In the 1980s, China underwent massive social and economic changes as Chairman Mao Zedong's successor, Deng Xiaoping, "opened" China to the rest of the world by allowing foreign investments and diplomacy. As the ruling party split between progressives and hardliners, students began to protest corruption and call for governmental transparency. The protestors' methods included staging hunger strikes, sit-ins, and rioting.
On April 18th, 1989, communist leader and pro-democracy symbol Hu Yaobang died, sparking a wave of student protests that called for a more open government and an end to censorship. Thousands of people joined the movement (some estimate close to a million protestors), camping out for weeks in Tiananmen Square and even erecting a statue called the "Goddess of Democracy." Tiananmen Square was a strategic protest location, as the square, whose name means "Gate of Heavenly Peace," was the official site on which the People's Republic of China was founded. It contains monuments to national heroes and connects to the Forbidden City, the seat of China's former imperial power.
Though many leaders argued to make concessions to the protestors, hardliners "won the debate" and declared martial law in Beijing. In the early morning of June fourth, 1989, government troops opened fire on protestors, killing hundreds, if not thousands, of Chinese citizens; no official death toll has ever been released. Several thousand were arrested, and dozens were executed.
