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China, 1976-89 » Student Protest and Tiananmen Square, 1989

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Study time: 30 minutes

Edexcel spec: Paper 2 Section B, Breadth study B4, Key topic 5

Why university students began to ask for change from 1986, and what they wanted
How Deng reacted, and what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989
What happened afterwards
How the main themes of China, 1900-89, fit together

The Democracy Wall was closed in 1979, but the wish for change did not go away. In the 1980s it came back, this time led by students. This lesson covers 1986-89, then looks back over the whole of China from 1900 to 1989.

Key terms:

Democracy Movement: the protests of the 1980s, led by university students, asking for more freedom and a say in how China was run.
Bourgeois liberalisation: the Party's name for Western ideas such as free speech and multi-party democracy, which it said were a danger to Communist rule.
Tiananmen Square: the huge public square in the centre of Beijing, the capital, and the country's most important political place.
Hunger strike: refusing food as a protest.
Martial law: rule by the army, with normal freedoms suspended.

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The students, 1986-87

By the mid-1980s China had a growing number of university students. They had seen the economy open up under Deng, and they could read about life abroad. In December 1986 students began protests in Hefei, and they spread to Shanghai, Beijing and other cities. The scientist Fang Lizhi, a university vice-president, was a well-known supporter of democracy.

📢 Features

The protests were peaceful. Students held marches, put up posters and boycotted classes. They were mainly students in universities.

🎯 Aims

They called for democracy, freedom of speech and of the press, and fairer treatment of ordinary people.

Deng saw the protests as a threat. He criticised “bourgeois liberalisation”. In January 1987 Hu Yaobang, the General Secretary of the Party, was forced to resign. Deng thought that Hu had been too soft on the students.

Tiananmen Square, 1989

Hu Yaobang died on 15 April 1989. Many students admired him, and they went to Tiananmen Square to mourn him. The mourning turned into a protest. There was more anger by then: prices were rising fast, and many people believed that officials were corrupt and used their positions to get rich.

April: students asked for talks with the government and for freedom of the press. On 26 April the Party's newspaper called the protests “turmoil”. This made the students angrier.
May: students began a hunger strike on 13 May, just before a visit by the Soviet leader, Gorbachev, when journalists from around the world were in Beijing. Huge crowds of ordinary people, including workers, joined in, and protests spread to other cities.
20 May: the government declared martial law in Beijing. Local people blocked the soldiers' way, and for some days the army did not move in.
3-4 June: troops with tanks were ordered into central Beijing. Soldiers opened fire on people on the streets leading to the square, and people were killed. In the early hours of 4 June the students left the square, and the army took control of it.

Deng's view was clear. He believed the Party must keep control, and that the protests would lead to disorder. Zhao Ziyang, who was now General Secretary, wanted to talk to the students, but Deng and Premier Li Peng chose force.

The aftermath

The number of people killed is not known. The government gave a low figure; other estimates range from several hundred to thousands.
Many protesters were arrested, and some leaders escaped abroad. Zhao Ziyang was removed from his posts and Jiang Zemin replaced him.
Countries such as the USA and members of the European Community criticised China, and some stopped selling weapons to it.
In China, the Party controlled what the media could say about the events.

Deng did not abandon economic reform, but political control stayed firm.

Drawing it together: China, 1900-89

Paper 2 questions on China often cover several key topics at once. These are the five themes:

⚔️ Order and disorder

Rebellion, revolution, warlords, civil war, then the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen.

🌍 External influences

Foreign powers, then Japan, the Soviet Union and later Western investment and ideas.

📈 Economic change

Land reform, Five-Year Plans, the Great Leap Forward, then Deng's reforms.

👪 Social change

The Marriage Law, thought reform, the Cultural Revolution, and the one-child policy.

👑 Leadership

Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao, Deng. Strong leaders made big decisions.

Change: China moved from empire to republic to Communist state, and its economy and society were transformed. Continuity: the leaders had strong central control, and they did not let challenges to their rule stand, as the Anti-Rightist Campaign, the Democracy Wall and Tiananmen all show.

Common mistakes

Mixing up the Democracy Wall (1978-79) with the student protests of 1989.
Saying the students wanted to overthrow Communism. They asked for reform and a say in how China was run, though the Party saw this as a threat to its rule.
Giving an exact death toll. It is not known, so say that estimates differ.
Writing about change only. A 16-mark answer needs the counter-case: what stayed the same.

Exam-style question

How far did life for ordinary people in China change in the years 1949-89? [16 marks]

You may use the following in your answer:

the Great Leap Forward (1958-62)
Deng's economic reforms after 1978

You must also use information of your own.

Model answer

Life for ordinary people changed a great deal in these years, although the Party's control over them hardly changed at all.

The biggest changes in the countryside came early. In 1950 the Agrarian Reform Law took land from landlords and gave it to peasants, but by 1956 the peasants were put into collectives. The Great Leap Forward of 1958 went further. People were put into communes, and ate in communal canteens. This was a change, but a disastrous one. Officials exaggerated the harvests, grain was taken away, and a famine followed in which millions died. So for many peasants the Great Leap was a time of loss, not progress.

Deng's reforms after 1978 changed life in a more lasting way. Under the household responsibility system, families could farm their own plots and sell extra food, and Special Economic Zones brought in foreign investment and the first private businesses. More goods were in the shops, and university entrance exams were restored. Yet the one-child policy brought a new limit on family life.

Other changes mattered too. The Marriage Law of 1950 banned arranged marriages and gave women equal rights, so women's legal position changed greatly, although old attitudes lasted in the countryside. The Cultural Revolution from 1966 closed schools and sent millions of young people to the countryside, so this was a time of disorder, not improvement.

However, there was much continuity. Mao's campaigns, such as the Anti-Rightist Campaign, punished criticism. Deng closed the Democracy Wall in 1979 and in 1989 he used the army to end the protests in Tiananmen Square, because he would not accept political reform. People's incomes and choices changed, but their right to criticise the Party did not.

Overall, life changed a great deal, most of all after 1978, because families gained choices about work, money and family. But this change was limited to the economy and society; politically, China stayed a one-party state throughout.

What lifts this to the top level: it uses both bullets plus own points (the Agrarian Reform Law, the Marriage Law, the Cultural Revolution), weighs change against continuity, and ends with a judgement on what kind of change happened (economic and social, not political).

Exam tip

Plan three or four aspects (for example land, living standards, women, politics) before writing. Weigh change against continuity in each, and finish with a judgement that names what changed and what did not.

Recap

From 1986 students called for democracy and press freedom; Deng criticised “bourgeois liberalisation” and Hu Yaobang resigned in 1987.
In 1989 mourning for Hu grew into mass protest in Tiananmen Square; martial law came on 20 May.
On 3-4 June the army cleared the square and people were killed; the number is not known.
Afterwards the Party arrested protesters, removed Zhao Ziyang and kept political control.
China, 1900-89, shows great change in the economy and society, but one-party control as continuity.

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