Protests led by students and workers, known in China as the June Fourth Incident, were held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, from 15 April to 4 June 1989. After weeks of unsuccessful attempts between the demonstrators and the Chinese government to find a peaceful resolution, the Chinese government initiated martial law in late May and deployed troops to occupy the square on the night of 3 June in what is referred to as the Tiananmen Square massacre. The events are sometimes called the '89 Democracy Movement, the Tiananmen Square Incident, or the Tiananmen uprising. The Chinese government terms the events the political turmoil between the spring and summer of 1989.
The protests were initiated by the death of former pro-reform Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Hu Yaobang in April 1989, amid the backdrop of rapid economic development and social change in post-Mao China. The movement's goals reflected anxieties among the people and political elite about the nation's future. Common grievances at the time included inflation, corruption, dismantling of the "iron rice bowl", limited preparedness of graduates for the new economy, and restrictions on political participation. Although the protests were highly disorganised with varying goals, student protestors called for reforms including the rollback of the removal of iron rice bowl jobs, greater political accountability, constitutional due process, democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech. Workers' protests were generally focused on economic issues, specifically inflation and Deng's economic reforms, which weakened Mao-era guarantees such as lifetime employment in state-owned enterprises and associated workplace benefits. These groups united around anti-corruption demands, adjusting economic policies, and protecting social security. At the height of the protests on May 17, about one million people were assembled in the square.
As the protests developed, Chinese authorities responded with both conciliatory and hardline tactics, exposing deep divisions within the party leadership. By May, a student-led hunger strike galvanised support around the country for the demonstrators, and the protests spread to some 400 cities.
On 20 May, the State Council declared martial law, and as many as 300,000 troops were mobilized to Beijing, but were halted by mass nonviolent resistance from the protestors and Beijing's civilian population. After several weeks of standoffs and confrontations between the army and demonstrators, a 1 June meeting among the CCP's leadership decided to clear the square. Chinese troops advanced into central parts of Beijing through the city's major highways in the early morning hours of 4 June, and engaged in bloody clashes with demonstrators attempting to block them, in which many people – demonstrators, bystanders, and soldiers – were killed or injured. The vast majority of killings were clustered in Beijing's western suburbs along Chang'an Avenue. Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundreds to the low thousands, with thousands more wounded. On June 5, after military forces cleared the Square, an unidentified individual, later referred to as "Tank Man" briefly stood in front of a column of tanks, temporarily blocking their movement. The photograph of the event became widely circulated internationally and is often regarded as one of the most recognizable images of the 20th century. It is subject to censorship in China.
The event had both immediate and longer-term consequences. Western countries imposed arm embargoes on China and various Western media outlets labeled the crackdown a massacre. In the aftermath of the protests, the Chinese government suppressed other protests around China, carried out mass arrests of protesters which catalysed Operation Yellowbird, strictly controlled coverage of the events in the domestic and foreign affiliated press, and demoted or purged officials it deemed sympathetic to the protests. The government also invested heavily into creating more effective police riot control units. More broadly, the suppression was followed by a halt to political reforms which began in 1986 as well as the New Enlightenment movement, and a slowdown in liberalising policies of the 1980s, which were later partly resumed after Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in 1992. In the longer term, political liberalisation was curtailed, while market-oriented economic reforms continued and were accelerated after 1992 under strong state direction led by Deng Xiaoping.
Considered a watershed event, reactions to the protests set limits on political expression in China that have lasted up to the present day. The events remain one of the most sensitive and most widely censored topics in China.
The Chinese government has used numerous names for the event since 1989. As the events unfolded, it was labelled a "counter revolutionary rebellion", which was later changed to simply "riot", followed by "political turmoil" and "1989 storm". Currently, the CCP and the PRC term the events the "political turmoil between the spring and summer of 1989" (1989年春夏之交的政治风波; 1989 Nián Chūnxià Zhījiāo de Zhèngzhì Fēngbō).
In China, the crackdown is known as the "June Fourth Incident" (六四事件; liùsì shìjiàn). Outside mainland China, and among circles critical of the crackdown within mainland China, the crackdown is commonly referred to in Chinese as "June Fourth Massacre" (六四屠殺; liùsì túshā) and "June Fourth Crackdown" (六四鎮壓; liùsì zhènyā). To bypass censorship by the Great Firewall, alternative names have sprung up to describe the events on the Internet, such as May 35th, VIIV (Roman numerals for 6 and 4), Eight Squared (since 82=64) and 8964 (in yymd format).
In English, the terms "Tiananmen Square Massacre", "Tiananmen Square Protests", and "Tiananmen Square Crackdown" are often used to describe the series of events. However, much of the violence in Beijing did not actually happen in Tiananmen, but outside the square along a stretch of Chang'an Avenue only a few miles long, and especially near the Muxidi area. The term also gives a misleading impression that demonstrations only happened in Beijing, when in fact, they occurred in many cities throughout China.
Boluan Fanzheng and economic reforms
The Cultural Revolution ended with chairman Mao Zedong's death in 1976 and the arrest of the Gang of Four. The movement, spearheaded by Mao, had caused severe damage to the country's initially diverse economic and social fabric. As a result, the country was now mired in poverty as economic production slowed or came to a halt.
Deng Xiaoping proposed the idea of Boluan Fanzheng ("bringing order out of chaos") to correct the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution. He launched a comprehensive program to reform the Chinese economy called the reform and opening up. Within several years, the country's focus on ideological purity was replaced by a concerted attempt to achieve material prosperity. To oversee his reform agenda, Deng promoted his allies to top government and party posts. Zhao Ziyang was named Premier, the head of government, in September 1980, and Hu Yaobang became CCP General Secretary in 1982. Deng had believed that the "iron rice bowl" was too costly to maintain on the path to modernization and his reforms dismantled Mao-era guarantees such as lifetime employment in state-owned enterprises and associated workplace benefits, contributing to worker unrest and protests over layoffs and inflation.
Challenges to Reforms and Opening up
Deng's reforms aimed to decrease the state's role in the economy and gradually allow private production in agriculture and industry. By 1981, roughly 73% of rural farms had been de-collectivized, and 80% of state-owned enterprises were permitted to retain their profits.
While the reforms were generally well received by the public, concerns grew over a series of social problems which the changes brought about, including corruption and nepotism on the part of elite party bureaucrats. The state-mandated pricing system, in place since the 1950s, had long kept prices fixed at low levels. The initial reforms created a dual-track price system where some prices were fixed while others were allowed to fluctuate. In a market with chronic shortages, price fluctuation allowed people with powerful connections to buy goods at low prices and sell at market prices. Party bureaucrats in charge of economic management had enormous incentives to engage in such arbitrage. Discontent over corruption reached a fever pitch with the public; and many, particularly intellectuals, began to believe that only democratic reform and the rule of law could cure the country's ills.