Tiananmen Square protests
Also called: Tiananmen Square protests 1989, Tiananmen 1989 · Topic: Paths to Modernisation: Japan, China, Korea · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 6 "Displacing Indigenous Peoples"; Class 11, Ch 7 "Paths to Modernisation"
Meaning
The Tiananmen Square protests were large student demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, in 1989. The students demanded democracy and more openness. The protests were brutally repressed, and they drew worldwide condemnation. They show that the Party allowed economic reform but did not allow political reform.
Example
The 1989 protests took place on the 70th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement of 1919, which had also demanded democracy and modern science. Earlier, the 1978 wall-poster calling for a "Fifth Modernisation", meaning democracy, had also been suppressed.
Don't confuse with
- May Fourth Movement (1919): This was the earlier Beijing protest against the peace conference after the First World War. The 1989 protests marked its anniversary.
Related concepts
- Communist Party of China
- Comintern
- Mao Zedong
- Long March
- People's Republic of China
- Great Leap Forward
- People's communes
- Cultural Revolution
- Deng Xiaoping
- Four Modernisations