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June Fourth Incident (1989)

In spring 1989, a student-led pro-democracy movement swept China. On the night of June 3-4, the PLA crushed it by force. The death toll remains disputed: 241 per official figures (including soldiers), independent estimates range from hundreds to thousands. This page presents competing accounts side by side, including crackdowns outside Beijing.

Time

April 15 – June 4, 1989 (crackdown: night of June 3 to dawn of June 4)

Place

Tiananmen Square and Chang'an Avenue, Beijing; also Chengdu, Shanghai, Xi'an, Wuhan, Nanjing, Guangzhou and other cities

Decision-makers

Deng Xiaoping (final decision to deploy troops); Li Peng (declared martial law); Yang Shangkun (CMC); Zhao Ziyang opposed the crackdown and was purged; Jiang Zemin rose afterward

Background: grievances of the reform era

Reform-era China in the 1980s brought economic vitality and wrenching social pain. The failed 1988 price reform drove inflation to 18.5%; "guandao" (officials profiteering from state allocations) became a national hate figure. After the 1986 student protests were suppressed and Hu Yaobang forced to resign, intellectuals' frustration with stalled political reform kept building.

On April 15, 1989, Hu Yaobang died. The death of the liberal former General Secretary lit the fuse. Beijing students marched in mourning; mourning turned to protest against corruption and demands for press freedom and democratic reform. On April 17, tens of thousands sat in Tiananmen Square; in the early hours of April 18, students petitioned outside the Great Hall of the People, talks yielding nothing.

On April 26, the People's Daily editorial "Take a Clear-Cut Stand Against Turmoil" labeled the movement a "turmoil created by a tiny minority." The editorial enraged students, who saw themselves as patriotic. On April 27, hundreds of thousands marched demanding its retraction, forcing temporary government concessions. In mid-May, Beijing students began a hunger strike in the Square; the movement peaked.

In the early hours of May 19, Zhao Ziyang came to the Square and told students "we came too late" — his last public appearance. On May 20, Li Peng declared martial law in parts of Beijing. Troops converged on the capital. On May 30, the "Goddess of Democracy" statue rose in the Square, becoming the movement's symbol.

Who decided

Deng Xiaoping was the supreme decision-maker: the April 26 editorial characterizing the movement as turmoil; the May 17 Standing Committee vote for martial law (Li Peng and Yao Yilin for; Zhao Ziyang and Hu Qili against); the May 18 elders' meeting deciding martial law; May 19's declaration that martial law was "the only choice" and Zhao's exclusion; the May 20 formal declaration (180,000–250,000 troops); the June 2 agreement to clear the Square with authorized force; the June 3 4:30 PM meeting finalizing the "counterrevolutionary rebellion" characterization with Zhou Yibing in command.

Who ordered live fire: never acknowledged by the authorities. (Unverified.)

Who decided

Deng Xiaoping (CMC chairman) was the supreme decision-maker. Key points:

• April 26, 1989: the People's Daily editorial "Take a Clear-Cut Stand Against Turmoil," characterizing the movement as turmoil by "a tiny minority" — the characterization came from Deng's April 25 remarks after briefings by Li Peng and Yang Shangkun. It provoked the April 27 march.
• May 17: Politburo Standing Committee at Deng's residence. Zhao Ziyang's conciliatory line was criticized; Deng warned of civil strife and pushed martial law. Vote: Li Peng and Yao Yilin for; Zhao Ziyang and Hu Qili against; Qiao Shi neutral-leaning-Zhao. Zhao said he could not implement martial law and offered to resign.
• May 18: Deng, Chen Yun, Li Xiannian, Peng Zhen and other elders met with Standing Committee members and decided on martial law in Beijing. (Minutes from a civilian archive scan — original provenance unverified.)
• May 19: Deng chaired the meeting declaring martial law "the only choice," said Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang were "wrongly" chosen as successors, and excluded Zhao from top meetings.
• May 20: the State Council formally declared martial law in parts of Beijing — 180,000–250,000 troops from five military regions.
• June 2: top leaders agreed to clear the Square, authorizing force if demonstrators did not comply.
• June 3, 4:30 PM: Li Peng, Qiao Shi and Yao Yilin met military leaders, characterizing it as "counterrevolutionary rebellion," with Zhou Yibing to command the PLA and PAP in a rapid advance on Tiananmen.

Who ordered live fire: never acknowledged. Chen Xitong's June 30 NPC report said troops "fired into the air under orders as a last resort"; signed PLA accounts in Martial Law Day confirm firing orders existed. Neither Deng, Yang Shangkun nor Li Peng publicly took responsibility. (The specific person who issued the fire order: unverified.)

Detailed timeline: from mourning to crackdown

April 15: Hu Yaobang dies; mourning posters appear at Beijing universities.

April 17–18: Tens of thousands march to Tiananmen Square with a seven-point petition (rehabilitating Hu, press freedom, officials' asset disclosure, etc.).

April 22: At Hu's memorial, students kneel outside the Great Hall begging an audience; Li Peng never appears.

April 26: The People's Daily "April 26 Editorial" brands the movement turmoil.

April 27: Hundreds of thousands of students from 37 Beijing universities defy the march ban, demanding the editorial's retraction.

May 4: On the May Fourth Movement's 70th anniversary, over 100,000 march for press freedom and other demands.

May 13: Students begin a hunger strike in the Square; hundreds collapse and are hospitalized; citizens rally in support.

May 15–16: Gorbachev's visit forces the welcome ceremony to the airport — a humiliation for the government.

May 19: Zhao Ziyang addresses the Square in the early hours; that evening Li Peng, Yang Shangkun and others decide to deploy the army.

May 20: Martial law declared in parts of Beijing. Citizens erect barricades to block troops.

May 30: The "Goddess of Democracy" rises at the Square's north end, facing Mao's portrait on the Tiananmen rostrum.

June 2: Hou Dejian, Liu Xiaobo, Zhou Duo and Gao Xin begin the "Four Gentlemen" hunger strike, urging restraint on all sides.

June 3, daytime: Troops push toward the center; clashes on West Chang'an Avenue leave soldiers beaten to death and military vehicles torched.

Night of June 3 – dawn of June 4: Martial-law troops converge on the Square from multiple directions, firing along the way. Muxidi, Fuxingmen, Xidan and Liubukou become killing grounds. Around 1 a.m. the Square's lights go out; at 4 a.m. students begin withdrawing; by about 5 a.m. the clearing is complete. Citywide roundups follow.

After June 4: Protests erupt in cities nationwide, then are crushed (see below). On June 9, Deng Xiaoping addresses martial-law officers, calling the crackdown victory over "a storm." Zhao Ziyang is placed under house arrest until his death in 2005.

Who executed

Commander: Zhou Yibing (Beijing MR). Forces (~200,000 from five military regions). June 3 night–June 4 dawn: clearing from 9 PM; Square reached 1 AM, cleared by 6 AM; students withdrew from ~5:10 AM through the negotiated corridor. Most killing occurred outside the Square, along West Chang'an Avenue (disputed whether large-scale shooting occurred inside — presented side by side). Defiance: Xu Qinxian (38th Army, 5 years), the 28th Group Army's halt, seven founding generals' May 21 letter.

Who executed

Overall commander: Beijing Military Region commander Zhou Yibing, named by Yang Shangkun on May 20. The clearing headquarters sat in the Great Hall of the People; Yang Shangkun, Li Peng and Liu Huaqing directed remotely from Zhongnanhai.

Forces (~200,000): Beijing MR's 24th, 27th, 28th, 38th, 63rd and 65th Group Armies; Jinan MR's 20th, 26th, 54th, 67th; Shenyang MR's 39th, 40th, 64th; Nanjing MR's 12th; the 15th Airborne Corps, 14th Artillery Division, 1st and 3rd Garrison Divisions.

June 3 night – June 4 dawn: "quelling counterrevolutionary rebellion" from 9 PM June 3; troops reached the Square at 1 AM, clearing complete by 6 AM. Around 5:10 AM students began withdrawing through the corridor negotiated by Hou Dejian and others.

Where the killing happened: the great majority of shootings occurred outside the Square — along West Chang'an Avenue (Muxidi and Liubukou the bloodiest). Whether large-scale shooting occurred inside the Square is disputed: the "Four Gentlemen" say they witnessed none; Wu Renhua's research finds confirmed deaths there; a US State Department internal summary says "the slaughter took place on Chang'an Avenue and other main arteries, not in Tiananmen Square itself." (Dispute presented side by side — unverified.)

Military defiance: Xu Qinxian (38th Group Army commander) refused the martial-law order on May 18 — removed May 23, sentenced to 5 years in 1990 for "defying martial-law orders" (the indictment is an official judicial document), died 2021. The 28th Group Army stalled at Muxidi — the only whole unit never to reach its assigned position. Seven founding generals (May 21): Ye Fei, Zhang Aiping, Xiao Ke, Yang Dezhi, Chen Zaidao, Li Jukui and Song Shilun wrote the CMC that "the PLA's guns must not point at the people."

Crackdowns outside Beijing: Chengdu, Shanghai and beyond

The June Fourth crackdown was not confined to Beijing. Protesters in multiple cities were cleared by force around June 4; Chengdu's bloodshed was second only to Beijing's.

Chengdu (June 4–6). On the morning of June 4, learning that Beijing troops had fired, Chengdu citizens poured into Tianfu Square. On the night of June 4–5, armed police confronted demonstrators on Renmin South Road with tear gas and warning shots. Fierce clashes erupted near the Jinjiang Hotel on the nights of June 5–6. Amnesty International's 1990 report put Chengdu's toll at roughly 300–400 dead and up to 1,000 injured; officials claimed only 8 deaths. The gap is enormous; both figures are unverified.

Shanghai (June 4–9). On the evening of June 6, a train plowed into barricades at the Guangxin Road crossing. The People's Daily reported 6 dead and 6 injured; Wen Hui Bao reported 8 dead and 30+ injured; 8 carriages were torched and rail traffic halted for 49 hours 15 minutes. Party chief Zhu Rongji's June 8 "Shanghai must not descend into chaos" speech kept the city under no martial law, but mass arrests followed.

Xi'an. Minor clashes with torched vehicles occurred as early as late April. After June, Xi'an imposed a curfew and rounded up large numbers of students.

Wuhan, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Changsha. All saw large marches and sit-ins. Wuhan suffered a bank run; protesters in Guangzhou, Changsha and Nanjing were cleared and arrested by mid-June. Casualty figures cannot be independently verified.

Scale & methodology

Who opposed

Three layers: at the top — Zhao Ziyang (the only open opponent; voted no May 17; "we have come too late" May 19; purged June 24; house arrest until death 2005), Hu Qili, Bao Tong (7 years), Yan Mingfu and Rui Xingwen. On the Square — the "Four Gentlemen" negotiated the withdrawal corridor, averting greater bloodshed. Military individuals — Xu Qinxian and others. Unlike the earlier campaigns, June Fourth's opponents left names and records.

Who opposed

Opposition in three layers — unlike zhenfan, the anti-rightist drive, the famine and the Cultural Revolution, June Fourth's opponents left names and records, the fullest case of "people growing from events":

• At the decision level: Zhao Ziyang (General Secretary) — the only open opponent at the top. Voted against martial law on May 17 with Hu Qili; at 4:50 AM on May 19, accompanied by Wen Jiabao, he went to the Square and tearfully told students "we have come too late," urging an end to the hunger strike — his last public appearance. Stripped of all posts on June 24; under house arrest until his death in 2005. His memoir Prisoner of the State was published in Hong Kong in 2009. His secretary Bao Tong was arrested May 17 and sentenced to 7 years in 1992. Hu Qili also voted no and was removed June 24.
• On the Square: the "Four Gentlemen" (Liu Xiaobo, Zhou Duo, Hou Dejian, Gao Xin) declared a hunger strike June 2; in the early hours of June 4 they negotiated a southeast withdrawal corridor with the 38th Group Army — students began leaving around 5:10 AM, averting greater bloodshed inside the Square. (Liu Xiaobo has a person page on this site.)
• Individual military defiance: Xu Qinxian (5 years), the 28th Group Army's halt, the seven generals' letter. See "Who executed."

Impact

End of political reform. The crackdown ended the 1980s experiment with political reform. "Stability overrides everything" became the supreme principle; organized dissent has been strangled in its cradle ever since.

Jiang Zemin's rise and "getting rich quietly." On June 24, 1989, Jiang Zemin replaced Zhao Ziyang. After Deng's 1992 Southern Tour, China took the path of "economic opening, political tightening" — three decades of high growth alongside hyper-concentrated power.

Sanctions and isolation. The US and Europe imposed arms embargoes (the EU's endures to this day); the World Bank suspended loans. Chinese diplomacy hit rock bottom, recovering only in the late 1990s.

Erased memory, persistent memory. On the mainland, June Fourth became unspeakable, scrubbed from the internet. But in Hong Kong, the annual June 4 Victoria Park candlelight vigil persisted for 30 years until banned in 2020. The Tiananmen Mothers have demanded truth and accountability for over three decades.

A generation's trauma. Participants, victims' families and exiles saw their lives shattered. Many student leaders fled abroad; those who stayed fell silent. June Fourth remains the inescapable watershed of contemporary Chinese history.

Aftermath: wanted lists, sentencing, and the workers who died

The first act after the crackdown was the wanted lists. On June 13, 1989, Beijing police issued arrest warrants for 21 student leaders, with Wang Dan at the top, followed by Wuer Kaixi, Chai Ling, Zhou Fengsuo and others; the list was broadcast repeatedly on national television. Some student leaders escaped abroad through Operation Yellowbird, the Hong Kong-based network that smuggled dissidents out of China over the following two years. Wang Dan, who was captured, was imprisoned twice and served about seven years in total. Workers were pursued on a separate track, and earlier: on June 14, Han Dongfang, leader of the Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation (BWAF), headed the workers’ wanted list.

The BWAF explains why. Founded in mid-April 1989 and camped in two tents in the northwest corner of Tiananmen Square, it was the first independent labour organisation in the history of the People’s Republic. Through a small loudspeaker system it broadcast news and commentary to crowds of thousands, and its handbills went beyond campus concerns: runaway inflation, corrupt officials, and demands that top leaders disclose their incomes and their families’ spending. Han, a railway maintenance worker, became its best-known voice. When troops reached the Square in the early hours of June 4, the BWAF tents were among the first targets. Han went into hiding, then surrendered in late June. He was held for 22 months without trial, contracted tuberculosis in detention — an illness that nearly killed him — and was released in 1991. When he tried to re-enter the mainland in 1993 he was expelled to Hong Kong, where in 1994 he founded China Labour Bulletin. He has been barred from the mainland ever since.

The sentencing pattern drew a clear line by social identity, and contemporary human-rights reporting documented it in detail. Students — many from well-connected urban families — typically received prison terms measured in years. Workers and ordinary residents were tried rapidly, often under ordinary criminal labels such as arson, robbery or hooliganism, and a number were executed within weeks of the crackdown, in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities; the three men executed in Shanghai over the June 6 train burning are the best-documented case. The Dui Hua Foundation, citing a provincial government document, counted at least 1,602 people imprisoned for protest-related activities in 1989 alone, and for decades afterwards a small number remained behind bars. Beijing worker Miao Deshun was widely regarded as the last known June Fourth prisoner still serving a sentence; there is no authoritative public record of his eventual fate. What the authorities feared most, the sentencing pattern suggests, was never only students in a square — it was the precedent of workers organising independently of the Party.

The battle over memory: the Tiananmen Mothers and Victoria Park

The families’ campaign began with two mothers. Ding Zilin, a professor at Renmin University, lost her 17-year-old son Jiang Jielian, shot near Muxidi on the night of June 3. Zhang Xianling lost her 19-year-old son Wang Nan near Tiananmen. Beginning in the 1990s, Ding, Zhang and other bereaved parents sought out families one by one, verified each death, and built a named list — the 202 victims individually confirmed by the Tiananmen Mothers, shown in the table above, are the product of more than thirty years of that work, and the group itself stresses that the true toll is far higher. Every year before June 4 the Mothers publish an open letter or memorial essay with three demands: disclose the names of the dead, hold those responsible to account, and allow families to mourn publicly and visit graves without interference. The state’s answer has been unbroken surveillance: each June, members are placed under watch, taken out of Beijing on forced “holidays,” or warned against accepting interviews, and mourning at cemeteries near Muxidi is restricted. The group’s members are now mostly in their eighties and their number shrinks each year; the letters have never stopped.

For three decades, the one place on Chinese soil where June Fourth could be mourned in public was Hong Kong. From 1990 to 2019, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China organised the annual candlelight vigil in Victoria Park, routinely drawing crowds in the six figures. At the 30th anniversary in 2019, organisers estimated attendance at 180,000 — among the largest turnouts in the vigil’s history. Police banned the vigil in 2020 and again in 2021, citing pandemic restrictions, even as other large gatherings were permitted. In September 2021, under national-security investigation, the Alliance’s members voted 41 to 4 to disband; its leaders Lee Cheuk-yan, Albert Ho and Chow Hang-tung had already been charged with incitement to subversion. Police raided the June 4 Museum that same month, and in December 2021 the University of Hong Kong removed the Pillar of Shame, the city’s best-known June Fourth memorial sculpture, in an overnight operation. The candles in Victoria Park have not returned. Public commemoration now takes place in Taipei, London, New York and other cities abroad; in 2023, survivors of 1989 opened a June 4 museum in New York.

On the mainland, meanwhile, the erasure is systematic and continuous. Textbooks do not record the events of 1989; state media never mention them; and internet censorship reaches far beyond the words “June Fourth” or “Tiananmen.” Every year in late May and early June, platforms delete candle emojis, coded references such as “May 35,” and even combinations of numbers that might allude to the date. The result is measurable ignorance: younger Chinese who have never left the mainland’s information environment commonly know nothing of the movement or the crackdown. That is why the named list kept by the Tiananmen Mothers matters beyond its numbers — it is the one register of the dead compiled inside China itself, assembled name by name against an official policy of forgetting.

Videos

ITN raw footage, May 1989: protests and standoffs in Tiananmen Square.

"The Gate of Heavenly Peace" documentary (English subtitles): the complete record.

Related images (external links)

• Wikimedia Commons: 1989 Tiananmen Square protests — public domain & CC images
• English Wikipedia: 1989 Tiananmen Square protests — with historical photos