Democratic Movement in China

Democratic Movement in China: 1980s
Introduction
Democracy movement in China has started since early 20th century. Dr. Sun Yat-Seng was considered the pioneer of democracy movement in China. As the founder of the Nationalist Party (or Kuomintang), he led the first democratic revolution in Chinese history, which overthrew the Qing Dynasty and the final Chinese emperor, establishing the original Republic of China (ROC). However, the democratic revolution that Sun strove for ultimately did not succeed. Not long after the establishment of the ROC, China experienced a short period of restoration of the dethroned monarch, followed by a de facto dictatorship ruled by Sun’s Nationalist successors. They eventually lost support of the Chinese people and then were thrown out of the mainland by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In fact, the key reason that the CCP could defeat the Kuomintang during the last Civil War was because of democracy. The founding fathers and leaders of the CCP all stressed the importance of democracy, especially Chen Duxiu, who was one of the leaders of the famous democratic movement “the May 4th Movement of 1919” in modern Chinese history.
Chairman Mao Zedong was also a feverish advocator of Chinese democratic politics. After 1949, the CCP made tremendous exploration into promoting democracy in China, which led to several outstanding achievements. Examples could be listed such as: abolishing feudalistic hierarchy and privilege, equalizing gender differences, and enabling poor workers and farmers to be involved in national administration. However, very soon after 1949, Chinese democracy regressed into a severely degraded situation. The Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution, also led by Mao Zedong, completely destroyed the normal democratic mechanism and legal progress and culminated in absolute autocracy.
After the 1976 death of Mao Zedong, democracy became the focus of many intellectuals who were targeted during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. As Deng Xiaoping, Mao’s successor, came into power as de facto leader after political conflict in 1976-1978, made reforms that placed emphasis on students and education were not followed by reforms creating new jobs for these new intellectuals. As a result, the quality of life of many students dwindled markedly. These students, who had nothing to their name, decided to speak out against the government, calling for democracy as a solution to their economic distress. In the year 1989, they protested in the name of the anniversaries of the French Revolution of 1789, the May Fourth Movement of 1919, the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and the arrest of activist Wei Jingsheng in 1979. The protest failure represented the students’ strong commitment to swift economic reform and impatience towards achieving this goal. Improving the economic situation was the motivation behind the student-led Democracy Movement that culminated with the massacre at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989; the students believed establishing a Chinese democracy was the only way to carry out this task.

Democracy Wall Movement
After the fall of Chairman Mao Zedong, animosity towards the anti-intellectual movement that was the Cultural Revolution sparked the Democracy Wall movement, which started in Beijing in the autumn 1978 when it was known that at third plenum of Eleventh Central Committee due to meet in December, Deng would seek to launch his programme of reforms, against the opposition Hua Guofeng. It is regarded as the beginning of the contemporary 1980’s Chinese democracy movement. In October 1978, a large group of young people assembled before blank wall in one central Beijing’s main streets and began to cover its surface with wall newspapers, in the manner of Cultural Revolution. The posters were soon supplemented by mimeographed journals which could spread the message further. Similar campaigns took place throughout China. The vast majority of these posters and journals ostensibly at least supported Deng Xiaoping; their purpose was to strengthen his hand at the forthcoming plenum. Their authors professed to recognize in Deng champion of the democratization of socialism.
Deng had at first found the movement useful because it attacked his enemies and because it could be shown to the outside world as evidence of the existence of freedom of speech liberalisation an important point as diplomatic relations with President Carter were being normalised. Inevitably, however, this movement soon drowned out by more radical voices, which condemned CCP rule as “feudal monarchy”. In addition to candid expressions in support of sexual freedom and human rights, some criticisms of Deng Xiaoping now appeared. The most radical of the democratic writers was a young worker, Wei Jingsheng, editor of the journal Explorations. Wei Jingsheng and activist Fang Lizhi, and they wanted to limit the power of the Chinese Communist Party, but they did not wish to establish a widespread democracy in the sense of citizen representation in the government.
As the movement progressed, however, the movement demanded more democratic reforms, such as a strong congress, checks and balances, and civil rights reminiscent of western nations. To propagate their cause, the protesters hung posters, distributed pamphlets, and held demonstrations in Beijing. They also formed dissident organizations and study groups with names such as Enlightenment Society, China Human Right Alliances, and the Thaw Society. Each published its own underground journals and offered them for sale at Democracy Wall. Generally, the Democracy Wall protesters wanted basic human rights like those sought after during the American and French Revolutions, however, they were not totally united in cause. Some protesters wanted Leninist reform and some wanted complete change because of the failed Cultural Revolution. They battled for democracy as the fifth modernization. Even though they wanted change, their approach was to gradually phase out communism and phase in democracy. As the movement progressed, however, Deng Xiaoping and his associate Hu Yaobang increased their control over the protesters. Deng slandered and censored them to make them stop voicing their opinions, and on March 29, 1979, the leader of the movement, Wei Jingsheng, was arrested and sentenced to fifteen years in prison on two charges, of counter-revolutionary and of passing military secrets to foreigners. After this event, the government continued to arrest individuals and crack down on expression. This first democracy movement of the Deng era was a precursor to the large student movement in 1989, where many of its members participated and many of its trends were repeated.

Deng Xiaoping Reform
In order to understand the problem which led to democratic movement in 1980s, we need to understand China’s economic and political background under Deng Xiaoping. The party conference of December 1978 (Third Plenum, Eleventh Central Committee) was a major landmark in the political and economic life of the post-Mao era. It signalled the rise of Deng Xiaoping as the paramount leader and adopted the key decisions of accelerating economic development and the opening door to outside world. Deng became the architect of a new socialist transformation that promised to lift China out of poverty and developmental stagnation. Deng focused on the problem of relieving poverty through economic growth. As his guiding slogan, he promoted the “Four Modernizations” of agriculture, industry, technology, and defence. The Four Modernization was sanctioned had been written into the party constitution (Eleventh Congress, August 18, 1977) and the state constitution (Fifth National People Congress, August 18, 1978).
In agriculture, Deng first took steps to repair the damage done to farm production during the Great Leap Forward. Deng sanctioned steps toward dismantling the commune system. He instituted a so-called responsibility system under which rural households were assigned land and other assets that they could treat as their own. Anything a household produced above what it owed the collective was its own to keep or sell. Under this arrangement, the government rented land to individual farm families, who then decided for themselves what to produce. The families contracted with the government simply to provide a certain amount of crops at a set price. Once the contract was fulfilled, the families were free to sell any extra crops at markets for whatever prices they could get. This chance to make more money by growing more crops greatly increased China’s farm production. Since the introduction of the contract responsibility system, Chinese farmers produced about 8 percent more each year than they did in the previous year. And many farmers have benefited greatly from the new plan. Under the contract responsibility system, families still did not own the land. The long-term leases awarded by the government, however, helped to develop an “owner” attitude among the farmers. As a result, many families have made improvements to the land. The state also encouraged sideline enterprises, such as growing vegetables and setting up small businesses, and the income of farmers rapidly increased, especially in the coastal provinces, where commercial opportunities were greatest. However, not all of China’s farmers enjoy prosperity. Most successful farmers live in eastern China where cities provide a market for their crops.
When the Communists came to power, they used most of China’s resources to increase heavy industry. Heavy industries produce goods such as iron, steel, and machines that are used in other industries. At first, heavy-industry production grew rapidly. By the mid-1970’s, however, Chinese technology was outdated and inefficient. When Deng took over, he took over an industrial system that was not working well. His program for industry had two goals. First, he wanted people to spend more money on consumer goods. Therefore, he changed the focus from heavy industry to light industry, the production of small consumer goods such as clothing, appliances, and bicycles. He also wanted factories to step up production. So he gave more decision-making power to individual factory managers. And he started a system of rewards for managers and workers who found ways to make factories produce more. The Four Modernizations program has led to much new industrial development in China. But a number of major problems remain. To being with, China’s size and physical geography work against industrial efficiency. Most heavy industries are located in cities along the east coast, while the raw materials they need are located in China’s rugged western regions. China does not yet have the transportation systems necessary to solve these problems. The outdated technology used by the Chinese in their factories has also held up industrial development. To combat this problem, Deng Xiaoping made efforts to get foreign companies to assist in improving old factories and building new ones. Further, he encouraged Chinese students to study science and technology at Western universities.
Science and technology were considered basic to successful modernization of the other three sectors. A Draft Outline National Plan for the Development of Science and Technology was presented by the Vice-Premier Fang Yi in the National Science Conference in March 1978. This draft calling for: (1) achieving or approaching by the 1970 scientific levels of advanced nations in the various scientific and technological fields; (2) increasing professional scientific and scientific researches to 800,000; (3) developing up-to-date centres for scientific experiments; and (4) completing a nationwide system of scientific and technological research. To promote science and technology, the National Science and Technology Commission, inactive during the decade of the Cultural Revolution, was reactivated to formulate short-range (three-year), medium range (eight year), and long-range (to the year 2000) projects.
China had the largest regular armed force in the world, number some 4,325,000. Except for extensive development in the strategic sector (e.g. nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles), Chinese military technology remained some twenty to thirty years behind the West. Troops were well trained, highly motivated, and politically indoctrinated but equipped with woefully inadequate weapons. Chinese experts were sent to visit advance military establishment in the West to witness the state-of-the-art military technology. China also revived and expanded the system of military academies, which had been obliterated during the Cultural Revolution. In the early 1980s, China estimated spent between $41 billion to $63 billion in order to completely modernize her conventional fighting force. This estimation was for 3,000 to 8,000 new medium tanks, 6,000 air-to-air missiles, and 200 to 300 fighter-bombers.
The Open Door Policy
During first decade of the People’s Republic (1949-59), China maintained diplomatic and commercial relations only with the Soviet Union and Eastern European satellite states. There were no trade between China and United States. China became extremely isolated in the international community after Sino-Soviet split in 1960. After the visit of President Richard Nixon to China in 1972 that limited commercial relations began. Hsu (1990) later on stated that in 1972, American-Chinese trade amounted to only $92 million, but it was rapidly grew to $1,189 million in 1978, $5,478 million in 1981, $8 billion in 1986, and an estimated $10 billion in 1988, amounting to approximately 10 percent of China’s total foreign trade.
Again the rapid growth of foreign trade after 1978 was the adoption of open-door policy by the party in the Third Plenum, Eleventh Central Committee. It was a complete reversal from the Maoist seclusion policy that had been in force for the twenty years between 1958 and 1978. Deng realized that China could not develop in isolation that she must import foreign science, technology, capital, and management skills in order for her modernization to succeed.

Cultural Impact of the Open Door Policy
Hsu (1990) described that central leadership was hoping that when they implement open door policy the decree just only in science and technology without importing foreign cultures and values. It was a naive assumption as western ideas spread across the boundaries. The cultural impact of the open door policy was far beyond anything the CCP leadership had imagined. After many years isolated from the West, all of the sudden the doors flung open, inviting foreign ideas, news, films, plays, music, literature and popular culture influx China. Students, and visiting scholars, as well as thousands of officials and delegates, went abroad to study and visit, creating international exchange between China and the outside world such as had not been seen for decades. The working of Western democracy and the freedom of people made a deep impression on Chinese visitors to the West. Many Chinese came to believe that their country needed political democracy as the Fifth Modernization, without which a true modern transformation would not be possible. University students, in particular, felt a social responsibility to be the vanguard of such change.

Student Demonstration for Democracy 1986-87
In December 1986, gigantic student demonstration broke out in fifteen major cities in China, which left the party and the government in deep disarray. One hundred thousands from 150 colleges and universities marched in the street to demand the freedoms of speech, assembly and of the press, as well as democratic elections. Their message was clear: the Chinese youths wanted political liberalization.
The first protest of December 1986 broke out in Hefei, in Anhui province, early in the month. The students of Chinese University of Science and Technology, which is located within the city’s electoral district, protested the local party secretaries’ designation of eight prospective delegates to the National People’s Congress without consulting the university. On December 1, 1986 a big poster appeared on the campus calling for a general boycott of the “faked” election scheduled for December 8. Vice-President of the University, Fang Lizhi, called for decisive action to achieve a breakthrough in the struggle for the political democracy. The students of the Chinese University of Science and Technology were joined in their protest by other university students marched on the municipal government on December 5, demanding democratic elections, freedom of the press and of assembly, and immunity from persecution and insisting the media be allowed to report their protest. The students demonstrated for 3 hours. The local authorities gave in, and election was postponed to December 29. However, the students continued to press for election reform. On December 10, students at Jiaotong University in Shanghai put up wall posters appear to show their support for the Hefei Students, as well as to voice their dissatisfaction with conditions on their campus. A day later, wall posters appeared on the campus of Beijing University but without any street demonstration. By December 12, the Hefei demonstration was estimated at 17,000. More wall posters appeared over the next few days, and on December 19, some 30,000 students joined with an estimated 10,000 workers in Shanghai marched in front of the municipal government offices carrying placards asking for democracy and freedom. The demonstration in Shanghai continued for five days, and similar activity was reported on campuses in Tienjin, Nanjing, Kumming, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Guangzhou and other cities. Beijing remained relatively quiet until December 14, where 4,000 students marched on Tiananmen Square and burned bundles of the party newspaper, The Beijing Daily. On December 23, several thousands students from Qinghua University in Beijing took the streets in the freezing weather. But much of the world’s attention was drawn to the Shanghai protests, which involved students from fifty campuses in and around the largest city in China.
On December 20, the Beijing municipal authority issued a set of regulations that made demonstrations and parades illegal unless permits were obtained five days before the event. Despite the ban, 3,000 students from Beida and some 5,000 more student from the People’s University of China stages their protest on Tiananmen Square on New Year’s Day, 1987. The parade signalled a direct challenge to the authorities who had banned such activity in the capital. The next day, the student protesters burned copies of Beijing Daily for its inaccurate and distorted reporting on student demonstration. CCP was unable to be decisive on this issue. The conservative pressed for forceful repression, but General Secretary Hu Yaobang took the enlightened attitude that the youthful idealism should not be blunted but guided toward constructive goals. Hu were more sympathetic and tolerant that they did not make prompt action to contain the movement. The Vice-Minister of the State Education Commission, He Dongchang, who himself a demonstrator in his youth, said that most of the demonstrators were patriotic and well-meaning, but they were just misguided by Western Liberalism. Other authorities were likewise moderate in their reactions. Deng Xiaoping remained quiet until on January 14 when he made a statement that “Bourgeois Liberalisation” had gone too far and ordered the local party authorities to end the demonstration which they did. Hu Yaobang was forced to step down as head of the party, taking responsibility for the demonstrations and was replaced by Zhao Ziyang. Through a variety of means including the appeals from families of students, official warnings, propaganda in the media, rebukes from workers, and peasants on television and radio, and deliberate isolation of students from the press, the wave of the student protest was finally terminated. After the student demonstration, public discussion of political reform was prohibited and a campaign against “bourgeois liberalization” was launched. The student demonstrations left the political reform movement dangerously exposed. Even some secret discussions regarding political reform being held under the leadership of Premier Zhao Ziyang were inhibited. Given heavy play in the official media, this campaign sought to discredit Western political concepts and emphasize the importance of adhering to the four cardinal principles. The campaign against bourgeois liberalization became the means for conservatives led by Political Bureau members Chen Yun, Peng Zhen, and Hu Qiaomu to express their opposition to some of the reforms, especially the pace of the reform agenda, and to the increased democratization advocated by Hu Yaobang. Having responded to major conservative concerns, Zhao then emphasized the limits that had been placed on the campaign against bourgeois liberalization. The ideological campaign was to be limited to the party, and it was neither to reach the rural areas nor to affect economic reform policies. In addition, experimentation in the arts and sciences was not to be discouraged by this campaign.

Prelude to Tiananmen Massacre
Reform in China entered a critical period from the summer of 1988 to the spring of 1989. The reformers’ retail price reform, initiated by Premier Zhao Ziyang, had generated seeming uncontrolled inflation of more than thirty percent. The rapid economic growth had caused the inflation. The government was experience a severe financial deficit and a host of other problems. The crime rate was rising rapidly and the nagging problem of widespread official corruption, brought on by economic reforms and the relaxation of control, became a source of major popular complaint. Inflation, climbing since the early 1980s, took of skyward in 1988. In comparison with the hyperinflation suffered by some Latin American countries, China’s double digit inflation rate was negligible; to a population accustomed to three decades of stable prices, it was terrifying. Poverty emerged as a serious social problem. In 1988, nearly one-third of rural China may have been living below poverty line. By late 1988, an estimated fifty million “transients” clogged China’s cities, and the number increased dramatically in 1989. Inflation also caused urban households to suffer a drop in real income in 1988; many more probably kept ahead of inflation only by working more hours at second and third jobs.
The failure of government salaries to keep up with inflation led bureaucrats and functionaries to demand bribes to perform duties. By 1988, bribes had begun to be routinely required in big cities to install phone or to start electric service, and even to get mail delivered or to receive medical attentions. Such bribes had become institutionalized and semi-legitimate, increasingly collected openly by offices or groups of office-mates. Leaders of the old generations expressed fear of the gradual erosion of socialist moral values such as selfless and concern for the collective welfare.
Furthermore, the crime rate also increased by 45.1 percent over the 1987 rate, and they were frequent report on serious crimes, including train robberies and other acts of violence. Prime Minister Li Peng and Minister of Public Security Wang Fang blamed the Economic situation for what they described as a severe increase in economic crimes, corruption, theft, economically motivated crimes of violence, and incidents of mass unrest and counter-revolutionary activities.
The rising criticism by the intellectuals and concerned party members of the party’s continued authoritarian rule and monopoly of power alarming the old revolutionary veterans. Writers and scholars, many of them members of the party, demanded the release of political prisoners and observance of human rights. They not only expressed opposition to the mass campaign of spiritual pollution and anti-bourgeois liberalization but also demanded for political reform that would include proposals of multiparty system and the speed up of privatization of enterprise.

Origins of Movement
University student at Beida, in cooperation with students from the Peoples’s University and the Central Institute for National Minorities, met secretly in the spring of 1988 to plan a national signature drive that would bring to the attention of CCP leaders particularly Deng Xiaoping, Zhao Ziyang, Li Peng, and Wan Li about the problems of inflation, neglect of workers’ living conditions, and lack of improvement in education. Fang Lizhi was invited to the Beida campus to give a lecture in early May. Fang, already ousted from party membership and severely criticised by Deng, made three points: there must be freedom of thought and speech; modernization and science must be accompanied by democratic development; and since the realization of democracy requires hard struggle, its attainment would be a complex process. At the beginning of the movement, study groups called salons formed at Beijing colleges. Two examples were the Caodi (lawn) salon, headed by Liu Gang, and the democracy salon, headed by Wang Dan. These study groups morphed into a campaign called the petition movement that started on January 6, 1989. The movement consisted of many petitions all asking Deng Xiaoping for the release of political prisoners like Wei Jingsheng in the name of the various anniversaries celebrated in the year 1989. A demonstration was planned for the seventieth anniversary of 1919 May Fourth Movement. But the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15, made it necessary for the student leaders to move up the date of the demonstration. Students believed that a demonstration in his name would seem justified to the CCP and they would not suppress it immediately. In addition, Hu also regarded as a hero for the student for his contributions in intellectual and cultural freedoms in China since 1983. These initial protests reflected the students’ desire for improved status and quality of life and their willingness to voice their opinions. Small spontaneous gatherings to mourn Hu’s death began on 15 April around Monument to the People 's Heroes at Tiananmen Square. On the same day, many students at Beijing University and Tsinghua University erected shrines, and joined the gathering in Tiananmen Square in a piecemeal fashion. On April 18, a group of students started a sit-in outside the Zhongnanhai compound located close to Tiananmen Square. Student chanting “Li Peng, come out.” Slogans such as “down with the dictatorship” and “long live democracy” were become routine. Groups of students moved back and forth from the universities to Xinhuamen. On April 20, Zhongnanhai guards reportedly attacking the protesting students with belts and clubs. This had provoked students for further action and called forth more Beijing protesters and university students around the country. Hu 's state funeral took place on 22 April. On the evening of 21 April, some 100,000 students marched on Tiananmen Square, ignoring orders from Beijing municipal authorities that the Square was to be closed off for the funeral. The funeral, which took place inside the Great Hall of the People and attended by the leadership, was broadcast live to the students. Zhao Ziyang delivered the eulogy. The funeral seemed rushed, and only lasted 40 minutes, as emotions ran high in the Square. On that evening, the Politburo decided not to be pressured by student protests to relax the campaign against bourgeois liberalization. On April 23, the provisional federation held its first organizational meeting. A standing committee of seven was set up, made up of one student representative from each of the following: Beijing University, Qinghua University, the University of Politics and Law, Beijing Normal University, the Central Academy of Arts, and the Central Institute of Nationalities. On the same day also, Zhao Ziyang left for North Korea as scheduled. Zhao 's departure to North Korea left Li Peng as the acting executive authority in Beijing. On 24 April, Li Peng and the Politburo Standing Committee met with Beijing Party Secretary Li Ximing and mayor Chen Xitong to gauge the situation at the Square; the same day with declaration by student to boycott class for indefinite duration. The municipal officials wanted a quick resolution to the crisis, and framed the protests as a conspiracy to overthrow China 's political system and major party leaders, including Deng Xiaoping. In Zhao 's absence, the committee agreed that firm action against protesters must be taken.
The April 27 demonstration was a turning for the democracy movement. The support shown for the students by the people of Beijing opened the eyes of the student leaders to the movement’s potential. The largest and most successful demonstration held in Beijing took place on that day. Estimates of crowd size ranged from a hundred thousand to half million. In May 4 which is the seventeenth anniversary of the 1919 May Fourth Movement, initiated by students, more than 100,000 march through Beijing. In addition to the students, workers and journalists express their demands. Similar rallies are held in cities across the country. Speaking at a meeting of the Asian Development Bank, Zhao Ziyang denies that the country is experiencing "turmoil," thus making apparent the divisions within the government on how to respond to the students’ movement. In the following days, students are divided on questions of strategy, with some advocating a return to classes and the setting up of a Dialogue Delegation to press for a debate with the government that would be broadcast live, while others opt for a more radical course of action.

Hunger strike
On May 13, 1989, the Hunger Strike broke out in Tiananmen Square two days prior to the highly publicized state visit by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. His visit in May 16 helped the student movement gain momentum. Western news media flooded into Beijing for the event. Popular pressure mounted the next day, May 17, more than a million people took the streets of Beijing. Many of the hunger strikers protesters were unconscious and rushed to the hospitals by ambulance. In May 18, Li Peng agreed to hold a live broadcast national meeting with student leaders. The meeting fail to achieve its target as a day after that, Li Peng announced the use of military force will use to disperse the demonstrators.
At 10:00 P.M martial law was declared for the centre of Beijing and the suburbs. The government sent the troops into Beijing on Saturday, May 20 to restore order. While the hunger strike had been called off on May 19, a student sit-in had begun at Tiananmen as barricades went up in Beijing city. On May 30, the students set up a large sculpture called the "Goddess of Democracy" in Tiananmen Square. Modeled after the Statue of Liberty, it became one of the enduring symbols of the protest though it was denied by the artist claimed that it is a peasant just holding a torch which symbolized the democracy and freedom. The statue was place facing the picture of Mao which viewed by CCP leaders as an act of provocation.

The Tiananmen Square Massacre
By June 2-3, it was estimated there were at least 150, 000 People’s Liberation Army soldiers, backed by armoured vehicle and tanks, advance and taking positions in various parts of the city and waiting move into the square occupied by students. On the evening government radio television announcer gravely warned the citizens of Beijing to stay at home and away from Tiananmen Square because the PLA would take any measures to restore order. Instead, thousands of them rushed to the square. The Student Association asked everyone to leave in order to avoid bloodshed, but 4,000 to 5,000 students and hundred thousand of other citizens refused to leave and vowed to stay and die if necessary, in the cause of democracy and freedom. They believed that the troops will not fire on their own unarmed people.
At 10 p.m. premier Li ordered the troops to move at top speed to Square, shoot all demonstrators without compunction, and clear the Square before dawn. Hundreds of thousands of troops were advancing from all four directions, residents flooded the streets to block them. At about 10:30 pm, near the Muxidi apartment buildings (home to high-level Party officials and their families), the army began firing live bullets at protestors, killing many. The killing was continued throughout the night several area around the square. The troops killed any demonstrator on sight, crush them with tanks and so forth. In an attempt to avoid bloodshed, Hou Dejian, the famous Taiwan singer, and Liu Xiabo, the young literacy critic, who had been participating in the hunger strike, went to PLA commanders to negotiate a peaceful retreat for the students on the square. At 4.55 a.m. students began to leave the square, moving westward to exit from Xidan. Tanks rolled in at 5.00 a.m. and overran the Goddess of Democracy statue and the tents. The soldiers were chasing and shooting randomly at the retreating students. The shooting continued until sunrise and the number of casualties increased. The carnage was ended in seven hours around 5.00 a.m. Number of casualties were varied from different sources. The Chinese official figure, dubious at best, put the number at 23 students and 300 soldiers killed. The Beijing Red Cross put the figure at 2,600. Hong Kong newspaper estimated the number ranging from 3,500 to over 8,000. The best unofficial estimate of the number of residents and bystanders killed on the street and total fatalities could have reached 3,000. Western Sources estimated that there were 3,000 dead and 10,000 or more wounded.

Conclusion
The Democracy Movement of the 1980s was sparked by severe political and economic stress. During the Democracy Movement of the 1980s, Chinese citizens stood up to authority to demand a better life for themselves. This better life consisted of less corruption, more reasonable prices, limited bureaucracy control, and increased equality in the jobs market. The student protesters demanded democracy because it had proved to grant equality in the past, like during the French Revolution 200 years prior. The 1980s Democracy Movement mostly initiated by students, joined together with workers and other parties later on which contribute to the establishment extraordinary numbers of organization to facilitate the movement. The 1989 movement was distinguished from those of the preceding years by the ability of protesters to project their voices beyond the square and to mobilize powerful sustained urban support that crossed the boundaries of unit, class, generation, and occupation, even in the face of martial law. The Tiananmen Square protests damaged the reputation of China internationally, particularly in the West. Many countries condemned and criticised China’s action towards the protesters as inhuman and irrational. There was also a significant impact on the Chinese economy after the incident. Foreign loans to China were suspended or delayed by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and foreign governments; tourism revenue decreased from US$2.2 billion to US$1.8 billion; foreign direct investment commitments were cancelled. On June 27, the World Bank announced the suspension of US$780 million in new loans to mainland China. Direct investment was also suspended and delayed. Immediately after the bloodshed, most American, European, and Japanese businessmen in Beijing and Shanghai opted to evacuate and less than 50 percent did not return by end of September 1989. Furthermore the relation between China and Taiwan also became worst after the incident. For Hong Kong, fears that the PRC would break promise on its commitments under one country, two systems arose after the incident following the impending handover in 1997.

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[ 2 ]. In this plenum, Deng promoted the “Four Modernizations” of agriculture, industry, technology, and defense.
[ 3 ]. Deng repudiated the Cultural Revolution and, in 1977, launched the “Beijing Spring”, which allowed open criticism of the excesses and suffering that had occurred during the period
[ 4 ]. On 5th December 1978, Wei Jingsheng’s poster ‘The Fifth Modernization’ was posted on Democracy Wall. The fifth modernization was the establishment of democracy.
[ 5 ]. Wang, James C.F., Contemporary Chinese Politics: An Introduction, 7th ed., (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002), 270-273.
[ 6 ]. Gray, J., Rebellions and Revolutions: China From The 1800s to the 1980s, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 392-394.
[ 7 ]. Hsu, Immanuel C.Y., China Without Mao: The Search for a New Order, 2nd ed., (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 92-93.
[ 8 ]. Ibid., 171-187.
[ 9 ]. Ibid., pp 94-102
[ 10 ]. Wang, Contemporary Chinese Politics: An Introduction, 252.
[ 11 ]. Hsu, China Without Mao: The Search for a New Order, 188-201
[ 12 ]. The wall posters outcry need for democracy.
[ 13 ]. Ibid., 208-211.
[ 14 ]. Julia Kwong, “The 1986 Student Demonstrations in China: A Democratic Movement?” Asian Survey, No. 9 (Sep., 1988): 970-972, http://www.jstor.org (accessed on 8 December 2012)
[ 15 ]. Wang, Contemporary Chinese Politics, 274.
[ 16 ]. Ibid.
[ 17 ]. Wu Guoguang, “The Dilemmas of Participation in the Political Reform of China, 1986-1988,” in Chinese Democracy and the Crisis of 1989: Chinese and American Reflections, ed. Roger V. Des Forges, Luo Ning, and Wu Yen-bo, 139, (New York: State University of New York, 1993).
[ 18 ]. Wang, Contemporary Chinese Politics, 277.
[ 19 ]. Kathleen Hartfold, “Summer 1988-Spring 1989 The Ferment Before the “Turmoil”: Economic Disintegrations, and Political Stagnation” in China’s Search for Democracy: The Student and Mass Movement of 1989, ed. Suzanne Ogden, Kathleen Hartford, Lawrence Sullivan and David Zweig, 6-7, (New York: M.E.Sharpe, 1992).
[ 20 ]. Andrew, J. N., China’s Crisis: Dilemmas of Reform and Prospect for Democracy, (New York, Columbia University Press, 1990), 108.
[ 21 ]. Ibid.
[ 22 ]. Wang, Contemporary Chinese Politics, 277.
[ 23 ]. Ibid., 278.
[ 24 ]. Josephine M. T. K, “Student Organization in the Movement,” in Chinese Democracy and the Crisis of 1989: Chinese and American Reflections, ed. Roger V. Des Forges, Luo Ning, and Wu Yen-bo, 162-163, (New York: State University of New York, 1993).
[ 25 ]. Palace in central Beijing, China adjacent to the Forbidden City which serves as the central headquarters for the Communist Party of China and the State Council (Central government) of the People 's Republic of China.
[ 26 ]. Craig Calhoun, Neither Gods nor Emperors: Students and the Struggle for Democracy in China, (California: University of California Press, 1994), 40.
[ 27 ]. Josephine, Student Organization, 160-163.
[ 28 ]. Craig Calhoun, Neither Gods nor Emperors, 52.
[ 29 ]. Ibid., 60-69
[ 30 ]. Tony Saich, When the Worlds Collide: The Beijing People’s Movement of 1989 in The Chinese People’s Movement: Perspectives on Spring 1989, ed. Tony Saich, 43-46, (New York: M. E. Sharp, 1990).
[ 31 ]. Andrew Scobell, “Why the People ‘s Army Fired on the People?” in in Chinese Democracy and the Crisis of 1989: Chinese and American Reflections, ed. Roger V. Des Forges, Luo Ning, and Wu Yen-bo, 199-200, (New York: State University of New York, 1993).
[ 32 ]. Craig Calhoun, Neither Gods nor Emperors, 128-130.
[ 33 ]. Wang, Contemporary Chinese Politics, 282.
[ 34 ]. Hsu, China Without Mao, 289.
[ 35 ]. Cheng, C., “Peking’s Economic Reform and Open-Door Policy after the Tiananmen Incident” in The Aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Crisis in Mainland China, ed. Bih-jaw Lin, 279, (Oxford: Westview Press, 1992).
[ 36 ]. Davis, C. M., “Tiananmen in Hongkong” in The Aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Crisis in Mainland China, ed. Bih-jaw Lin, 346, (Oxford: Westview Press, 1992).

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