Editing Deng Xiaoping (section)

=== Crackdown of Tiananmen Square protests ===
{{Main|1989 Tiananmen Square protests|June 9 Deng speech}}

The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, culminating in the June Fourth Massacre, were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in the People's Republic of China (PRC) between 15 April and 5 June 1989, a year in which many other [[Revolutions of 1989|communist governments collapsed]].

The protests were sparked by the death of [[Hu Yaobang]], a reformist official backed by Deng but ousted by the [[Eight Elders]] and the conservative wing of the politburo. Many people were dissatisfied with the party's slow response and relatively subdued funeral arrangements. Public mourning began on the streets of Beijing and universities in the surrounding areas. In Beijing, this was centered on the [[Monument to the People's Heroes]] in Tiananmen Square. The mourning became a public conduit for anger against perceived nepotism in the government, the unfair dismissal and early death of Hu, and the behind-the-scenes role of the "old men". By the eve of Hu's funeral, the demonstration had reached 100,000 people on Tiananmen Square. While the protests lacked a unified cause or leadership, participants raised the issue of corruption within the government and some voiced calls for economic liberalization<ref name="nathan" /> and democratic reform<ref name="nathan">{{Cite web |last=Nathan |first=Andrew J. |date=January–February 2001 |title=The Tiananmen Papers |url=http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20010101faessay4257-p0/andrew-j-nathan/the-tiananmen-papers.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081219055135/http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20010101faessay4257-p0/andrew-j-nathan/the-tiananmen-papers.html |archive-date=19 December 2008 |website=[[Foreign Affairs]]}}</ref> within the structure of the government while others called for a less authoritarian and less centralized form of socialism.<ref>{{Cite web |date=8 February 2006 |title=Voices for Tiananmen Square: Beijing Spring and the Democracy Movement |url=http://www.socialanarchism.org/mod/magazine/display/32/index.php |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180917215455/http://www.socialanarchism.org/mod/magazine/display/32/index.php |archive-date=17 September 2018 |access-date=13 March 2010 |website=[[Social Anarchism (journal)|Social Anarchism]]}}</ref><ref>Palmer, Bob (8 February 2006). [http://www.marxist.com/Asia/tiananmen_rl.html Voices for Tiananmen Square: Beijing Spring and the Democracy Movement] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040623222014/http://www.marxist.com/Asia/tiananmen_rl.html |date=23 June 2004 }}. ''Social Anarchism''. '''20'''.</ref>

During the demonstrations, Deng's pro-market ally General Secretary [[Zhao Ziyang]] supported the demonstrators and distanced himself from the Politburo. Martial law was declared on 20 May by the socialist hardliner, Chinese premier [[Li Peng]], but the [[People's Liberation Army at the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests#Attempt to enforce martial law on May 20–23|initial military advance on the city]] was blocked by residents. The movement lasted seven weeks. On 3–4 June, over two hundred thousand soldiers in tanks and helicopters were [[People's Liberation Army at the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests|sent into the city to quell the protests by force]], resulting in hundreds to thousands of casualties. Many ordinary people in Beijing believed that Deng had ordered the intervention, but political analysts do not know who was actually behind the order.<ref name="macfarquhar" />{{page needed|date=July 2020}} However, Deng's daughter defends the actions that occurred as a collective decision by the party leadership.<ref>[http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2007/06/25/2003366781 Deng Xiaoping's daughter defends his Tiananmen Square massacre decision] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171014133929/http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2007/06/25/2003366781 |date=14 October 2017 }}. ''[[Taipei Times]]''. 25 June 2007.</ref>

To purge sympathizers of Tiananmen demonstrators, the Communist Party initiated a one-and-a-half-year-long program similar to the [[Anti-Rightist Movement]]. Old-timers like Deng Fei aimed to deal "strictly with those inside the party with serious tendencies toward bourgeois liberalization", and more than 30,000 communist officers were deployed to the task.<ref name="miles" />{{page needed|date=July 2020}}

Zhao was placed under house arrest by hardliners and Deng himself was forced to make concessions to them.<ref name="macfarquhar" />{{page needed|date=July 2020}} He soon declared that "the entire imperialist Western world plans to make all socialist countries discard the socialist road and then bring them under the monopoly of international capital and onto the capitalist road". A few months later he said that the "United States was too deeply involved" in the student movement, referring to foreign reporters who had given financial aid to the student leaders and later [[Operation Yellowbird|helped them escape to various Western countries]], primarily the United States through Hong Kong and Taiwan.<ref name="macfarquhar" />{{page needed|date=July 2020}}

Although Deng initially made concessions to the socialist hardliners, he soon resumed his reforms after his 1992 southern tour. After his tour, he was able to stop the attacks of the socialist hardliners on the reforms through their "named capitalist or socialist?" campaign.<ref>Miles, James (1997). ''The Legacy of Tiananmen: China in Disarray.'' University of Michigan Press. {{ISBN|978-0-472-08451-7}}.</ref>{{page needed|date=July 2020}} Deng privately told former Canadian Prime Minister [[Pierre Trudeau]] that factions of the Communist Party could have grabbed army units and the country had risked a civil war.<ref name="miles">The Legacy of Tiananmen By James A. R. Miles</ref>{{Page needed|date=December 2017}} Two years later, Deng endorsed [[Zhu Rongji]], a Shanghai Mayor, as a vice-premier candidate. Zhu Rongji had refused to declare [[martial law]] in Shanghai during the demonstrations even though socialist hardliners had pressured him.<ref name="macfarquhar">The Politics of China By Roderick MacFarquhar</ref>{{Page needed|date=December 2017}}