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the deaths of thousands of people, with thousands more being
wounded and tens of thousands being tortured in detention.
On June 4, 1989, the People's Liberation Army marched against the

protesting students in Tiananmen Square and, according to Chinese
Red Cross figures, killed 2,600 people. This figure did not include those
secretly buried by the army or otherwise "disappeared". Other sources
estimate the death toll was between 7,000 and 20,000. More than 7,000
people were injured during the incident. About 40,000 were arrested
77
(most of these were later publicly executed). In this way communist
China once again showed the world just how "successfully" it had dealt
with its opponents.
Tiananmen Square had been one of the most important centers of
the widely supported democratic movement that the Chinese people
initiated against the colonialist Western powers in 1919. Protests there
had a particular symbolic significance. The fact that there are many
public buildings around the square was also a reason why it was chosen
for protests. The 1989 protests began when Beijing University students

wanted to commemorate former General Secretary of the Communist
Party Hu Yaobang, who had died shortly before and was known for his
reformist views. After the death of Yaobang on April 15th, a man who
had always looked warmly on the students' demands, university stu-
dents held marches to honor Hu and mourn his death. These eventually
developed into meetings at which greater democracy, university auton-
omy, greater employment opportunities and freedom of the press were
demanded.
On April 18th, tens of thousands of students staged sit-in at
Tiananmen Square and put forward Seven Demands. But that move-
ment and the students' wishes were ignored. On April 22nd, the stu-
dents again demanded a dialogue and submission of a petition letter to
the government, but their demands were rejected again.

Communist China’s Policy
of Oppression in East Turkestan