In October 1949, the communist leader Mao Tse tung stood atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace which guards the ancient Forbidden City in the center of Peking. Mao stood here to greet the Chinese peasants on the occasion of the communist defeat of Nationalist China. In his speech he noted,
. . . we are holding this session at a time when the Chinese people have triumphed over their enemies, changed the face of their country and founded the People's Republic of China. We, the 475 million Chinese people, have now stood up, and the future of our nation is infinitely bright.1
Forty years later, the same sentiment was being expressed by a large group of students and young people over the problems that China had faced since Mao. Many were discontented with the authoritarian manner in which the government exerted its will over the people. Many were pleading for more democratic reform, while still holding on to the nationalistic goals of the Chinese people. The focus of these demonstrations for democracy was on the symbolic heartland of the capital city, Tianamen Square. The events that took place there in May and June 1989 both shocked and stunned the world, and had serious repercussions for the Chinese nation. More importantly, the effect of the media within the context of a political uprising gave the world almost instantaneous access to earth shattering events. This ____________________
1 Cited in Orville Schell, "China's Spring," The New York Review of Books, 36 11 (29 June 1989): 3.
paper will present a brief overview of the situation from April to June 1989 surrounding the student uprisings centering on Tianamen. It will then speculate as to the possible causes for the unrest, as well as the government's brutal responses. The focus, however, will be on the role played by the media within China, and especially within the United States. The strategies of communication will be shown to have vital importance for the way ...