Alexander CekalaWhat was Tiananmen Square?
The Tiananmen square protest of 1989 resulted in a massacre which probably led to the death of a few thousand people. Read on:
Causes
The Tiananmen protest was mainly a response to the economic and political liberalisation of the country. The two groups involved, the students and the urban workers, were both worried by this, although in reality they had opposite aims, with the students desiring further reform and the workers believing the reform had gone too far.
The final event that set the protest off was the death of former Chinese Secretary General Hu Yaobang, who had supported further reforms and was made a scapegoat for doing so. The students responded to his death by demanding a change in the official version view of him.
The Event
The protests started small but grew in response to government actions, which branded them as undesirable elements and in this time it came to have wider demands such as the freedom of the press and the reform of the Communist Party.
This focus on party corruption gained the protest the support of workers, despite their disagreements over economic reform.
On May the 13th, about two weeks into the protests students gathered in Tianenmen Square, with a number beginning hunger strikes. The government was split about how to respond, with Zhao Ziyang desiring a soft approach and Li Peng desiring a crackdown.
On May 20th martial law was declared and a few days later the army entered the city, battling past road blocks and using guns, flamethrowers and occasionally tear gas to clear the way. A red cross official reported at least 2 600 dead and some other sources confirm a high number of casualties, although the government denies these numbers.
Affects
In response to the protests the government ousted Ziyang and arrested many of the protests leaders, executing some. It also halted economic and political reforms, although the economic ones in particular, slowly began to take place again.
In the end if created a lasting impression to those who had witnessed it and to the western world, but the younger generation responded more positively to later reforms, being unable to remember the protest.
Media
All of this was well covered by western media which were present in China due to a state visit by Gorbachev. Their reports and pictures of the protesters and a statue entitled the Goddess of Democracy gained the students western support.
And
When writing about such a recent event it can be easy to confuse the past and the present. The current Chinese government contains no-one who was directly involved in giving orders regarding Tiananmen and so I will leave it to the reader to judge whether this is something that is in the past, or whether the current regime is partially responsible for this through its later actions.
Or maybe I should leave such a judgement to someone infinitely more wise, like a god,
The Photo
The photo below shows a lone protester after the crackdown. This man refused to move from in front of a column of tanks and for this he was named one of Times's hundred most influential people of the century.
Adam
Causes
The Tiananmen protest was mainly a response to the economic and political liberalisation of the country. The two groups involved, the students and the urban workers, were both worried by this, although in reality they had opposite aims, with the students desiring further reform and the workers believing the reform had gone too far.
The final event that set the protest off was the death of former Chinese Secretary General Hu Yaobang, who had supported further reforms and was made a scapegoat for doing so. The students responded to his death by demanding a change in the official version view of him.
The Event
The protests started small but grew in response to government actions, which branded them as undesirable elements and in this time it came to have wider demands such as the freedom of the press and the reform of the Communist Party.
This focus on party corruption gained the protest the support of workers, despite their disagreements over economic reform.
On May the 13th, about two weeks into the protests students gathered in Tianenmen Square, with a number beginning hunger strikes. The government was split about how to respond, with Zhao Ziyang desiring a soft approach and Li Peng desiring a crackdown.
On May 20th martial law was declared and a few days later the army entered the city, battling past road blocks and using guns, flamethrowers and occasionally tear gas to clear the way. A red cross official reported at least 2 600 dead and some other sources confirm a high number of casualties, although the government denies these numbers.
Affects
In response to the protests the government ousted Ziyang and arrested many of the protests leaders, executing some. It also halted economic and political reforms, although the economic ones in particular, slowly began to take place again.
In the end if created a lasting impression to those who had witnessed it and to the western world, but the younger generation responded more positively to later reforms, being unable to remember the protest.
Media
All of this was well covered by western media which were present in China due to a state visit by Gorbachev. Their reports and pictures of the protesters and a statue entitled the Goddess of Democracy gained the students western support.
And
When writing about such a recent event it can be easy to confuse the past and the present. The current Chinese government contains no-one who was directly involved in giving orders regarding Tiananmen and so I will leave it to the reader to judge whether this is something that is in the past, or whether the current regime is partially responsible for this through its later actions.
Or maybe I should leave such a judgement to someone infinitely more wise, like a god,
The Photo
The photo below shows a lone protester after the crackdown. This man refused to move from in front of a column of tanks and for this he was named one of Times's hundred most influential people of the century.
A lone protester
Adam
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However, they all give substaintially different accounts of how it happened...so it's all a bit uncertain.
At least that is my understanding of it.
Adam
Something similar like this happened except on a smaller scale in Ireland too right? Bloody Sunday.
Too damn trigger happy.