Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

TIANANMEN SQUARE MASSACRE This research paper o

This research paper outlines and discusses the events leading up to the massacre which occurred in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 3-4, 1989, and seeks to explain why it occurred and whether it could have been avoided. The student demonstrations in the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the spring of 1989 reflected tensions between economic and other reforms which had been introduced by the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the preceding decade and the reluctance of party and government elites to share more broadly their shared monopoly on political power. Other specific sources of urban and intellectual discontent as well as deeper historical forces were unleashed by the cataclysmic changes which took place in the PRC during the post-Mao period. A repressive outcome was inevitable given the balance of forces in the PRC at the time but the degree of violence and bloodshed involved might have been lessened had either the Party and the government on the one hand or the student movement on the other been more unified.

On June 3-4, 1989, armored forces of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), including 18 tanks, and supporting local police units, cracked down on student demonstrators and sympathizers assembled in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Hundreds of demonstrators were killed and thousands wounded. According to the Chinese government, 150 soldiers were killed and 5,000 wounded (Hsu 934). In the police terror which followed, many more dissidents were rounded up and imprisoned. The massacre had profoundly negative effects on world public opinion. It produced a reactionary swing in the composition of the Beijing government; General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, who had argued for a more conciliatory approach to the demonstrators, and many of his supporters were stripped of their government and party positions at the end of June.

As 1989 began, the leading domestic critic of the regime, astrophysicist Fa...

Page 1 of 11 Next >

More on TIANANMEN SQUARE MASSACRE This research paper o...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
TIANANMEN SQUARE MASSACRE This research paper o. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:18, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1707684.html