The protestors claimed, 'We cannot shirk our duty,' while Premier Li Peng stated, 'China's fate is hanging by a thread.'
Currently in China, 6/4 is almost never mentioned, but if it's absolutely unavoidable, they use the ambiguous term 'political turmoil' (정치풍파). The explanation is that 'a small handful of disgruntled individuals incited the masses to cause counter-revolutionary disturbance.' In short, the name is 'political turmoil,' but the content is 'riot.' You can still find official documents from the authorities mentioning this incident in some libraries, all consistently describing the military suppressing the 'riot.'
A piece of supporting evidence for this is the public statement made by Chinese Minister of National Defense Wei Fenghe at the 2019 Asia Security Conference. He mentioned 6/4, which was highly unusual, saying, 'The 6/4 Incident was a kind of turmoil and disturbance, and the decisive action taken by the Party Central Committee to stop and quell it was the correct decision.' This can essentially be seen as the Party's current official stance.
When Hu Yaobang died on April 15th, university students immediately held demonstrations demanding anti-corruption measures and democracy. However, the People's Daily, through its April 26th editorial, defined the protests as a 'planned counter-revolutionary disturbance' and called for their dispersal.
Students, citizens, and workers had to fight against this editorial throughout May. The students constantly emphasized that 'We are patriots, not rioters.' They sought to clearly establish themselves as 'patriots arguing for reform' rather than 'counter-revolutionary rioters,' even singing songs like 'Without the Communist Party, there would be no New China' and 'The East is Red.'
However, a month of uneasy standoff ultimately yielded no results, and the Party chose armed suppression, allowing the People's Army to massacre the people.
(Scene in the Square on June 1st) The '89 Democracy Movement was clearly a peaceful demonstration 'at first.' But tensions began to escalate when the military's use of force was officially confirmed on June 2nd, and troops started deploying in Beijing.
On the evening of June 2nd, an armed police jeep drove onto the sidewalk, hitting and killing three citizens and critically injuring one. The protestors viewed this not as an accident but as a warning signal for 'armed suppression.' The student leadership immediately ordered the construction of barricades at key strongholds to block the military's entry.
On the morning of June 3rd, a bus carrying soldiers moving in civilian clothes was spotted by protestors in the Xinjiekou area of Beijing and blocked in the middle of the road. Enraged by the large amount of firearms and ammunition inside the bus, the protestors surrounded and beat the soldiers, then seized their weapons.
The protest leadership was agonizing over the rifles, bayonets, and ammunition piled up in the square. Naturally, keeping these would only provide an excuse for crackdown. It's famous that Liu Xiaobo, an intellectual protest leader whom we know well, tearfully pleaded with the protestors, saying, 'We must return the weapons we seized.'
This is where the discrepancy between the Chinese government's reports and human rights group reports becomes apparent. The CCP's official media described the situation at the time as: 'On June 3rd, student and worker organizations distributed knives, guns, and iron rods, inciting people to capture and kill military personnel and police.' This directly clashes with the records of protestors and researchers on the ground, who stated that 'Although a few excited citizens took up arms, the leadership tried to maintain non-violence and handed the firearms over to the police.' I leave it to each individual to decide which account is more trustworthy.
Starting at 8 PM on June 3rd, the military surrounded the entire city of Beijing and began the crackdown on key strongholds and centers.
Conflicts continued on the outskirts of Beijing. Protesters fiercely resisted, throwing bricks and Molotov cocktails at the soldiers. After 30 minutes of warning broadcasts went unheeded, the military began firing live ammunition around 8:30 PM.
Around 11 PM, the largest clash of the entire protest took place in Muxidi. 1. The start of the standoff: The 38th Group Army, approaching the east side of Beijing, encountered a barricade made of buses. Initially, the 'police' stepped forward, warning them to disperse, but failed when protestors resisted by throwing bricks. 2. Live fire begins: Soon after, an officer who appeared to be from a regular 'military unit' shouted, 'If you don't attack first, we won't shoot, so disperse!' However, the protestors continued to resist by throwing Molotov cocktails, and live fire soon began. It was clearly an indiscriminate spraying of bullets, not just minimal firing for suppression. There are multiple testimonies that citizens watching the situation from apartment balconies were shot at this time.
3. Armored breakthrough: The military then used armored vehicles and trucks to force their way through the barricades. Records from the 'People's Liberation Army' state that during this process, protestors violently resisted, resulting in 65 military trucks and 47 armored vehicles being burned down, and 485 military vehicles being damaged. While the specific numbers are somewhat suspicious given the source, Western journalists (like Jeff Widener, who took the 'Tank Man' photo) also testified that they saw protestors burning armored vehicles with Molotov cocktails, beating and killing soldiers who jumped out, and even seizing and driving military vehicles. So, these events cannot be dismissed entirely.
There is only one instance mentioned where 'citizens also fired guns.' It is said that in the early morning of June 4th, there was a shootout in the Shuangjing area in southeastern Beijing where some citizens returned fire with seized guns. However, it is a huge leap to call this the 'armed riot' the government speaks of.
In the early morning of June 4th, the western downtown area became hell. The military advanced with armored vehicles, unleashing indiscriminate live fire, while citizens burned armored vehicles and killed several soldiers.
(Actual image of students withdrawing at the time) The leadership in the square was severely shocked upon hearing this news, and the consensus formed was that 'everyone here shouldn't die.' Intellectual figures like Hou Dejian and Liu Xiaobo took the lead and negotiated with the martial law troops around 3 AM, securing a promise that 'the military will not fire if the students withdraw in an orderly fashion.' The students subsequently evacuated the square around 4:30 AM.
Around 5:20 AM, a tank charged into the square and crushed the Goddess of Democracy statue, marking the end of the '89 Democracy Movement' as we know it.
However, the martial law troops did not stop even when morning broke on June 4th. They carried out indiscriminate firing across the city against protesting citizens, and even those who were doing nothing. The massacre continued throughout the morning of June 4th and only barely subsided in the afternoon.
On June 5th, as the military, having quelled the violence, was leaving the downtown area of Beijing, one man blocked their path—this was Tank Man. He was protesting against the soldiers when two nearby citizens pulled him away, and with Tank Man, the protest completely ended. Although arrests and executions continued across China for another month afterward, it is correct to see the '6.4 Tiananmen Democracy Movement' ending with Tank Man. Amnesty's estimated report suggests at least 1,000 citizens died, alongside a few dozen soldiers. The Chinese government's official report states that 'over 200 citizens died, but the military also suffered immense losses, attacked by 'rioters.'
The gist of the Chinese government's argument for turning the protest into a riot, and the refutations, are as follows: 1. Protesters seized and used firearms. CCP Claim: Rioters systematically stole and used weapons, organizing their distribution and inciting violence. Counterargument: While evidence suggests that 'firearm seizures' did occur, protest leadership clearly instructed that the captured weapons be handed over to the Public Security forces. 2. Protesters used brutal violence and seized weapons 'first,' forcing the military to fire in self-defense. CCP Claim: Protesters first beat soldiers and police, threatened them with Molotov cocktails, and even murdered them. Counterargument: There is ample testimony that the military used violence before the protestors began using violence, and this claim does not explain the indiscriminate killing of unarmed civilians.
The government also heavily promotes photos of 'burned soldiers' displayed in the city in a manner resembling 'hanging,' emphasizing the protestors' brutality and radicalism to define the 1989 Tiananmen Square struggle as essentially a 'violent internal rebellion.' This aligns with the testimony of a Reuters journalist, who described the situation as 'too horrific to send to subscribers.' If you search for it in Chinese on Google, the original photos appear, but I recommend against searching as they are graphic and cruel. The authorities are employing such tactics to distort the core nature of the Democracy Movement.
(A photo of a university student couple protesting in the square) Thanks for reading this long post. If you found it interesting, please hit the upvote button for me (_ _)
(광장에서 시위하던 대학생 커플의 모습) 긴 글 읽어주셔서 감사합니다. 흥미로웠다면 추천 한번씩만 부탁드립니다 (_ _)
"Users compared Tiananmen to the Gwangju Incident, noting how ruling powers redefine history. There's deep discussion about Deng Xiaoping's contradictory actions and a consensus that the CCP is currently operating under a 'Tiananmen system.' Also, lots of praying for the CCP's speedy split/demise (preferably into 52 provinces)."
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