The Tiananmen Square Protests: Background information when reading A Free Life

The Tiananmen Square Protests

This article relates to A Free Life

Beginning in mid-April, 1989, thousands of demonstrators anchored by a core group of dissident university students occupied Beijing's Tiananmen Square. In what has been described as the greatest challenge to the communist state in China since its inception in 1949, tens of thousands soon joined in the peaceful protest, angered by widespread governmental corruption and calling for democratic reform.

In May, demonstrations and marches throughout Beijing exceeded one million participants. Late on June 3, 1989, army tanks moved into the square and began firing indiscriminately into the crowd of unarmed protesters. Estimates of the death toll range from 200 to more than 3000, as the Chinese government never released any official data or a list of the deceased. Many more were injured, and still more went missing, were detained, or imprisoned in the months to come. Tens of thousands of people were arrested in June and July alone. Many of the student leaders were smuggled into exile in the U.S and elsewhere. Others were never sentenced, but monitored and harassed by the police for years, driving many to eventually seek asylum overseas.

• BBC video footage of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
• A 360° panorama of Tiananmen Square today.
• A short history of modern China at BookBrowse.

Filed under People, Eras & Events

This "beyond the book article" relates to A Free Life. It originally ran in November 2007 and has been updated for the January 2009 paperback edition. Go to magazine.