"The student marches and protests touched a chord among ordinary people upset by inflation and fed up with corruption. Within a short time, the student protests turned into a mass movement." ~Mike Chinoy
Mike Chinoy, Senior Fellow, USC U.S.-China Institute, former CNN correspondent at Tiananmen Square
What was happening in China that sparked the desire for democratic reform? "In the 1980s, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, China began to move away from the excesses of the previous two decades. A policy of 'reform and opening up' was introduced. Foreign investment was welcomed. Many of the worst restrictions on personal freedom, travel, commercial and artistic activity were lifted. China slowly began to move from a planned to a more market-oriented economy. Among many Chinese intellectuals, this new climate of openness sparked intense debates about the country's future, with many students and professors interested in the idea of a more liberal political system. At the same time, because the market-style economic reforms were still tentative and partial, and the old state-run economy still existed, inflation became a serious problem, as did corruption. So by the end of the 1980s, you had a situation where a more freewheeling political and economic climate was producing a lot of discussion about how China could liberalize. Inside the Chinese Communist Party, there was also a debate about the pace and extent of any reforms, and whether the Party should begin to relax its iron-clad grip on power. Conservatives, like Premier Li Peng, worried that the reforms were going too fast and were undermining Party control. Reformers, like Communist Party General-Secretary Zhao Ziyang, wanted to accelerate the pace of change. As the senior leader, Deng Xiaoping also wanted to see more economic reform, but he disapproved of the calls for political reform as well."
"All these tensions came to a head with the sudden death on April 15, 1989, of Hu Yaobang, a former Communist Party chief who was known as a reformer. In Beijing, university students took to the streets ostensibly to mourn Hu's passing, but in fact deliberately trying to use his death to push for the kind of reforms he was associated with. Because the Communist Party was itself divided, the leadership initially did nothing. The student marches and protests touched a chord among ordinary people upset by inflation and fed up with corruption. Within a short time, the student protests turned into a mass movement."
"The other factor in this situation was that in May, the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, was due to visit Beijing to put an end to three decades of tension and hostility between China and the Soviet Union. For Deng Xiaoping, this was to be his crowning diplomatic achievement. Because this was such a big deal for the Chinese, they agreed to let in large numbers of foreign journalists, who brought with them satellite dishes and other transmission equipment. This meant that networks like CNN and CBS had the ability to do live broadcasts from Beijing."
"But as Gorbachev arrived, the protesting students occupied Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing, and literally stole the stage where the pageantry of the Sino-Soviet summit was to be acted out. So instead of the summit, what all those journalists--myself included--showed the world was this remarkable display of protest of a kind never before seen in China, or, for that matter, the communist world."
"This also heightened the tensions within the leadership, and a day after Gorbachev left, the hardliners led by Li Peng, and supported by Deng Xiaoping, purged the moderate Zhao Ziyang and declared martial law. Yet for two weeks, even as Beijing was surrounded by thousands of troops, the protesters remained in Tiananmen Square, calling for greater reform and freedom, more political accountability, and an end to corruption."
"Finally, on the night of June 3-4, Deng Xiaoping ordered the army to clear the Square. Troops shot their way into the center of Beijing, causing many casualties along the way. In Tiananmen, a small group of students remained until dawn on Sunday June 4. Then they were able to negotiate safe passage out through a corner of the Square. But the protest had been crushed, and a sweeping crackdown then ensued as the Communist Party moved to ensure nothing like this would happen again."
"Interestingly, though, while the political restrictions continued for many years, and still exist today, within a couple of years, Deng Xiaoping realized the Communist Party's hold on power would be at risk if it did not resume economic reform. So from the mid-90s on, the 'China boom' took shape--one which has helped turn China into the economic powerhouse it is today."
What was it like to be right there, to see all of the protesters and soldiers? "For me as a journalist and a long-time student of China, living through the upheavals of the spring of 1989 was an amazing experience. Because while this drama was played out on the streets, it was possible to talk to power and learn about the tensions in Chinese society in a way that had previously been impossible. Also, just from the journalistic point of view, it was a fantastic story, and the fact that at CNN we were able to do live broadcasts right in the middle of everything was incredibly exciting--and a kind of watershed moment of journalistic history. It is where the term the "CNN effect" emerged--meaning that the fact that a major event was being televised live all over the world magnified its impact and importance, and created new pressures for governments and others to respond instantly to what was being shown on their TV screens."
Did you see Tank Man go out into the street and halt the tanks? What was it like? "I myself did not actually see the Tank Man. But I had many friends and colleagues who did, including the guy who took the famous photograph. What happened was that a column of tanks was leaving Tiananmen Square, and as the tanks drove eastwards along the Avenue of Eternal Peace, this one man emerged and blocked their way. For several minutes, the tanks paused, while everyone waited to see if the army would shoot him or run him over. Eventually, a couple of the man's friends came out and hustled him away. To this day, we do not know his name or what happened to him. But that photo has become one of the iconic images of the 20th century--a symbol of the individual standing up to the power of the state."
Originally, it started out to be a peaceful protest for democratic reform. If it was peaceful then why did the government send in troops to stop the protesters? "I think I answered part of this question already. But one thing that is not that well understood is how frightening the idea of big crowds of protesters gathered in the center of Beijing was to Deng Xiaoping and his colleagues. The reason for this goes back to China's so-called 'Cultural Revolution' in the 1960s, when Chairman Mao set the notorious 'Red Guards' loose to destroy much of the system Mao himself had created. The Cultural Revolution produced a decade of chaos, with hundreds of thousands of people killed and many more injured, jailed, or forced from their jobs and homes. Deng Xiaoping’s son, for example, was thrown from a window and crippled for life. So what Deng saw in 1989 was not idealistic students seeking more reform, but people seeking to overthrow the Communist Party and recreate the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. I think that accounts in part for the harshness of his policies."
What kind of short term impacts did this have on China? "As the student movement grew in Beijing, similar protests spread to many other cities as well. We journalists were so busy trying to keep track of what was going on in Beijing that we didn't pay enough attention to this as we should have, but it is clear there was a huge groundswell of support for the protest movement. That is partly why the Chinese Communist Party was so frightened, and why it cracked down so hard."
What long term impacts did this have on China? "The legacy of Tiananmen is hard to assess. On the one hand, it destroyed the possibility of significant political reform and liberalization in China. It convinced the Communist Party to do whatever was necessary to ensure that nothing like this would happen again. So in the years since then, we have seen a dramatic increase in the security apparatus of the state, and continuing pressure on dissidents, lawyers, and other independent voices. At the same time, though, after Tiananmen Deng Xiaoping and the Communist Party made a kind of implicit bargain with the Chinese people--you don't challenge the Party's monopoly on political power, and we'll give you much greater personal--as opposed to political--freedom, greater opportunities to make money, travel, enjoy life, etc. And by and large, as China's economy has boomed, the Chinese people have accepted this bargain. How long this will continue, and under what circumstances popular sentiment will change again, is a question everyone's asking, but there are no clear answers."