June Fourth: The Tiananmen Protests and Beijing Massacre of 1989 (New Approaches to Asian History)

The Tiananmen Square protests and the larger protests throughout China during the late 1980s propelled the Chinese state to govern like it does today, and they have also inspired a wide range of books in the West about the events and the impacts they had on China.

In the 1980s, China was going through a massive change following the death of Chairman Mao. The original revolutionary generation was still in control and did not want to give that up; they often removed younger rivals so that they would remain in power. The leaders could not relate to the struggles the young citizens of the country were going through, leading to an outpouring of unrest. The Tiananmen Square protests were the closest the CCP has ever come to being overthrown, which has influenced the policy of the CCP ever since. In China itself, the discussion of the Tiananmen Square protests is still tightly regulated and often censored, as it is considered a black mark.

Here, author Jeffrey Brown examines the key issues both within the universities, which drove the early days of the protests, and in the outer regions of China, where large numbers of people were fed up with petty corruption and inequality.