tiananmen square 4: hu yaobang dies
The period of 15th to 22nd April saw protests begin and gather momentum. There's a lot to fit in, so this entry may read like a bit of a race. It's also imperative that next week, or this week if I have a chance, I start to post links to other resources so you can get a clearer view of what happened.
Hu Yaobang, like Zhao Ziyang after him, was popular with some pro-reform elements in society. But he'd been forced to retire in 1987 and effectively had no further role to play in public life. Afterthe massacre a similar fate would befall Zhao Ziyang, who spent the rest of his life under effective house arrest.
Once Hu's death was announced the reaction was immediate. On campuses students mourned his loss. In Beijing they came to the Monument to the People's Heroes in Tiananmen Square to place flowers, wreaths and poems. Similar expressions of grief were recorded in Shanghai, Xi'an and elsewhere. There was wide international coverage of the death and mourning. Tiananmen Square has been a traditional site for protests, so it was clear to authorities that there was potential for mourning to turn to political protest, given the support for Hu Yaobang among students, and their tradition of being involved in dissent.
On April 17th hundreds of students from the Chinese University of Political Science and Law marched to the square with mourning banners, and laid a wreath at the Monument to the People's Heroes. Foriegn reporters in the capital were interested by this popular outpouring of grief and were covering it. In the evening thousands of people, mainly students, gathered to hear poems read and speeches given. By the morning there were still hundreds in Tiananmen Square who showed no sign of dispersing.
Now around a thousand students from the Beijing University, and two thousand from other universities, as well as a few foreigners observing the crowds marched to the square and requested to negotiate with the government. They demanded the governments resignation for past mistakes, a free press, free speech, democratic elections, and government transparency. They began a sit-in in front of the Great Hall of the People.
Later in the day a more detailed and arguably more realistic list of seven demands was made. I'll try and find the exact list for next time, I didn't bring it with me. It covered similar ground to the previous demands. It asked for an affirmation of Hu Yaobang's views, for an admission that past campaigns against western cultural influence had been wrong, for openness about government pay, for reform of pay structures, for freedom of speech, a free press, and freedom to demonstrate. In the evening of the 18th some low-ranking government officials met with student representatives Guo Haifeng and Wang Dan, both from Beijing University.
Meanwhile more students arrived, causing disruption to traffic. Some students had marched over 16 km (around 10 miles) to get to the square. The situation was about as serious as the Communist Party of China and its leaders could have expected. The death of Hu Yaobang had seen mourning turn to protest, although at present it seemed to be mainly a student protest and yet a popular one. The authorities and security services were by this time monitroing the protests, and receiving regular reports.
Zhongnanhai was the Party Central area in Beijing with a main gate, the Xinhua Gate, a little way west of Tiananmen Square. From the 19th students began to gather here calling for Premier Li Peng to come out and address them. This was too much for the authorities who peacefully dispersed the students by bus using the police, and declaring temporary martial law in vicinity of the gate.
Back in Tiananmen Square there were thousands of people either in the square or marching on it. Wall posters with poems, and demands for reform were being posted. There now began to be reports of students being detained, arrested, and even beaten by the authorties. It's now that Zhao Ziyang made what was possibly a crucial error of judgement, he went aheadwith a visit to North Korea.
He left on April 22nd, though not after asking the rest of the leadership to follow three principles to end the protests with minimal problems. He said that students should be persuaded to go back to their universities, that bloodshed should be avoided at all costs, and that the methods used should be persuasion and the opening of dialogue with the students. The situation was finely balanced.
And that's where I'm going to leave it for the time being.
I will post during the week next week since I have a long piece on Asperger Syndrome and Social Anxiety that's not quite finished yet. It was suggested by someone's comments on a previous post. There'll be more from Tiananmen Square on the 22nd.
Hu Yaobang, like Zhao Ziyang after him, was popular with some pro-reform elements in society. But he'd been forced to retire in 1987 and effectively had no further role to play in public life. Afterthe massacre a similar fate would befall Zhao Ziyang, who spent the rest of his life under effective house arrest.
Once Hu's death was announced the reaction was immediate. On campuses students mourned his loss. In Beijing they came to the Monument to the People's Heroes in Tiananmen Square to place flowers, wreaths and poems. Similar expressions of grief were recorded in Shanghai, Xi'an and elsewhere. There was wide international coverage of the death and mourning. Tiananmen Square has been a traditional site for protests, so it was clear to authorities that there was potential for mourning to turn to political protest, given the support for Hu Yaobang among students, and their tradition of being involved in dissent.
On April 17th hundreds of students from the Chinese University of Political Science and Law marched to the square with mourning banners, and laid a wreath at the Monument to the People's Heroes. Foriegn reporters in the capital were interested by this popular outpouring of grief and were covering it. In the evening thousands of people, mainly students, gathered to hear poems read and speeches given. By the morning there were still hundreds in Tiananmen Square who showed no sign of dispersing.
Now around a thousand students from the Beijing University, and two thousand from other universities, as well as a few foreigners observing the crowds marched to the square and requested to negotiate with the government. They demanded the governments resignation for past mistakes, a free press, free speech, democratic elections, and government transparency. They began a sit-in in front of the Great Hall of the People.
Later in the day a more detailed and arguably more realistic list of seven demands was made. I'll try and find the exact list for next time, I didn't bring it with me. It covered similar ground to the previous demands. It asked for an affirmation of Hu Yaobang's views, for an admission that past campaigns against western cultural influence had been wrong, for openness about government pay, for reform of pay structures, for freedom of speech, a free press, and freedom to demonstrate. In the evening of the 18th some low-ranking government officials met with student representatives Guo Haifeng and Wang Dan, both from Beijing University.
Meanwhile more students arrived, causing disruption to traffic. Some students had marched over 16 km (around 10 miles) to get to the square. The situation was about as serious as the Communist Party of China and its leaders could have expected. The death of Hu Yaobang had seen mourning turn to protest, although at present it seemed to be mainly a student protest and yet a popular one. The authorities and security services were by this time monitroing the protests, and receiving regular reports.
Zhongnanhai was the Party Central area in Beijing with a main gate, the Xinhua Gate, a little way west of Tiananmen Square. From the 19th students began to gather here calling for Premier Li Peng to come out and address them. This was too much for the authorities who peacefully dispersed the students by bus using the police, and declaring temporary martial law in vicinity of the gate.
Back in Tiananmen Square there were thousands of people either in the square or marching on it. Wall posters with poems, and demands for reform were being posted. There now began to be reports of students being detained, arrested, and even beaten by the authorties. It's now that Zhao Ziyang made what was possibly a crucial error of judgement, he went aheadwith a visit to North Korea.
He left on April 22nd, though not after asking the rest of the leadership to follow three principles to end the protests with minimal problems. He said that students should be persuaded to go back to their universities, that bloodshed should be avoided at all costs, and that the methods used should be persuasion and the opening of dialogue with the students. The situation was finely balanced.
And that's where I'm going to leave it for the time being.
I will post during the week next week since I have a long piece on Asperger Syndrome and Social Anxiety that's not quite finished yet. It was suggested by someone's comments on a previous post. There'll be more from Tiananmen Square on the 22nd.
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