Days of 1989: June 23, Liu Xiaobo's Arrest Made Public

On June 23, 1989, the Xinhua Agency announced that Liu Xiaobo had been arrested for his role in the movement. Liu Xiaobo was actually arrested on June 6 when he stepped out of a diplomat apartment in which he had been hiding. But the arrest was not made public until this day.

Also on this day, People's Daily published a lengthy editorial calling for upholding the Four Cardinal Principles, mirroring the early one on April 26 that had escalated the movement.


Days of 1989

Pictures of 1989: Intellectuals March on May 22, 1989

Playwright Sha Yexin joins demonstration in Shanghai.

Intellectuals demonstrate in Beijing.

Reporters from People's Daily joins demonstration

Pictures of 1989: Millions in Beijing March to Support Students on May 17, 1989

Millions of Beijing people march to support students.

Workers from People's Daily join the demonstration.

Millions of Beijing residents demonstrate.

Workers join the demonstration.

Workers join the demonstration.

Workers join the demonstration.

Students from police academy join the demonstration.

Millions demonstrate.

Millions demonstrate.

Millions demonstrate.

Millions demonstrate

Buddhists join the demonstration.

Buddhists join the demonstration.

Students from police academy join the demonstration.

High school students join the demonstration, The one at the left is Jiang Jielian.

Even pupils join the demonstration.

Pictures of 1989

People of 1989: Hu Jiwei (胡绩伟)

Born in 1916, Hu Jiwei was an old-hand within the Chinese Communist Party. He has worked in the Party's propaganda organ People's Daily and served as its Editor-in-Chief and Head for a long time, until he was forced to resign in 1983 for being too liberal-minded. After that, he mainly served in the figure-head position of being a member in the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

After the martial law was imposed in 1989, the government appeared to be paralyzed and without real control. Hu Jiwei sought to bring the rubber-stamp SCNPC into the fold and exert its power that had existed only on paper. With the help of intellectual Cao Siyuan and others, they collected enough signatures from SCNPC members to demand an emergency meeting of the Committee to discuss the martial law and the state of the government. The meeting never materialized.

Through reporter Gao Yu, he also tried to contact student leaders at Tiananmen Square directly and met some of them in his home, trying to persuade them to withdraw and leave the matter for legal procedures. Gao Yu had once successfully persuaded Wang Dan and drafted a withdraw statement for him, but the efforts eventually went fruitless.

After the massacre, Hu Jiwei was stripped all his official positions and received a punishment of 2-year in-Party probation (which is short of  expelling). But he refused to budge. A few years ago, he had written an essay commemorating Hu Yaobang and the Democracy Wall movement. According to his close friends, he has always concerned about the re-evaluation of the 1989 movement in his old years.

Hu Jiwei passed away on September 16, 2012. He had just celebrated his 96th birthday.


People of 1989

Document of 1989: Official Obituary for Hu Yaobang

The news of Hu Yaobang's death was first released by the official Xinhua News Agency on April 15, 1989. The April 16's edition of People's Daily carried the official obituary on its front page but without the usual fanfare for such an occasion. Following is an English translation of the obituary:

Xinhua News Agency, April 15

Obituary by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party

The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party announced with a heavy heart that Comrade Hu Yaobang, a long-tested loyal communist soldier, a great proletarian revolutionary and politician, an outstanding political worker in our army, who had served in the Party's important leadership positions for a long time and been a marvelous leader, had suffered a large-area acute myocardial infarction while attending a Politburo meeting on April 8, 1989. Despite all medical efforts, he passed away at 7:53AM, April 15, 1989. He was 73.

The life of Comrade Hu Yaobang was a glorious one, which is filled with achievements for the Party and the people. He joined the land revolution led by the Chinese Communist Party while he was still a youth and participated in the well-known Long March. From 1939 to 1945, he served as the Minister of Organization in the General Political Department of the Central Military Committee. From 1946 to 1949, he served as the acting Political Department Chief of the Jin-Re-Liao Military District and the Political Commissar of 3rd and 4th Columns of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, as well as the Political Chief of the 18th Corp. After the founding of the People's Republic, he served in various positions such as the Party Secretary and Governor of the North Sichuan area, the First Secretary of the Chinese Youth League Central Committee, the First Party Secretary of the Shaanxi Province, and the Second Party Secretary of the Northwestern Region. During the period of "Culture Revolution," he continuously fought against the counter-revolutionary gangs of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing, without regards of his own safety. In 1978, he took the position of the Minister of Organization in the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and did tremendous work in restoring orders from chaos, reversing past incorrect verdicts, and implementing policies for cadres. He displayed extraordinary courage and bravery in being truthful and achieved undisputed results. During the new historical period of Socialist reconstruction, he upheld the policies established by the Party's 11th Congress, 3rd Plenum, and made important contributions in pushing forward the modernization and reform.

Comrade Hu Yaobang was a member of 8th, 11th, 12th, and 13th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. He had also served as the Vice President of the Central Party School, the Third Secretary of the Central Disciplinary Committee, General Secretary and Minister of Propaganda of the Central Committee. He was elected into the Central Politburo during the Party's 11th Congress, 3rd Plenum. He was elected to be the Chairman of the Central Committee by the Party's 11th Congress, 6th Plenum. He was the Central Politburo member and its Standing Committee member of the Party's 12th Congress. From September, 1982 to January, 1987, he served as the General Secretary of the Central Committee. He was also a member of the Central Politburo of the Party's 13th Congress.

The death of Comrade Hu Yaobang is a tremendous lose for our Party and our people. We must turn our sorrow into strength, learn from his spirit of dedication in being loyal to Party's business, sparing no efforts, and struggling for Communism; learn from his excellent work ethic in closely relating to the masses and serving the people whole-heartedly; and learn from his noble ethics in being modest and curious, yielding to the big picture, and being frugal. Under the leadership of the Party Central, we shall continue to march forward along the path of constructing a Socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Be immortal, the great proletarian revolutionary and politician Comrade Hu Yaobang!

Documents of 1989

People of 1989: Liu Binyan

The famous journalist Liu Binyan was not in Beijing during the 1989 student movement. In fact, he was out of the country in the United States on a lecturing tour. He watched the movement on television and became a prominent oversea voice.

Born in 1925, Liu Binyan spent his childhood in Northeast China under the occupation of the imperial Japanese army. He had to drop out of school after ninth grade because of poverty but he managed to acquire a lifelong passion for books on his own. Later, the young Liu Binyan joined the underground Communist Party in the 1940s.

After the communists took power, Liu Binyan worked as an editor, investigative reporter, and Party secretary of the China Youth News. It was in that position that he first ran into trouble with the authority in the mid-1950s. His budding work on exposing corruption in the "new China" led him to be branded as a "rightist". He was expelled from the Party and sent to a mountain village to be reformed through hard labor.

Liu Binyan's literate career finally took off a couple of decades later, when he was redeemed in 1978, at the cusp of Deng Xiaoping's reform. He was readmitted into the Communist Party became a special reporter for the People's Daily. Throughout the 1980s, he published a series of investigative reports that gained national fame and international attention. His exposure of corrupt officials struck a chord with the common folks and he was praised as "China's conscience." However, his work also tended to blur the line between facts and fiction, a trend deeply rooted in China's literate tradition.

His outspokenness also irked Deng Xiaoping. In January of 1987 and after a series of student protests, Liu Binyan was once again expelled from the Communist Party as a symbol of the socalled "Bourgeois Liberation" movement, along with Fang Lizhi and Wang Ruowan.

A year later, Liu Binyan was allowed to travel abroad. When he was teaching at UCLA, his host Perry Link remembers him as the only scholar from China who showed no interest in Disneyland. Instead, "for days, his favorite hangout was a used-book store run by the Salvation Army. Already self-taught in English as well as Russian, he bought piles of paperbacks for 25 cents apiece and read them until 3am, night after night, devouring everything from the musings of Malcolm X to analyses of Eastern European socialism."

In 1989, Liu Binyan watched the student movement from across the ocean. While his direct influence to the movement was limited, he became a tireless cheerleader on the American media and always ready to spill out inside information he gathered from "his friends in Beijing" and his own optimistic predictions, many of which proved questionable at best.

During the later years of his life as he battled cancer, Liu Binyan lobbied for returning to his motherland by writing letters to a series of Chinese leaders including Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Wen Jiabao. His appeal fell into deaf ears. He finally passed away on December 5, 2005, in a hospital in New Jersey. He was 80.

Despite his dissent, Liu Binyan remained a loyalist to his ideals which included his belief in the "true" Marxism and socialism. Through one of his most famous works, he named it a "second kind of loyalty" -- being both loyal and truthful at the same time.

He had told his wife that he wished to have the following words in his tombstone: "this Chinese laying here, he had done what he should do and said what he should say."

UPDATE: Five years after his death, his ashes were finally buried in Beijing.


People of 1989

Premier Wen Jiabao Remembers Hu Yaobang

It's that time of the year again. April 15 marks the death of Hu Yaobang in 1989, which sparked the student movement that year. In the years past, there has only been occasional, but rather scarce mention of this anniversary in the official media in China.

It is therefore quite surprising to see that today's People's Daily carries an article by Premier Wen Jiaobao as a remembrance of Hu Yaobang.

In the article, Wen Jiabao movingly describes how he was a staff member in Hu Yaobang's entourage when they toured the vast rural areas of China more than 20 years ago. He remembers Hu Yaobang as a man of the people who had worked hard to bring the country out of her desperate poverty.

Quite interestingly, Wen Jiabao mentioned that, "in the January of 1987, after Comrade Yaobang was no longer an important leader of the Party Central, I visited him often." He also claimed that he had always been at Hu Yaobang's side after the latter's heart attack on April 8, 1989 and have been visiting Hu Yaobang's family during the Spring Festival every year since his passing.

It is quite a strong hint on the history of Hu Yaobang's downfall from the sitting Premier.

(An English translation of Wen Jiabao's essay can be read here.)

People of 1989: Zhao Ziyang

Zhao Ziyang came to national prominence when he was appointed as the Premier of China in 1980. Along with the then General Secretary Hu Yaobang, he was considered young and upcoming in the ranks of communist officials. For almost a decade, he skillfully guided the reform effort advocated by the behind-the-scene supreme leader Deng Xiaoping and earned a well-deserved reputation as a pragmatic leader.

His fortune first changed in January 1987, when Hu Yaobang was sacked in disgrace after a wave of student demonstrations. Zhao Ziyang's own role in Hu Yaobang's downfall is still unclear to this day. However, he became the one who succeeded Hu Yaobang as the General Secretary and the apparent heir to Deng Xiaoping.

When the student movement broke out in 1989 following Hu Yaobang's death, Zhao Ziyang was not a favorite figure, partly due to his beneficiary status in the Hu Yaobang episode. In fact, there were rampant rumors about corruption within his family, particularly his son, making him one of the targets of the movement.

Zhao Ziyang's very first public move during that movement was a puzzling one. Following Hu Yaobang's funeral and just as student movement was gaining momentum, he left the country for a lengthy state visit to North Korea. While abroad, he approved the publication of the infamous April 26 People's Daily editorial, a move that perhaps sealed his fate a few weeks later.

After returning to Beijing in early May, Zhao Ziyang pushed for his non-confrontational approach toward resolving the crisis and briefly won the upper hand within the government. Most significantly, he abolished the censorship in official media and allowed the movement being freely reported. He also advocated dialogues with the masses. But for reasons that are still unclear today, he did not promptly initiate direct dialogue with the students until very late.

On May 16, 1989, during his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Zhao Ziyang made a surprise revelation that Deng Xiaoping was still the supreme leader in China, turning the movement toward targeting Deng Xiaoping. It was yet another mysterious move of his that has not yet been properly explained. It did not work out for him. The government moved on to impose martial law and he resigned in protest.

Zhao Ziyang later appeared in Tiananmen Square himself and made a passionate, impromptu speech to students, during which he famously uttered "we are already old, it does not matter to us any more." He was going to be seen in public ever since.

After years of house arrest, Zhao Ziyang passed away on January 17, 2005, at the age of 85. Four years later, his secret memo was discovered and published posthumously. Yet the best-selling book fell short in telling his story.

Zhao Ziyang is remembered mainly for his refusal to endorse the martial law and the eventual massacre. He is also frequently criticized for being weak, especially in comparison to the Russian leader Boris Yeltsin who later courageously joined the masses in a somewhat similar crisis situation.



People of 1989

People of 1989: Liu Xiaobo

In 1989, Liu Xiaobo was a 34-year-old professor in Chinese literature and philosophy in Beijing Normal University. He was just starting to make a name for himself in the small circle of elite intellectuals with his sharp criticism of Chinese tradition and culture.

When the student movement broke out that spring, he was at New York visiting Columbia University in the middle of his multi-nation lecturing tour. He felt that he could not stay abroad any more, so he purchased a plane ticket for Beijing. On April 27 of that year, he was in transient at Tokyo airport when he heard the news of the People's Daily editorial which labeled the budding movement as "turmoil." Sensing the coming danger, he hesitated. But eventually he still boarded the flight and returned to Beijing.

Once there, he became a close friend and advisor to student leader Wuer Kaixi, who was from the same school. So much so that, during a critical meeting on May 27 of the Capital Joint Conference, he proposed to have Wuer Kaixi formally elected as "China's Lech Walesa." The proposal enraged fellow student leaders Feng Congde and Chai Ling, and contributed to the failure of a withdraw plan.

Later, he grew personally angry when he saw most prominent intellectuals chose to hide and run away when a severe suppression became imminent. In order to gain credibility so that he could influence students directly, he launched a hunger strike along with three others on June 2, barely more than a day before the massacre.

On the night of the massacre, he and his fellow hunger strikers were at the base of the Monument of People's Heroes with thousands of students. In an important incident, he led the efforts to destroy a gun that had appeared within their own ranks, preventing the possibility of a direct armed confrontation with the military. Initially, Professor Liu Xiaobo favored to persist and was against the idea of a voluntary withdraw. He was persuaded by his fellow hunger strikers and used all his power and persuasion to ensure students followed the withdraw plan.

In the immediate aftermath, he was arrested and briefly blamed as the "black hands," or conspirators, behind the movement. But eventually he was released without a formal sentence, after a detension of 20 months. Liu Xiaobo later wrote extensively on his thought process and feeling during the time, criticizing himself for behaving not strongly enough under pressure.

After losing his university job, Liu Xiaobo became a free-lance writer who frequently published his views on current events in oversea Chinese media. He is also active in efforts on assisting victims of the 1989 massacre, both financially and in other means. In October, 1996, he was sentenced for three years for criticizing the government.

In 2008, he initiated and drafted the "Charter of 08," calling for human rights and free elections, among other things. The document has collected more than 8,000 signatures.

Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to an 11 year prison term on December 25, 2009.

On October 8, 2010, Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his "long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."

Liu Xiaobo died on July 13, 2017, of liver cancer, after briefly paroled from prison for hospital treatment. He was 61.

People of 1989

This Day in 1989: May 18, Premier Li Peng Meets with Students

Tiananmen Square looked different on May 18, 1989. The hunger strike was poised to enter its sixth day, but the messy hunger strike camp was no more. Instead, about seventy city buses were parked neatly on the northern edge of the Square and all hunger strikers were moved into the buses.

The buses arrived overnight ahead of a forecast of severe thunderstorm. The Beijing city government provided the transportation buses as a temporary shelter for the hunger strikers. With millions of residents on streets continue to demonstrate in support of students daily, most public transportation had been shutdown. This would be a better use of the buses. Cui Jian, the most famous rock-n-roll star in China, showed up to perform for the striking students.

But the biggest surprise of the day happened around noon, when a few student leaders received an urgent message to go to the Great Hall of People. The unprepared group was met by the Premier Li Peng, during which Wuer Kaixi emotionally undressed the national leader. A video recording of the meeting was later shown to the general public with little editing.

The official media, meanwhile, was unquestionably turning to the side of the students. Blessed by Zhao Ziyang's request for openness, official newspapers carried emotional charged articles on the hunger strike and the demonstrations. People's Daily headlines the demonstration the day before with a title "History will never Forget this Day!" With the absence of censorship, however, the media also abandoned its objectivity and became an advocate for the cause of the student movement themselves.

At the Square, leaders of the hunger strike were also collapsing. Chai Ling, Li Lu, and Feng Congde all had spent substantial hours of this day in hospitals. Li Lu recalled in his autobiography that he had personally persuaded his hunger strikers to take food in the hospital and did it himself to set an example.

Behind the scenes, Chen Ziming and Wang Juntao finally decided that they had to get involved. At Jimen Hotel, they gathered most prominent intellectuals in town to discuss strategies. But the meeting did not arrive to any actionable conclusion or even a consensus.


Days of 1989

This Day in 1989: May 10, Students Launch Bicycle Rally

The public petition and protest by young journalists continued to receive attention just as the student movement itself was in a somewhat hiatus. On May 10, 1989, several official newspapers, including the flagship People's Daily, reported the news of petition. In this morning, tens of thousands of college students rode through the city in their bicycles in an unusual form of demonstration to show their support and solidarity with the journalists.

Many famous authors in Beijing also participated in the demonstration on this day, a first for the normally dormant community. Zheng Yi was busy organizing his fellow intellectuals. At People's University that evening, Dai Qing and Bao Zunxin delivered rousing speeches in praise of the students demonstration on April 27.

Within the government, the Chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee Wan Li announced that a regular meeting of his committee will commerce on June 20. The agenda of that meeting would include a hearing on the student demonstration and class strike as well as an evaluation of a draft demonstration law.


Days of 1989

This Day in 1989: May 5, Students Return to Classes, People's Daily Reports Demonstration

Friday, May 5, 1989, was another day of rest and regroup after a big demonstration. Most students were relieved and satisfied with Zhao Ziyang's conciliatory speech and Zhou Yongjun's announcement of resuming classes. The days of demonstrations appeared to be over, although their dialogue petition had yet to be met by the government.

At Peking University, however, debates on whether to resume classes raged on throughout the day. Its Preparatory Committee announced that the issue would be put on a campus-wide vote after public discussion around The Triangle.

On the official press, newspapers were plastered with reports of Zhao Ziyang's speech and its welcoming reactions among the masses. People's Daily even carried a picture of students' demonstration the day before, which was an unusual signal.


Days of 1989

Document of 1989: People's Daily Editorial

In the evening of April 25, 1989, a People's Daily editorial was widely broadcast in all official media in China. The editorial was then published in the morning edition of April 26 and became known as the April 26 People's Daily editorial.
It was only the very early days of the student movement when students were trying hard to maintain their stance as "pure", democratic, and patriotic. Yet the editorial had already characterized the movement as turmoil, a planned conspiracy, and other familiar terms aimed at enemies of the state.

The content of the editorial was based on an unpublished speech by Deng Xiaoping himself. While away in North Korea on a state visit, General Secretary Zhao Ziyang approved its publication by telegram.

The harsh wording of the editorial had an immediate and devastating effect on students, who, after much dramatic struggle, responded with the biggest demonstration on April 27. In the following weeks, recalling the editorial became a focal point in students' demands. There were credible hints from Zhao Ziyang and his camp within the leadership, and arguably from Deng Xiaoping himself, that they were willing to yield from the tough stance of the editorial. But none of them could make that decision formal and official. The deadlock on the editorial eventually triggered a hunger strike by students, martial law by the government, and drove the standoff into a tragic massacre.

The following English translation of the editorial was from the official Foreign Broadcast Information Service and taken from the Gate of Heavenly Peace website:

IT IS NECESSARY TO TAKE A CLEAR-CUT STAND AGAINST DISTURBANCES

In their activities to mourn the death of Comrade Hu Yaobang, communists, workers, peasants, intellectuals, cadres, members of the People's Liberation Army and young students have expressed their grief in various ways. They have also expressed their determination to turn grief into strength to make contributions in realizing the four modernizations and invigorating the Chinese nation.

Some abnormal phenomena have also occurred during the mourning activities. Taking advantage of the situation, an extremely small number of people spread rumors, attacked party and state leaders by name, and instigated the masses to break into the Xinhua Gate at Zhongnanhai, where the party Central Committee and the State Council are located. Some people even shouted such reactionary slogans as, Down with the Communist Party. In Xi'an and Changsha, there have been serious incidents in which some lawbreakers carried out beating, smashing, looting, and burning.

Taking into consideration the feelings of grief suffered by the masses, the party and government have adopted an attitude of tolerance and restraint toward some improper words uttered and actions carried out by the young students when they were emotionally agitated. On April 22, before the memorial meeting was held, some students had already showed up at Tiananmen Square, but they were not asked to leave, as they normally would have been. Instead, they were asked to observe discipline and join in the mourning for Comrade Hu Yaobang. The students on the square were themselves able to consciously maintain order. Owing to the joint efforts by all concerned, it was possible for the memorial meeting to proceed in a solemn and respectful manner.

However, after the memorial meeting, an extremely small number of people with ulterior purposes continued to take advantage of the young students' feelings of grief for Comrade Hu Yaobang to spread all kinds of rumors to poison and confuse people's minds. Using both big- and small-character posters, they vilified, hurled invectives at, and attacked party and state leaders. Blatantly violating the Constitution, they called for opposition to the leadership by the Communist Party and the socialist system. In some of the institutions of higher learning, illegal organizations were formed to seize power from the student unions. In some cases, they even forcibly took over the broadcasting systems on the campuses. In some institutions of higher learning, they instigated the students and teachers to go on strike and even went to the extent of forcibly preventing students from going to classes, usurped the name of the workers' organizations to distribute reactionary handbills, and established ties everywhere in an attempt to create even more serious incidents.

These facts prove that what this extremely small number of people did was not to join in the activities to mourn Comrade Hu Yaobang or to advance the course of socialist democracy in China. Neither were they out to give vent to their grievances. Flaunting the banner of democracy, they undermined democracy and the legal system. Their purpose was to sow dissension among the people, plunge the whole country into chaos and sabotage the political situation of stability and unity. This is a planned conspiracy and a disturbance. Its essence is to, once and for all, negate the leadership of the CPC and the socialist system. This is a serious political struggle confronting the whole party and the people of all nationalities throughout the country.

If we are tolerant of or conniving with this disturbance and let it go unchecked, a seriously chaotic state will appear. Then, the reform and opening up; the improvement of the economic environment and the rectification of the economic order, construction, and development; the control over prices; the improvement of our living standards; the drive to oppose corruption; and the development of democracy and the legal system expected by the people throughout the country, including the young students, will all become empty hopes. Even the tremendous achievements scored in the reform during the past decade may be completely lost, and the great aspiration of the revitalization of China cherished by the whole nation will be hard to realize. A China with very good prospects and a very bright future will become a chaotic and unstable China without any future.

The whole party and the people nationwide should fully understand the seriousness of this struggle, unite to take a clear-cut stand to oppose the disturbance, and firmly preserve the hard-earned situation of political stability and unity, the Constitution, socialist democracy, and the legal system. Under no circumstances should the establishment of any illegal organizations be allowed. It is imperative to firmly stop any acts that use any excuse to infringe upon the rights and interests of legitimate organizations of students. Those who have deliberately fabricated rumors and framed others should be investigated to determine their criminal liabilities according to law. Bans should be placed on unlawful parades and demonstrations and on such acts as going to factories, rural areas, and schools to establish ties. Beating, smashing, looting, and burning should be punished according to law. It is necessary to protect the just rights of students to study in class. The broad masses of students sincerely hope that corruption will be eliminated and democracy will be promoted. These, too, are the demands of the party and the government. These demands can only be realized by strengthening the efforts for improvement and rectification, vigorously pushing forward the reform, and making perfect our socialist democracy and our legal system under the party leadership.

All comrades in the party and the people throughout the country must soberly recognize the fact that our country will have no peaceful days if this disturbance is not checked resolutely. This struggle concerns the success or failure of the reform and opening up, the program of the four modernizations, and the future of our state and nation. Party organizations of the CPC at all levels, the broad masses of members of the Communist Party and the Communist Youth League, all democratic parties and patriotic democratic personages, and the people around the country should make a clear distinction between right and wrong, take positive action, and struggle to firmly and quickly stop the disturbance.

Documents of 1989

This Day in 1989: April 25, Students Decide to Plan a March

Students in Beijing continued their class strike to its second day on April 25, 1989. They spent their free time going on streets in small groups to publicize their petitions and protests. On campus, they were also busy establishing their own independent organizations. Although only a couple of days old, the Preparatory Committee at Peking University was already going through a series of reorganizations amid personnel confusion and infighting.

In the afternoon, a group of leaders from the State Council, the National Education Commission, and the Beijing city government showed up at Tsinghua University for a dialogue with students, auspiciously at the invitation of Tsinghua students. The news caused a big chaos on that campus. Fearing for being singled out to betray the movement, Tsinghua students boycotted the dialogue and its new independent student union practically dissolved with mass resignations.

In Shanghai, a vocal newspaper World Economics Herald published the proceedings of a symposium in which prominent intellectuals voiced their sympathy for Hu Yaobang. The paper was being recalled.

But the main actions continued to center in Beijing. The newly formed Beijing Students Autonomous Federation held its first general meeting at University of Political Science and Law. In a somewhat clandestine atmosphere, hundreds of student delegates debated on the merit of a plan to hold a large-scale demonstration on April 27. It was during a break of this meeting in the evening when students heard the first broadcast of the People's Daily editorial, to be published next day on April 26, which labeled the movement as a "planned conspiracy" and "turmoil."


Days of 1989

NYT Archive 1989: Press Freedom in May

Back in April, 1989, when the emerging student movement was showing its unprecedented strength, Party General Zhao Ziyang inexplicably left Beijing, and indeed the country, for a previously scheduled but long state visit to North Korea. The Premier Li Peng was left in charge of handling the trouble. By all indication, however, Zhao Ziyang had personally approved the publication of the infamous People's Daily editorial on April 26, which had poured fuel into the raging fire.

Zhao Ziyang did not get back to Beijing until early May. But he got a window of opportunity to showcase a more moderate approach towards the movement. First, he gave a speech at the Asian Development Bank meeting that was oscillatory to the students, markedly different in tone from the editorial. Somehow this important speech was not covered by New York Times at the time.

Next, Zhao Ziyang made his boldest move yet: opening the press. With his instruction, pretty much all restrictions on news reporting were lifted overnight. On May 6, 1989, NYT noticed this sea change in Beijing's newspapers:

After studiously ignoring pro-democracy protests for the last two weeks, China's official newspapers seemed today to display a new openness in their reports of a mass demonstration held here on Thursday.

Photographs of streets filled with students waving banners as far as the eye could see ran on the front pages of most newspapers. The newspapers also reported details of demonstrations not only in the capital but in many other cities. Some of those demonstrations had not previously been reported.

and

'Several hundred thousand spectators watched the students marching along the streets, and many of them donated cold drinks and food,'' read part of an article from the official People's Daily. ''As long as there is corruption, this country will never be stable,'' the article quoted a banner as saying.
Such articles were unusual only given the Government's previous determination to avoid references to the demonstrations. It is not clear if today's articles and photos in the official press mark a permanent step toward openness that will let Chinese people learn about events as they happen.
Today's newspapers also quoted the Communist Party General Secretary, Zhao Ziyang, as saying that corruption occurs partly because there is a ''lack of openness in the system of work.'' That seemed to be another call for more openness in Chinese society, one of the major student demands.

This unprecedented and unusual practice of press freedom in China would last the month of May, through the thick and thin of the upcoming drama. It would then become a thing of past, never to be seen again.

NYT Archive 1989: Gathering Storm

April 26, 1989, the day between the infamous People's Daily editorial and the biggest defiance showing in the history of the People's Republic was a very tense day. In the April 27th edition, New York Times captured the mood of the previous day rather well from several perspectives.

First, the banning of Shanghai's World Economic Herald escalated:

In a clear move to clamp down on criticism, the Communist Party dismissed the editor of the nation's boldest newspaper today and announced that the paper would be reorganized.

The decision to dismiss Qin Benli, editor of the World Economic Herald, and reorganize the newspaper seemed certain to send shock waves throughout the country. Mr. Qin, 70 years old, is a Communist Party member whose newspaper, which is based in Shanghai, has for several years been regarded as the most outspoken and perhaps the best newspaper in the country.

The decision was announced in the middle of the night, and so there was no immediate reaction.

A little more than two years ago, in the last crackdown on ''bourgeois liberalization,'' or Western influences, the Government shut down a few local publications, including a newspaper in the southern city of Shenzhen that had urged the retirement of the senior leader, Deng Xiaoping. But the Herald, a weekly with a circulation of 300,000, is far better known and respected than any of the publications that have faced ''reorganization'' in the past.

The newspaper has enjoyed strong support from those in the Communist Party who favor more rapid political and economic change. Such prominent Communist Party members as the theorist Wu Jiaxiang and the economist Li Yining frequently write for the Herald. In the past, the Communist Party leader, Zhao Ziyang, is said to have intervened to save Mr. Qin from dismissal, but Mr. Zhao is now on a trip to North Korea, and in any case his influence is widely regarded as waning. 'Violations of Discipline'

The official New China News Agency reported that the Shanghai city government had decided to dismiss Mr. Qin ''on account of his serious violations of discipline.'' This probably referred to the present issue, which the Government banned after discovering that it quoted a range of prominent people criticizing the Government and supporting the student demonstrations.

Then, there are signs of the looming confrontation:

The party also summoned urgent meetings of 20,000 Communist Party officers in Beijing and Shanghai to press what it called a ''grave political struggle'' against student unrest.

Despite widespread fears that a crackdown is beginning, university students today planned a march for Thursday that could lead to a direct confrontation with the authorities.

The Government also declared three student organizing committees illegal, and residents of the northwestern district of Beijing, where several universities are, reported that they had seen soldiers moving in the area. There were widespread but unconfirmed reports that at least 10,000 troops from the 38th Army Corps have been moved from Hebei Province to Beijing.

If the troops were indeed moved to Beijing, they were not directly used until early June. For now, the students only had the regular police forces to contend with.

NYT Archive 1989: The Infamous People's Daily Editorial

After the Hu Yaobang funeral, neither the government nor the students knew what would happen next. While the students in Beijing continued to boycott classes and their leaders busied themselves into organizing solidarity-style leadership, they still hoped that their actions could be recognized by the government as patriotic and well-intended.

That hope received a huge, if not fatal, blow in the evening of April 25, when a People's Daily editorial, to be published the next morning, was broadcast. The language of the editorial was so incinerate that the New York Times immediately reported it under the title "Beijing Hints at Crackdown on Students", in the April 26, 1989 edition:

In its strongest public comment so far on the pro-democracy student demonstrations of the last 10 days, the Communist Party called tonight for ''a grave political struggle'' against student unrest.

The harshness of the message, which charged that the unrest was a conspiracy to wrest power from the party, immediately prompted fears among students that a crackdown was imminent. Similar wording was used in warnings that accompanied crackdowns against unrest in 1987 and in 1976.

Understandably, the immediate reaction from the students was an emotional one:

Several thousand students gathered tonight at Beijing University to discuss strategy after the announcement. The mood was angry.

''We must persist to the end and the victory will be ours,'' one woman said over the public address system.

A science student said: ''The mood is very, very defiant. I think people are all going to stick together and fight for it.''

Beijing University student leaders said tonight that they were still planning to continue their student strike, and planned to hold ''large-scale activities'' on May 1 and May 4, to commemorate the anniversary of famous student demonstrations that took place on May 4, 1919.

Students at Qinghua University nearby seemed somewhat more shaken by the announcement. Several thousand Qinghua students gathered tonight on the campus to discuss the situation, and decided that while they would continue their class boycott, they would not give the Government any pretext to intervene.

As the mouse-piece of the Party, People's Daily editorial carries the most authority in China. Open defiance was still unheard of in China by that time. But coming off the spectacular show of force during the Hu Yaohang funeral, this generation of students had no fear. As it turned out, the students did not even wait till May to show their determination.