He had been pushed out of a top position in the party by political opponents two years earlier. Tens of thousands gathered on the day of Hu's funeral, in April, calling for greater freedom of speech and less censorship. In the following weeks, protesters gathered in Tiananmen Square, with numbers estimated to be up to one million at their largest. The square is one of Beijing's most famous landmarks.
At first, the government took no direct action against the protesters. Party officials disagreed on how to respond, some backing concessions, others wanting to take a harder line. The hardliners won the debate, and in the last two weeks of May, martial law was declared in Beijing.
On 3 to 4 June, troops began to move towards Tiananmen Square, opening fire, crushing and arresting protesters to regain control of the area. On 5 June, a man faced down a line of tanks heading away from the square. He was carrying two shopping bags and was filmed walking to block the tanks from moving past. It's not known what happened to him but he's become the defining image of the protests.
At the end of June , the Chinese government said civilians and several dozen security personnel had died. Other estimates have ranged from hundreds to many thousands. In , newly released UK documents revealed that a diplomatic cable from then British Ambassador to China, Sir Alan Donald, had said that 10, had died. So thoroughly has the memory of June 4th been expunged that the generation born after the incident remains largely unaware of this historic watershed.
Hong Kong is the only place on Chinese soil where the June 4th massacre is openly commemorated. A former British colony, Hong Kong was returned to Chinese sovereignty eight years after the Tiananmen crackdown. Despite initial trepidations, the territory, like the West, had hoped its engagement with mainland China would have a positive, democratizing effect.
But instead of introducing freedoms to China, Hong Kong has ended up defending those it already exercised. In the meantime, Xi has steered the country in even more illiberal direction. Last year, he changed the constitution to allow himself to rule for life.
Human rights lawyers, Marxist students and feminists have all been targeted by the state as potential threats to its power. No place is this more apparent than in Hong Kong.
That this precarious city continues to remember and pay homage to the lives lost on June 4, , shows that what drove protesters to Tiananmen — the struggle for human rights, accountability and a political voice — still exists in China.
Unsurprisingly, the government denounced the protest as a foreign backed conspiracy, but as is so often the case, denunciation only outraged the protestors and brought more people onto the streets.
Those goddam bastards! Who do they think they are, trampling on sacred ground like Tiananmen for so long? We should send the troops right now to grad those counterrevolutionaries…. In mid-May, the hardliners prevailed and martial law was imposed on Beijing. Troops attempted to secretly move into position, moving into the city in plain clothes whilst their weapons were transported separately.
On 2 June, an unarmed military assault was launched on the square, but the troops were stopped in their tracks by the protestors. Hopes of success were short-lived as the following day the army launched another attack on the square, this time using live ammunition, personnel carriers, and tanks. Confronting barricades and an angry crowd at Muxidi on the road into the square, the troops opened fire and strafed surrounding buildings.
Protestors responded by attacking tanks and soldiers. The army, ordered to clear the square by dawn, reached Tiananmen at around 4am and following tense negotiations, the student leaders decided to evacuate peacefully to avoid further bloodshed.
Sporadic violence continued for a number of days as civilians in Beijing continued to attack isolated soldiers and tanks and the army responded with occasional indiscriminate violence.
At the time, China experienced a firestorm of global condemnation.
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