Major news outlets are marking the twentieth anniversary of China’s 1989 pro-democracy movement which culminated in the military crackdown on students in Tiananmen Square. CNN has a timeline which chronicles the movement starting from 1987:
1987
Jan. 1. More than 2000 students in Beijing stage a rally in defiance of new regulations limiting demonstrations.
Jan. 6-9. The official People’s Daily and other state-run newspapers carry front-page condemnations of student demonstrations as harmful to the country and warn against “bourgeois liberalization.” A 1984 speech by Deng Xiaoping attacking those who advocate “bourgeois liberalization” is published by the People’s Daily at the same time.
Jan. 29. Premier Zhao Ziyang says the campaign against “bourgeois liberalization” will be limited and will not interfere with ongoing economic reforms and the opening of China to foreign investments.
See also the Guardian for a slideshow which captures the events of Tiananmen Square from the beginning of student protests to their suppression by the People’s Liberation Army.
Also from Al Jazeera :
Twenty years have passed since hundreds of thousands of people flooded onto the streets of Beijing and into Tiananmen Square demanding democracy, freedom of speech and an end to corruption. After a seven week standoff, the Communist government called in the troops and a bloody battle pursued. Twenty years on, Al Jazeera speaks to some of those who took part in the world’s largest and most influential pro-democracy movement.
