Since its destruction, numerous replicas and memorials have been erected around the world, including in Hong Kong, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Vancouver.

[2] Near the end of May 1989 the Democracy Movement in Tiananmen Square, though still attracting huge throngs of participants, was losing momentum in the face of government inaction on reforms.

Those remaining seemed to have no clear leadership: Chai Ling, tired and disheartened by the difficulties of keeping the Movement together, had resigned from her post...[the Square] had degenerated into a shantytown, strewn with litter and permeated by the stench of garbage and overflowing portable toilets... Tianamen, once a magnet pulling in huge throngs, had become only an unkempt campground of little interest to citizens, many of whom considered the struggle for democracy lost.

It was built in hopes of bolstering the movement which "seemed to be losing some of its momentum; the students suspected that the government was waiting for them to tire and leave the Square".

[4] When the time came to transport the pieces of the statue to the Square, the State Security Bureau, hearing of the students' intention, declared that any truck drivers assisting them would lose their licenses.

[3] At dusk on May 29, with fewer than 10,000 protesters remaining in the square the Art Students constructed bamboo scaffolding and then began assembling the statue.

It broke up the north–south axis of the Square, standing between the Monument to the People's Heroes, and the Tiananmen Gate (which it faced looking at its large photograph of Mao Zedong).

"[1] When the time came for the actual unveiling, On May 30, 1989, two Beijing residents, a woman and a man, were chosen at random from the crowd and invited into the circle to pull the strings that would remove the pieces of red and blue cloth.

The art students who created the statue wrote a declaration that said in part:At this grim moment, what we need most is to remain calm and united in a single purpose.

[3] The entire statement was written "in rather crude calligraphy" on a long banner placed near the statue, and was read in its entirety by a female student "with a good Mandarin accent" from the Broadcasting Academy.

[4] On June 3 even as the government troops positioned themselves to move on the students, applause erupted from the people gathered around the statue as it was announced there that a Democracy University would now begin classes in the Square with Zhang Boli appointed as its president.

Even as classes began by the statue, to the west of the square and at Muxidi thousands of students moved to block the oncoming 27th Army who were armed with tanks, assault weapons, and bayonets.

[4] The toppling of the Goddess of Democracy was seen by millions across the world on television: "pushed by a tank, it fell forward and to the right, so that its hands and the torch struck the ground first, breaking off.

[7] The Chinese government has tried to distance itself from any discussions about the original statue or about the Tiananmen Square protests, and in the case of the Victims of Communism Memorial it called the building of a replica an "attempt to defame China".