Tiananmen Square Protest Analysis

TIANANMEN SQUARE PROTEST

Evelyn Fung

World History B2

May 6th, 2015

Mr. Bisset 2,377 words

Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms created many unexpected problems, including improved living standards as the gap between the rich and the poor widened. The new policies admitted only Western investments and tourists but also including Western political ideas. Increasing numbers of Chinese students have studied abroad and learned about the West. In Deng’s view, the benefits of opening the economy exceeded the risks. As Chinese students learnt more about democracy, they started to question China’s lack of political freedom.1 The causes of the Tiananmen Square protest include the death of Hu Yaobang, political corruption, economic

Chai Ling was one of the most radical student leaders in the Tiananmen protest. A documentary controversy started about her view on the Tiananmen Square protest through footage from a documentary titled The Gate of Heavenly Peace, shows viewers parts of an interview between Chai and reporter Philip Cunningham from May 28, 1989, a week prior to the Tiananmen Square Incident. In the footage, Chai makes the following statements that she wouldn’t stay in the Square herself. She declared “her situation different as she was on the government’s blacklist and she doesn’t want to be destroyed by the government. She stated to not know if people would find her selfish, saying that people should continue the work she started. That a democratic movement can’t succeed with one person.”3 This can be inferred to a hubristic act as her excessive pride caused her downfall which can be compared to Oedipus Rex. His excessive pride as king of Thebes caused conflicts between others and his own downfall involving harsh punishments. The only slight difference is that Oedipus realized his wrongdoings, he punished himself by blinding. But in this case, even after Chai realized her wrongdoings as being a leader of the Tiananmen Square protests, she still continued to live her life without any shame or

China reported that about 500 to 2,600 people had died in clashes on June 4 and that many of the dead were soldiers of the Peoples Liberation Army. China insisted that there was no massacre of students in Tiananmen Square and in fact the soldiers cleared Tiananmen Square of demonstrators without any shooting. The Chinese government also declared that unarmed soldiers who had entered Tiananmen Square in the two days prior to June 4 were set on fire and lynched with their corpses hung from buses. Other soldiers were incinerated when army vehicles were torched with soldiers unable to evacuate and many others were badly beaten by violent mob attacks. For seven weeks leading up to June 4, the Chinese government was extraordinarily restrained in not confronting those who paralyzed the center of China’s central capital area. According to the Chinese government’s verdict, it is inferred that China’s government was acting as the victims, as they denied having done any wrongdoings. This can be compared to the “comfort women” during WWII. “Comfort women” were basically women from various countries that were forced to “comfort the Japanese soldiers”. They were abused and raped day till night, but Japan denied this until today. The Japanese government denied these efforts during WWII, which is similar to the Chinese government during the Tiananmen Square