[3][4] The protests were precipitated by the death of pro-reform Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Hu Yaobang in April 1989 amid the backdrop of rapid economic development and social change in post-Mao China, reflecting anxieties among the people and political elite about the country's future.

Inflation soared; official indices reported that the Consumer Price Index increased by 30% in Beijing between 1987 and 1988, leading to panic among salaried workers that they could no longer afford staple goods.

[58] In response, Deng Xiaoping warned that Fang was blindly worshipping Western lifestyles, capitalism, and multi-party systems while undermining China's socialist ideology, traditional values, and the party's leadership.

[67][68] A five-man committee to study the feasibility of political reform was established in September 1986; the members included Zhao Ziyang, Hu Qili, Tian Jiyun, Bo Yibo and Peng Chong.

The municipal officials wanted a quick resolution to the crisis and framed the protests as a conspiracy to overthrow China's political system and prominent party leaders, including Deng Xiaoping.

[96] Organized by the Union on 27 April, some 50,000–100,000 students from all Beijing universities marched through the streets of the capital to Tiananmen Square, breaking through lines set up by police, and receiving widespread public support along the way, particularly from factory workers.

On the morning of 13 May, Yan Mingfu, head of the Communist Party's United Front, called an emergency meeting, gathering prominent student leaders and intellectuals, including Liu Xiaobo, Chen Ziming, and Wang Juntao.

However, its smooth proceedings were derailed by the student movement; this created a major embarrassment ("loss of face")[113] for the leadership on the global stage and drove many moderates in government onto a more hardline path.

[118] Li Peng, Yao Yilin, and Deng asserted that by making a conciliatory speech to the Asian Development Bank, on 4 May, Zhao had exposed divisions within the top leadership and emboldened the students.

[122] For the rest of his life, Zhao Ziyang maintained that the decision was ultimately in Deng's hands: among the five PSC members present at the meeting, he and Hu Qili opposed the imposition of martial law, Li Peng and Yao Yilin firmly supported it, and Qiao Shi remained carefully neutral and noncommittal.

[142] The report concludes that the demonstrators' leadership, referred to as a "tiny minority", had "organised and plotted the turmoil", and that they were using the square as a base to provoke conflict in order to create an international impact.

[145] In conjunction with the plan to clear the square by force, the Politburo received word from army headquarters stating that troops were ready to help stabilize the capital and that they understood the necessity and legality of martial law to overcome the turmoil.

[155] In their declaration speech, the hunger strikers openly criticised the government's suppression of the movement, to remind the students that their cause was worth fighting for and pushing them to continue their occupation of the square.

"[37] Demonstrators attacked troops with poles, rocks, and molotov cocktails; Jeff Widener reported witnessing rioters setting fire to military vehicles and beating the soldiers inside them to death.

[182] On 5 June 1989, The Wall Street Journal reported on the fighting: "As columns of tanks and tens of thousands of soldiers approached Tiananmen, many troops were set on by angry mobs who screamed, 'Fascists'.

[188][190] Between 3:30 and 3:45 am, the ambulance arrived at the Museum of Chinese History in the northeast corner of the square, and Hou Dejian and Zhou Duo met with Ji Xinguo, a regimental political commissar.

The government actively suppressed discussion of casualty figures immediately after the events, and estimates rely heavily on eyewitness testimony, hospital records, and organised efforts by victims' relatives.

At the State Council press conference on 6 June, spokesman Yuan Mu said that "preliminary tallies" by the government showed that about 300 civilians and soldiers died, including 23 students from universities in Beijing, along with some people he described as "ruffians".

On 19 June, Beijing Party Secretary Li Ximing reported to the Politburo that the government's confirmed death toll was 241, including 218 civilians (of which 36 were students), 10 PLA soldiers, and 13 People's Armed Police, along with 7,000 wounded.

[citation needed][e] Former protester Wu Renhua of the Chinese Alliance for Democracy, an overseas group agitating for democratic reform in China, said that he was only able to identify and verify 15 military deaths.

Another reform-minded Chinese leader, Wan Li, was also put under house arrest immediately after he stepped out of his plane at Beijing Capital Airport upon returning from a shortened trip abroad; the authorities declared his detention to be on health grounds.

[266] The official narrative constructed by the Chinese Communist Party on 4 June Incident states that the use of force was necessary to control "political turmoil",[267] and this also ensures the stable society that is necessary for successful economic development.

Two news anchors, Du Xian and Xue Fei, who reported this event on 4 and 5 June, respectively in the daily Xinwen Lianbo broadcast on China Central Television, were fired because they openly emoted in sympathy with the protesters.

[297] Since 1989, efforts have been made to create effective riot control units in Chinese cities increased spending on internal security and to an expanded role for the People's Armed Police in handling protests.

Sensing that conservative policies had again taken a foothold within the party, Deng, now retired from all of his official positions, launched his southern tour in 1992, visiting various cities in the country's most prosperous regions while advocating for further economic reforms.

[285] Professor Suisheng Zhao, Director of the Centre for China-US Cooperation at the University of Denver, attributes the slight impact to the fact that "the human rights records in most of these countries were not better than China's.

[294] Furthermore, the government has successfully promoted China as an attractive destination for investment by emphasizing its skilled workers, comparatively low wages, established infrastructure, and sizable consumer base.

Since then, Western leaders who were previously critical of China have sometimes paid lip service to the legacy of Tiananmen in bilateral meetings, but the substance of discussions revolved around business and trade interests.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo remained in China in order to speak out about Tiananmen in the 1990s despite the fact that he received offers of asylum; he faced constant surveillance.

Social media censorship is more stringent in the weeks leading up to the anniversaries of the massacre; even oblique references to the protests and seemingly unrelated terms are usually very aggressively patrolled and censored.