![]() ![]() There are a few distinct similarities between the 19 manifestations.īoth were sparked by mourning - this past week for the victims of the Urumqi fire, as well as other Chinese people who have died or taken their lives because of Covid-19, and in 1989 for Hu Yaobang, a widely liked former Party chief born into poverty and seen as an everyman ally of ordinary people.īoth protests spread quickly to other cities - in 1989 because of news media and their unabashed support for the hunger-striking students, and in 2022 because of social media that flashed messages and images online faster than Chinese authorities could scrub them from the internet.īoth protests united students and the local citizenry with common goals - social liberalizations in the name of democracy in 1989, and rolling back “zero Covid” in 2022. And according to at least one newspaper report, Beijing is starting to allow some who test positive to quarantine at home instead of crowded, unpopular isolation centers. Indeed, a handful of Chinese cities in the past few days said they were easing pandemic restrictions by loosening Covid testing requirements and allowing some markets and restaurants to reopen. They might just succeed, at least in part, even if they fail. The same might turn out to be true of the anti-lockdown protests. The Tiananmen Square protests had significant long-term effects on China, even if they weren’t always acknowledged as such. And while the regime isn’t sending in tanks, it’s having police suppress the expressions of dissent.īut even if the protests fade away and Chinese leaders stay in place, that won’t necessarily mean the uprising failed. The protests have taken all by surprise - China’s leadership, police and aggrieved citizens themselves. Virulent demonstrations began there and soon spread to some 20 cities. ![]() The protests erupted after a fire last week in the far-west city of Urumqi that left 10 dead videos seemed to show firefighters unable to go in the apartment building, and victims unable to escape, because of lockdown measures. Chinese television broadcasting the World Cup competition from Qatar focuses on the action on the field, avoiding wider views that would show thousands of boisterous - and maskless - fans, which would outrage Chinese viewers, many of whom can’t leave their buildings just to take a walk. The recent protests were ignited by intense frustration with Xi’s draconian “qingling” or “zero-Covid” policy that has seen frequent, widespread and long-lasting lockdowns with schools and restaurants closed, and residents unable to leave their compounds, or even their buildings, to shop for food.Ĭhinese people are fed up with the measures at a time when much of the rest of the Covid-affected world has reopened. The Tiananmen Square protest was violently suppressed, and similar public disdain for the ruling party and party leaders has been unheard of in China for more than 30 years.īut now, for the first time since 1989, Chinese citizens have rallied in public to call out the country’s top leader, in effect demanding regime change. ![]() “Li Peng xiatai” was a common refrain, which students and citizens shouted with raised fists, and ebullient youths wrote on banners they lifted from cars parading up and down Beijing’s Chang’an Boulevard. When I was covering the student-led protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989, there were frequent calls for senior leader Deng Xiaoping and Premier Li Peng to be done with. "Thirty years ago, in the centre of China's communist capital, millions of students and citizens staged weeks of protests calling for democracy.Those slogans brought back some intense memories for me. Interviews with student activists, soldiers and key participants in the movement are featured.Īptly titled "Tremble and Obey", this investigative documentary was produced for the "Four Corners" program by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2019. After the crackdown, the Chinese government began to censor this topic and has never given a full account of what happened. This documentary looks at the lead-up to the "June 4th incident", how it unfolded, the aftermath, and how the Chinese Communist Party crushed democracy. An estimate of several hundred to many thousand Chinese people died in 1989 when the Chinese government sent tanks and soldiers to kill their own citizens who were protesting for democracy. Footage shows what really happened in lead-up to Tiananmen Square massacre.įootage and audio from the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre in China, pieced together in this documentary 30 years later. ![]()
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