The Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989, more popularly known as the Tiananmen Square Incident or Tiananmen Square Massacre, were a series of student-led demonstrations in Beijing during 1989. The student-led protests were forcibly suppressed by tanks and armed troops 2 weeks after the government declared martial law and mobilized as many as 300,000 troops into Beijing. The death toll is still widely debated.The protests happened during rapid economic and social developments in China. The students called for political and economic reform, as well as more individual rights and freedoms due to the political corruption that was the result of inflation. At the height of the protests, about a million people assembled in the Square. By May, a student-led
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Considered a watershed event, the event created limits to political expression in China. To this day, it still remains one of the most sensitive and most widely censored political topics in mainland China. While the hard-liners of the Communist Party of China insisted on forcibly suppressing the protests because they feared the anarchy that could follow, their actions garnered both national hate and international scorn. The CCP was internationally condemned for using force against protesters, and many Western countries even imposed commercial and financial bans, as well as arms embargoes. The Tiananmen Square Massacre broke at least 5 articles of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which was instilled on December 10th, 1948, 41 years before the Tiananmen Square Incident. While the Communist Party of China believed that the use of military force was beneficial for society, the rights of the Chinese protesters had been violated due to the killing and inhumane treatment, the significance and controversy of the Tank Man protest, and the suppression of opinion, and freedom, as well as …show more content…
As the lead tank tries to maneuver past the man, the man would shift his position to always block the tank’s path. This incident was photographed and filmed, and shown worldwide. Only a few sources were able to capture this event at all. There is little that is publicly known about the identity and fate of Tank Man. There are numerous theories surrounding him. In a British tabloid, The Sunday Express, the protester was identified as 19-year-old student Wang Weilin. The tabloid went on to quote his friends, who fear that he had been put to death. However, the General Secretary at that time, Jiang Zemin, denied that he had been arrested and/or executed. In another interview, between the former Beijing correspondent for the Toronto Globe and Mail, Jan Wong states that two people had pulled the man to safety. While Jan Wong states that the two people who pulled him to safety were concerned protesters, other eyewitnesses state that he had been pulled away by the Public Security Bureau. The Tank Man incident itself was very significant. In Jonathan Schaer’s footage of the entire incident for CNN, neither the Tank Man nor the tank captain was violent in their actions. The protester was only seen blocking the tanks, waving at them to leave, and eventually hopping onto the tank to talk to the commander. The significance
Considered a watershed event, the event created limits to political expression in China. To this day, it still remains one of the most sensitive and most widely censored political topics in mainland China. While the hard-liners of the Communist Party of China insisted on forcibly suppressing the protests because they feared the anarchy that could follow, their actions garnered both national hate and international scorn. The CCP was internationally condemned for using force against protesters, and many Western countries even imposed commercial and financial bans, as well as arms embargoes. The Tiananmen Square Massacre broke at least 5 articles of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which was instilled on December 10th, 1948, 41 years before the Tiananmen Square Incident. While the Communist Party of China believed that the use of military force was beneficial for society, the rights of the Chinese protesters had been violated due to the killing and inhumane treatment, the significance and controversy of the Tank Man protest, and the suppression of opinion, and freedom, as well as …show more content…
As the lead tank tries to maneuver past the man, the man would shift his position to always block the tank’s path. This incident was photographed and filmed, and shown worldwide. Only a few sources were able to capture this event at all. There is little that is publicly known about the identity and fate of Tank Man. There are numerous theories surrounding him. In a British tabloid, The Sunday Express, the protester was identified as 19-year-old student Wang Weilin. The tabloid went on to quote his friends, who fear that he had been put to death. However, the General Secretary at that time, Jiang Zemin, denied that he had been arrested and/or executed. In another interview, between the former Beijing correspondent for the Toronto Globe and Mail, Jan Wong states that two people had pulled the man to safety. While Jan Wong states that the two people who pulled him to safety were concerned protesters, other eyewitnesses state that he had been pulled away by the Public Security Bureau. The Tank Man incident itself was very significant. In Jonathan Schaer’s footage of the entire incident for CNN, neither the Tank Man nor the tank captain was violent in their actions. The protester was only seen blocking the tanks, waving at them to leave, and eventually hopping onto the tank to talk to the commander. The significance