ng Li-chih (Fang) sent Deng Xiaoping (Deng) an open letter requesting that all political prisoners be released, which Deng ignored. In February Fang was invited by visiting American President George Bush to a banquet at a Beijing hotel, but the police kept Fang away. On April 15, former General Secretary Hu Yaobang, who had been dismissed from his position in early 1987 for having taken too lax a position toward student demonstrations, suddenly died of a heart attack. Students at Beijing University organized a memorial service to be held in Tiananmen Square on April 22. In the interim, large crowds of up to 100,000 gathered peacefully there daily. Zhao Zhiang gave the eulogy for Yaobang. The first student demands were pressed on the government: a request that freedom of the press and speech be allowed; increases in the salaries of university faculty and student budgets; and publication of the salaries of all government and party leaders and their offspring.
A majority in the Politburo favored taking a hard line with the demonstrators. Zhao Ziyang preferred to temporize. Deng was briefed by Premier Li Peng and President Yang Shangkun. Deng reportedly said, "We must take clearcut and forceful measures to oppose and stop the turmoil" (Baum, Burying 250). In late April the student demonstrations spread to 23 other cities. An April 26 editorial in the People's Daily denounced the demonstrators as "criminal elements" (Yang 245). By mid-May as many as a million demonstrators were involved, including some workers, journalists and bystanders. Still the regime was hesitant to act.
Zhao Ziyang who returned from North Korea on April 30 quarreled with Li Peng and urged that student grievances be given consideration. Demands and crowds escalated during Mikhail Gorbachev's visit to Beijing on May 15-18. Three thousand students began sit-ins and hunger strikes. By May 16, Baum says that "Deng had already made up his mind to get tough with the...