China News: 1989 | China Digital Times (CDT)

CHINA NEWS SECTION: 1989

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Revenge of the Old Guard
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement.
Jonathan Mirsky of The Observer relates his own experiences during Tiananmen:
Just before the massacre in Tiananmen last week, a Peking resident whose work for a foreign employer gives him a material life even high-ranking officials would envy, said, ‘Help me to leave. I don’t want my baby son standing in Tiananmen in 20 years demonstrating for democracy.’
But this mild-mannered man, who was willing to spend everything he had on a passport from the most discredited banana republic if it would get him out of China, was also a bit of a hero. On the night of 20 May, when Premier Li Peng’s voice, thundering out of the night from the Tiananmen loudspeakers, declared that the People’s Liberation Army was going to enter Peking to stop the ‘chaos’, Mr Wang (not his real name) cycled over to the roadblock local residents had built to halt the soldiers. ‘My wife tried to stop me. I told her I wouldn’t risk my life standing in front of the army, but I thought that if the soldiers began shooting people I should be a witness.’
I thought it was admirable that Mr Wang, in his quiet way, had been prepared to take such a risk, but by the time he told me about it I had seen citizens clambering over army lorries both inside Peking and in the suburbs, where they harangued the soldiers while supplying them with food and water.
I had also seen an army major leaning out of such a lorry to tell a local TV reporter how pleased he was that his column had been ordered to turn around and return to base. The reporter had been pleased, too. ‘This is really good news,’ he said, facing the camera. ‘The People’s Liberation Army loves the people, and the people love the Army.’ When I saw that, I remembered, but put out of my mind, the words of a tank commander I had encountered with his squadron about 20 kilometres east of Tiananmen early one morning. He said that the students were like his younger brothers and sister, but said that they were also his duixiang, his target. Why? Because Deng Xiaoping, who was giving the orders, ‘is my father.’
If you have access to additional sources of original reporting, video, accounts or photos from the spring of 1989, please send them to us at cdt@chinadigitaltimes.net and we’ll consider including them in this series. Many thanks.
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- June 11, 2009 12:00 AM
Legions of Soldiers Encircling Beijing: Loyalty to Whom?
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement..
From the June 7, 1989 New York Times:
Administration officials estimate that elements of 10 People’s Liberation Army units, totaling 100,000 to 150,000 troops, have been deployed in and around Beijing.
But with the exception of three units, the officials are uncertain to whom the troops profess allegience.
Army groups identified in Beijing include the 27th Army, normally based at Shijiazhuang, southwest of Beijing. It is one of four armies assigned to the Beijing Military Region. The 15th Airborne Army, part of China’s strategic reserves based in Wuhan in central China, is also in the capital. It and the 27th conducted the attack on the students on Sunday. Other Beijing region units around the city are the 28th, 38th, 63d and 65th Armies. The 38th refused to use force against the students when martial law was declared three weeks ago and is reported to be one of the units now in a stand-off with the 27th and the paratroopers who hold the city.
Citizens hiding behind a car as a military truck passes by on June 7 in Beijing (via CND)
Also from the same paper: Broadcasts Show Widespread Unrest and China’s Future: Four Scenarios by Richard Holbrooke
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- June 7, 2009 12:51 PM
Beijing Chiefs, Probably for the First Time, Are Actively Opposed by Large Numbers
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement..
From the June 6, 1989 New York Times:
Mao used to say that 95 percent of the people were with the Communist Party and only 5 percent against it…. With the current crackdown in Beijing, Mao’s estimate has been turned on its head. Or at the very least, China’s leadership, probably for the first time, is now actively opposed by large numbers of its own people.
If that is true – and the mass demonstrations and the Government’s brutal response to them indicate that it is -the events in China represent the long-term failure of China’s Communists to turn to their advantage a virtually unparalelled opportunity. Only a few months ago, most analysts of China believed that, despite many horrible mistakes, Chinese Communism had been, on balance, a success.
It had reunified the country for the first time in half a century, given it respect in international affairs and, particularly with the economic initiatives of the last decade, set it on an upward economic path.
Now the judgment would have to be far harsher.
See also from the same day:
- In Blood, a New China Is Born from the NY Times
- China’s Gunfire Echoes In London, Hong Kong from the Toledo Blade
- An Army With Its Own Grievances from the NY Times.
Beijing citizens show bullets and shells to news reporters, via CND
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- June 6, 2009 2:06 AM
Lone Man Confronts Tanks in Beijing
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement..
The following photo was taken on June 5, 1989:
From an interview with journalist Jan Wong, from the PBS documentary Tank Man:
… [You saw the Tank Man confront the tanks that day] … What exactly did you see?
I was watching it from the Beijing Hotel, where we had rented a room that looked onto the north side of the square. That morning, I remember, my husband said to me, “You’d better get out here.” I rushed out onto the balcony, and I saw this lone person standing in front of this long column of tanks. … The young man — … I couldn’t see his face but I think he was young because of the way he moved, he was very fluid, he didn’t move like an older person. … He tried to step in front of the tank. … The tank turned to go around him; the tank did not try to just run him over. I thought, “Wow!” So the tank is turning and then the young man jumps in front of the tank, and then the tank turns the other way, and the young man jumps down this side. And I thought, “What’s going on?”
They did this a couple of times, and then the tank turned off its motor. … And then it seemed to me that all the tanks turned off their motors. It was really quiet; there was just no noise. And then the young man climbed up onto the tank and seemed to be talking to the person inside the tank. … After a while the young man jumps down and the tank turns on the motor and the young man blocks him again. … I started to cry because I had seen so much shooting and so many people dying that I was sure this man would get crushed. [And] I remember thinking, “I can’t cry because I can’t see; I want to watch this, but I’m getting really upset because I think he’s going to die.”
But he didn’t. … I think it was two people from the sidelines ran to him and grabbed him — not in a harsh way, almost in a protective way. … Then he seemed to melt into the crowd. Then the tanks, after a moment, just started up the engines again, and then they kept going down the Boulevard of Eternal Peace. That was the end. It was amazing. …
Two other photos taken on June 5, 1989 in Beijing (via CND):
Relatives mourn the death of a Beijing University student killed during the last two days of violence
Tiananmen Square, and the area of Chang’an Boulevard in front of it, became an armed camp on June 5th after more than 200 tanks came into the city
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- June 5, 2009 12:00 AM
Crackdown in Beijing
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement..
From the BBC, June 4, 1989:
Several hundred civilians have been shot dead by the Chinese army during a bloody military operation to crush a democratic protest in Peking’s (Beijing) Tiananmen Square.
Tanks rumbled through the capital’s streets late on 3 June as the army moved into the square from several directions, randomly firing on unarmed protesters.
The injured were rushed to hospital on bicycle rickshaws by frantic residents shocked by the army’s sudden and extreme response to the peaceful mass protest.
From BBC, June 4, 1989:

June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square Massacre
by 0110110x
From CBC, June 4, 1989:

See photos of the night of June 3rd-4th in Beijing here.
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- June 4, 2009 12:01 AM
Crackdown in Beijing; President Assails Shootings in China
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement.
Robert Pear reports on the U.S. government’s reaction to the military crackdown on student protesters in Tiananmen Square for the New York Times:
President Bush said today that he deeply deplored the shooting of protesters by Chinese troops.
The President said it was ”clear that the Chinese Government has chosen to use force against Chinese citizens who were making a peaceful statement in favor of democracy.”
[...]Secretary of State Baker, appearing on the Cable News Network television program ”Newsmaker Saturday,” declined to say whether the Bush Administration would seek to penalize China by such steps as cutting off sales of American arms to Beijing.
If you have access to additional sources of original reporting, video, accounts or photos from the spring of 1989, please send them to us at cdt@chinadigitaltimes.net and we’ll consider including them in this series. Many thanks.
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- June 4, 2009 12:00 AM
China: Hospitals Report Overcrowding
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement.
The Google News Archive has a scan of this original Rome-News Tribune article:
The standoff between troops and protesters [in Tiananmen Square] had been tense but largely peaceful for weeks, with soldiers seemingly reluctant or unable to move against the crowds until the first widespread violence broke out Saturday afternoon.
A doctor from the Fuxing Hospital in western Beijing, where troops began firing on people in the street, said the hospital had taken in 15 dead and so many wounded they had to be put in garages.
“There are people who have been shot in the head, chest, stomach, legs and eyes,” said a nurse at Beijing Union Medical College, which reported 24 dead and hundreds injured.
If you have access to additional sources of original reporting, video, accounts or photos from the spring of 1989, please send them to us at cdt@chinadigitaltimes.net and we’ll consider including them in this series. Many thanks.
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- June 4, 2009 12:00 AM
People in Square Ran for Their Lives
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement.
The Google News Archive has a scan of a June 4, 1989 report on the military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen square which appeared in the Eugene Register-Guard:
At 1 a.m. today, the “Goddess of Democracy,” the Chinese students’ version of the Statue of Liberty, was still looking down on the throngs at Tiananmen Square. Floodlights still lit up the Monument to the People’s Heroes, the landmark in the center of the huge open space.
Suddenly, at 1:45 a.m., the lights were shut off and the firing started.
[...]Young Chinese moved as fast as they could, frenetically, in all directions, as if they did not know where or how to escape.
If you have access to additional sources of original reporting, video, accounts or photos from the spring of 1989, please send them to us at cdt@chinadigitaltimes.net and we’ll consider including them in this series. Many thanks.
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- June 4, 2009 12:00 AM
China Erupts…the Reasons Why
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement.
This analysis of the factors behind China’s student pro-democracy movement appeared in the New York Times on June 4, 1989:
But if the timing and scale of earthquakes is uncertain, at least the fault lines can be mapped. In China, for most of the population, these fault lines – the immediate causes of public dissatisfaction – relate not only to vague yearnings for democracy but, more importantly, to profound economic frustrations and disgust over social inequities and corruption.
Before the turbulence, experts looked at China and saw an economic miracle – a society that in little more than a decade has managed to propel itself from the bland egalitarian poverty of Maoism to the new-found consumerism of color television sets, earrings and disco dancing. During the last 10 years, the average income in China has more than doubled.
But the expectations of the Chinese have risen even more. Foreign analysts see double-digit growth, but the Chinese tend to focus on the washing machine that they can now dream of but still can’t afford, the rising prices that seem to cheat them out of their higher salaries, the bribes that they must pay in order to change apartments or, in defiance of official policy, to have a second child. The result is dissatisfaction and anger, mixed with bitterness at the advantages that high officials enjoy. In April and May, these subterranean pressures finally erupted in the volcano of protest that, whatever happens, has profoundly changed the way China will be governed.
If you have access to additional sources of original reporting, video, accounts or photos from the spring of 1989, please send them to us at cdt@chinadigitaltimes.net and we’ll consider including them in this series. Many thanks.
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- June 4, 2009 12:00 AM
Beijing Residents Block Army Move Near City Center
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement..
The following photos were taken on Tiananmen Square on June 3, 1989, as protesters tried to block army troops who entered the square (via CND):
From the June 3, 1989 New York Times:
Tens of thousands of Beijing students and workers surged onto the streets early this morning to turn back more than 2,000 troops who were marching toward Tiananmen Square.
It was the biggest outpouring of citizen support for the demonstrating students in more than a week, and it seemed possible that it would rekindle the student movement and present a new challenge to the Government.
The confrontation underscored the fragile and volatile nature of the situation in Beijing just when the turmoil here seemed to be subsiding after seven weeks of demonstrations by students and workers for democracy and against corruption.
Students and local residents were convinced that the army troops planned to clear Tiananmen Square, which students have occupied for three weeks. All along Changan Avenue, the main east-west thoroughfare, local residents emerged in the pre-dawn hours to block nearby intersections and prevent troops from passing, after more than a week in which the streets were clear of such roadblocks.
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- June 3, 2009 12:00 AM
Political Sway of the Military Is Subtly Spreading in China
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement..
From the June 2, 1989 New York Times:
While China’s political leaders have removed themselves from sight to engage in a bitter struggle for power, there are signs that the military may be accumulating a larger role in the Chinese political process.
It is still too early in the power struggle to determine the consequences of the political crisis, but some scholars and diplomats see the outlines of two trends: a greater military influence during a prolonged period of political instability, and less certainty that the army will carry out orders from political leaders.
Some fear that the leadership may increasingly be vulnerable to military pressure, and even to a coup. But they say that the army is genuinely trying to become a more professional organization and that it may not be interested in taking advantage of weakness in the Government.
”The military gains strength whenever the political leaders depend on them to tackle unrest,” said an Asian diplomat in Beijing. But he and other diplomats noted that there were competing trends and that the military may not necessarily want to play a pivotal political role.
See also “China adds troops near Tiananmen” from Cox News Service.
A banner on Tiananmen Square reads “No End” (via CND)
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- June 2, 2009 12:01 AM
2,000 Protest in Beijing At Public Security Office; Students Weigh Decision to Leave Tiananmen Square
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement..
From the June 1, 1989 New York Times:
About 2,000 students and workers protested in front of the Public Security Ministry tonight, and three union leaders were released after two days of interrogation.
The release suggested that the Government may be apprehensive about the reaction if it arrests leaders of the democracy movement. The three, who are leaders of a newly formed labor union in the capital, were detained Monday night.
It was principally concern over their fate that prompted demonstrations Tuesday and again Wednesday in front of the Public Security Ministry, tying up traffic on the Avenue of Eternal Peace, a major street.
As word spread among today’s demonstrators that the three had been freed, they changed the purpose of the protest to demand the release of 11 other workers whom the Government acknowledged on Tuesday that it had arrested. All 11 own motorcycles and had been part of a band of several hundred motorcyclists who joined student demonstrators over the last 10 days.
Also from the Los Angeles Times, “China’s leadership sponsors own rally” and “Students in Tiananmen Square Weighing Decision to Go or Stay“
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- June 1, 2009 12:01 AM
Beijing Reports Arrest of 11 Protesters
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement..
From the May 31, 1989 New York Times:
The Government said today that it had arrested 11 workers involved in China’s democracy movement, and official news programs bitterly condemned a copy of the Statue of Liberty that students put up in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing.
The arrests were apparently the first since the democracy movement began in mid-April and were the clearest sign so far of a crackdown against participants in the movement. Since the unrest began, the Government has been sternly announcing crackdowns, only to balk before the actions can be carried out.
The 11 people arrested were leaders of a motorcycle club that played an important role in the recent demonstrations. The official New China News Agency reported that they had been arrested for disturbing the public order. The Beijing Daily News said the club had been disbanded. Vivid Feature of Protests
The band of several hundred motorcyclists screeching around the city had become one of the most vivid features of recent protests, and the band played an important role in informing the protest headquarters in Tiananmen Square about what was happening in other parts of the city.
See also “China’s leaders still divided” from AP.
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- May 31, 2009 12:01 AM
Goddess of Democracy Erected in Beijing; Workers’ Resistance Lags
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement..
From the May 30, 1989 New York Times:
Zhang Quan slipped out of work several times earlier this month to join pro-democracy rallies, and he donated $27, two-thirds of his monthly salary, to the student demonstrators.
But like tens of thousands of other workers, he bowed out of Sunday’s demonstration. He said he was too busy.
”The students and the citizens are tired,” the 23-year-old cake seller said. ”The movement has lasted for so long and we citizens have done our best to support the students. We have given them bread rolls, clothing and quilts. But as ordinary citizens, we are not rich. We are exhausted and we are disillusioned.”
The challenge for China’s university students is to reawaken the enthusiasm of workers like Mr. Zhang. Such workers added a new dimension to the movement and vastly increased its scale, but now many seem to be settling back into silence.
See also an AP article.
The Goddess of Democracy erected in Tiananmen Square May 30, 1989

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- May 30, 2009 12:01 AM
Students Renew Call for Change in Beijing March
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement..
From the May 29, 1989 New York Times:
About 100,000 people on foot and on bicycles streamed through the capital today to demand more democracy and the resignation of Prime Minister Li Peng. The police and soldiers made no move to interfere despite martial law restrictions and the Government’s strict warnings against demonstrations.
The students, who are increasingly aware of support from Chinese around the world, hailed the protest as part of an ”international Chinese people’s demonstration day” to put pressure on the Government. Other demonstrations were held in several Chinese cities, including the economic capital, Shanghai, as well as in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia and the United States.
One of the largest protests was in Hong Kong, which held a political rally with a crowd estimated at more than 300,000. Such protests are likely to put new pressure on the Chinese authorities, who are sensitive to turbulence in Hong Kong in the years before they inherit the British territory in 1997.
See also from the same day:
- “State of Siege” from Time Magazine
- “China’s reforms opened door to dissent” from AP
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- May 29, 2009 12:01 AM