Figure 1.--Here we see the crowds forming in Tinnamen just before the PLA and security forces attacked the demonstrators. Ntice the relica of the Statue of Liberty. |
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More than a decadec after China's 1972 opening to the West, large numbers of Chinese people, esopecially students began asking why they did not have rights enjoyed by people in the West. This led to a series of protests and demonstrations throughout China in the spring of 1989. There was increasing interest among university students and others in China for political and economic reform. China by 1989 had experienced a decade of impressive economic growth and liberalization. Many young Chinese had been exposed to Western ideas and standards of living. Hard liners which were anott all that in favor of the reforms were apauled by these protes protests which they described as 'bourgeois liberalism'. These protests culminated on the night of June 3–4 with a bloody government crackdown on the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The protests were student-led demonstrations calling for the rights prevalent in Western society -- namely democracy, free speech, and a free press. Demonstrations occurred in cities throughout the country. It wasthe events in Beijing—especially in Tiananmen Square, seen as linked to other protests especially, as the May Fourth Movement (1919) have come to symbolize the entire incident. Not only was Beijing the capital, but there were large numbers of Western jourbalists present. Pro-democracy advocates, mostly universuity students, marched through Beijing to Tiananmen Square protesting the death of Hu Yaobang. Hu was a former Communist Party leader who had promoted democratic reform in China and had been demoted as a result. As a tribute to Hu, the students called for a more open, democratic Chinese government. Thousands of people joined the students in Tiananmen Square. The protesters iincreased to the tens of thousands (mid-May). They erected a reoplica of the statue of liberty in the middle of the Square. They were attacked by the People's Liberation Army and security forces leading to the Tiananmen Square Massacre (June 4 and 5).
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