Tiananmen Square, 1989
- June 3-4, 1989
- Democracy movements had grown in strength since the arrival of Deng
- May 4th 1989 they have mass rallies in honour of the 70th anniversary of the last major democratic uprising in China
- Many students went on a hunger strike
- Li Peng (military guy) took a harsh stance on this and ordered the PLA to take whatever action necessary
- At first the army doesn't want to fire on the crowd when they first arrive in early June
- June 3rd they broke into the square and opened fire
- 400-800 people killed, many were not students (people just walking on nearby streets) and many were killed on streets outside the square
- Chinese say that none were killed = major censorship
- Even though economic changes were coming in, they were not going to budge politically
- 1992 Deng ended price controls
The Mystery of 'Tank Man'
- Never in the World history has a single man captured a struggle quite so well
- Rumoured to have been named wang Weilin, a 19 year old student
- He has been rumoured also to have been shot, imprisoned and never found and still free in hiding
- In an 1992 interview with Barbara Walters the General Secretary Jiang Zemin said "I think never killed"
Summary
Since the arrival of Deng, people began to start democracy movements. They believed that because the economy was changing, that the political systems could change too. When the PLA opened fire on them and killed hundreds it made it apparent that this wasn't the case. However, one man, who is still not really identified, stood up against a line of tanks. To this day he is known as the tank man and no one knows what ever happened to him.