students" (Burying 256). Further delays were caused by the regime's need to make sure of the PLA's loyalty (in view of the fact that some of its troops had refused to fire on the demonstrators) and to move the necessary army units into place. On May 19 Li Peng declared a state of emergency in Beijing. On June 3, the PLA moved in and crushed the demonstrations in and around Tiananmen Square.
The conflict between order and chaos is a recurrent theme of Chinese history, an authoritarian tradition interspersed with invasions by barbarians, usually from the North, long periods of peaceful central rule interrupted by civil strife, peasant rebellions or other forms of popular unrest. The communists' victory in 1949 followed a long period of warlordism, war, misrule and disunity. They established a monolithic regime dedicated to the precepts of Mao Zedong's (Mao's) style of Marxist-Leninism. Even, however, during the three decades of Mao's rule, chaotic conditions prevailed for long periods, particularly during the Cultural Revolu
...