left for dead. At an intersection west of the sq... |
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