Times Coverage of Tiananmen Square 25 Years Ago
By THE NEW YORK TIMESJUNE 3, 2014
Pro-democracy demonstrators filled Tiananmen Square on June 2, 1989, despite martial law being declared in Beijing.
It was 25 years ago Wednesday that Chinese troops conducted a bloody crackdown on thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. At the time, Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times’s Beijing bureau chief, reported that “by ordering soldiers to fire on the unarmed crowds, the Chinese leadership has created an incident that almost surely will haunt the government for years to come.”
“Looking back at what I wrote 25 years ago, I’d say the tone was right but the timing way too optimistic,” Mr. Kristof said recently in an email. “The Communist party indeed has diminishing control over people’s lives.” But he noted that despite economic and social pluralism, there is “still not a whisker of political pluralism.”Photo
People's Liberation Army tanks blockaded main thoroughfares leading to Tiananmen Square on June 6, 1989, two days after hundreds of protesters were killed in Beijing.CreditManuel Ceneta/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“Back then we thought that greater democracy would come in five years, or perhaps a decade, but we would not have expected that 25 years later Liu Xiaobo would be in prison as a Nobel Peace Prize winner,” he said.
Here are select stories from The Times from 1989 — including work by Mr. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn that won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting — written just before and just after the violent crackdown in Tiananmen.
UPHEAVAL IN CHINA
Biggest Beijing Crowds So Far Keep Troops From City Center; May 21, 1989, by Nicholas D. Kristof
Huge throngs, possibly amounting to more than one million Chinese, took to the streets today to defy martial law and block troops from reaching the center of the capital, effectively delaying or preventing the planned crackdown on China’s democracy movement.
Facing the People, the Soldiers Fall Back; May 21, 1989, by Sheryl WuDunnPhoto
Burned out army trucks and armored personnel carriers littered the streets of Beijing after the bloody 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square.CreditDavid Turnley/Detroit Free Press, via Associated Press
When a small convoy of military trucks used to launch tear gas and to spray water on rioters rolled through eastern Beijing early this morning, the soldiers met their first unexpected challenge. An old woman street cleaner rushed up and lay down on the road in front of the trucks.
CHINA ERUPTS
The Reasons Why; The New York Times Magazine, June 4, 1989, by Nicholas D. Kristof
The outlook for China’s immediate future is murky, but most Chinese seem to expect that whatever the near-term setbacks, the nation has been set on the road toward less control by the Communist Party. The uprising of the last six weeks, whether it is renewed or repressed, seems to mark a turning point, and it happened with startling, and seemingly inexplicable swiftness. No one predicted that the convulsions would happen when they did, and not even China’s most famous savants can safely predict what will happen next.
The same day his article appeared in the magazine, Mr. Kristof reported from Beijing for The Times when Chinese troops used bloody force to retake the center of the capital from pro-democracy protesters.
CRACKDOWN IN BEIJING
Nicholas Kristof remembers the unlikely heroes of the protests 25 years ago.
Changan Avenue, or the Avenue of Eternal Peace, Beijing’s main east-west thoroughfare, echoed with screams this morning as young people carried the bodies of their friends away from the front lines. The dead or seriously wounded were heaped on the backs of bicycles or tricycle rickshaws and supported by friends who rushed through the crowds, sometimes sobbing as they ran.
In the Streets, Anguish, Fury and Tears; June 4, 1989, by Sheryl WuDunn
As the crackle of automatic weapons filled the air today on the Avenue of Eternal Peace, tens of thousands of Beijing residents, even elderly men and women, rushed out to see what they could do to turn back the troops.
A day later, the amount of carnage was only a little clearer as “word-of-mouth estimates continued to soar, some reaching far into the thousands.”
Beijing Death Toll at Least 300; Army Tightens Control of City but Angry Resistance Goes On; June 5, 1989, by Nicholas D. Kristof
By ordering soldiers to fire on the unarmed crowds, the Chinese leadership has created an incident that almost surely will haunt the Government for years to come. It is believed here that after the bloodshed of this weekend, it will be incomparably more difficult to rule China.
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