Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
struggles endured by the Communists to come to power. In the earthy
words of the crusty old veteran and high-ranking Communist official
Chen Yun, “We must not let the next generation pour a bucket of shit
on our heads” (Dietrich 1996, 295). “We seized power and established
the People's Republic,” Chen Yun told an emergency meeting of
senior military officials on May 24, “after decades of struggle and
fighting, in which hundreds of thousands of our revolutionary heroes
lost their lives. Are we to give it all up just to satisfy the students?”
(Hsu 1990, 930).
Sensing the perilous situation the students in Tiananmen Square
were facing, demonstrations in support of them were held in several
major Chinese cities over the next few days. A rock concert held in
Hong Kong on May 27 raised $12 million for the benefit of the pro-
testing students in Beijing. The Beijing students' spirits and defiance
were elevated on May 30 when a huge statue called the Goddess of
Democracy, obviously patterned after the Statue of Liberty in New
York City, was brought into the square before dawn. This attracted
journalistic coverage all over the world and seemed to be the last straw
for the government; the movement had gone too far in publicly utiliz-
ing a well-known American symbol of democracy and freedom, and it
would now be crushed.
At 6.00
P
.
M
. on June 3, 1989, the Chinese government issued three
warnings over state-run media that the movement was about to be
violently suppressed. According to Canadian journalist Jan Wong,
who was an eyewitness to these warnings and the subsequent massa-
cres, this was counterproductive and probably increased rather than
decreased the number of lives lost (Wong 1996, 248).
By several accounts, the soldiers who murdered unarmed civilians
and students had been heavily doped with amphetamines and
did not seem to know where they were or what they were doing (Yu
and Harrison 1990, xxiii). Wong witnessed the butchery as Chinese
soldiers rampaged through the streets of Beijing and Tiananmen
Square. She described the horrific scenes just after midnight on June 4,
1989. She stayed up all night during the massacre, trying to contain
her horror because she knew she was witnessing a horrific historical
event:
In the darkness I could make out a double row of soldiers, approxi-
mately one hundred and twenty men across. At 2:35, they began firing
into the crowds as they marched across the square. With each volley,
tens of thousands of people fled toward the hotel. Someone comman-
deered a bus, drove it toward the soldiers and was killed in a hail of
