Tiananmen Square
A protest movement across China is suppressed by the army.
- When
- Era
- Contemporary, Holocene
Student-led demonstrations for political reform occupy Tiananmen Square for seven weeks in 1989 and spread to hundreds of cities. On 3 and 4 June troops and tanks clear central Beijing; the death toll is unknown and estimates range widely into the thousands. The event is comprehensively censored inside China. It marks the point at which economic liberalisation is decoupled from political liberalisation there, deliberately.