Beijing's Protest History

May Fourth Movement (1919) and the Founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (1921)

The May Fourth Movement was an intellectual and anti-imperialist movement initiated by Chinese university students who were disappointed by China's weak approach to Western intervention at the time, especially by allowing Japan to retain territories in Shandong, as the Treaty of Versailles proposed. The students demanded restoring Chinese independence and sovereignty by gathering in front of Tiananmen Square — a city square located in the city center of Beijing, China, in 1919.

Not only did the movement mark a turning point for the occurring New Culture Movement that criticized the classical Chinese ideas and promoted a new Chinese culture in favor of western ideologies (democracy, science), but it also spurred an upsurge in Chinese nationalism, leading the rise of the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party was founded on July 1st, 1921, by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao with the help of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Far Eastern Secretariat of the Communist International, inspired by Marxist ideas. 

Establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Proclamation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (1949)

Shortly after the victory of Mao Zedong's Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War, the Nationalists (Kuomintang), under Chiang Kai-shek, fled to Taiwan and proclaimed the founding of the Republic of China. Mao then proclaimed the founding of the PRC on 1 October 1949, at 3 pm, in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the new capital of China. 

Tiananmen Square Protests and Massacre & the Feng Family's Involvement (1989) 

Tiananmen Square Protest and Massacre, also known as the June Fourth Incident, was a cry for democracy in the face of oppressive Communist rule. In short, this protest was caused by growing economic prosperity, which led to an extreme disparity between the rich and the poor, inflation, party corruption, restrictions on political participation, and other political and social reasons in the long term. Yet, the death of Hu Yaobang, former pro-reform General Secretary of CCP, notable for his liberalism and revolutionary ideas, which sometimes gained hatred from other party leaders, galvanized the Tiananmen Square protests as genuine mourning turned into protesting against the central government. 

Two days after Hu's death, three thousand Peking University students marched from the campus towards Tiananmen Square and were soon followed by Tsinghua University students. They drafted a list of pleas and suggestions for the government, including the right to assemble and freedom of the press.

As protests continued to go on, hunger strikes began. Student leaders hoped to use hunger strikes to force the central government into meeting their demands, especially as hunger strikes gained sympathy. In the midst of supporting her schoolmates, Feng Yan, my father's elder sister who was attending the Peking University Medical School at the time, biked from her school to Tiananmen Square (about 25km or 15.5 miles) to provide daily necessities to those undergoing hunger strikes. My father, on the other hand, as a high school freshman then, would bike from his school to Tiananmen Square after school ended and join the protesters to offer his support. 

The protest inspired activists from all over the country. Though unable to travel to Beijing, people gathered in their respective areas to express their support for those in Beijing by singing songs, having peaceful sit-ins, and other forms of protest. My mother, who was in Qingdao, Shandong then, would occasionally skip school to join the older students. 

The Chinese government declared martial law on May 20th. When the military's initial presence failed to end the protests, the Chinese authorities decided to increase their encroachment. Chinese soldiers and police stormed Tiananmen Square, firing live rounds into the crown on June 4th at 1 am. 

To this day, the exact number of death in the Tiananmen Square Protests and Massacre is still unknown. According to UK documents and Western reporters, the death toll varies from 200 to 10,000, and thousands more were injured.