Tiananmen Square Protests

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The protest movement at Tiananmen Square began out of Chinese students desire to commemorate Hu Yaobang, former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Hu Yaobong’s death on the 15th of April of 1989 sparked a wave of protests calling for democracy. By the 3rd of May, students petitioned the National People’s Congress and the CCP Central Committee for educational reform which was rejected ten days later. This prompted a series of hunger strikes in the square and in response a declaration of martial law by the CCP on the 20th of May. Between May and early June 1989, more than 200,000 soldiers from the Government’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were stationed around Beijing. During this time, the party split over how to deal with the demonstrators. A hardline faction led by Deng Xiaoping proposed martial law, while a reform faction led by Zhao Ziyang attempted to convince the students to cease their protesting peacefully. The days between the 3rd and 4th of June became the climax of the protests, gaining widespread publicity. When the crowd had refused to disperse by the 4am deadline, troops began to fire on the protesters in order to clear the square for the impending visit of USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The shooting continued in Beijing, and by the 5th of June, over 5000 people had died and 30,000 were injured. On that day, footage was taken of an unidentified civilian, labelled by Western media as the ‘Tank Man’ was taken. The ‘Tank Man’ became a pivotal point of student demonstrations, as he stood in fearlessly front of a line of PLA tanks. Within China, the protests caused significant political and economic upheaval. In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, the political implications included the dismissal of CCP General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. China’s tourism industry was also affected by the event, as many Hong Kong
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