Abstract
1989 was a historical landmark, being the starting date for a wave of revolutions in the
Communist block during which most of the soviet governments around the world, especially in
East-Europe, were overthrown by popular protests. China has not been spared this “smokeless war”
1 : from April to June, as much as 300,000 students and workers gathered in Tiananmen Square, 2 in
Beijing, to ask for a democratisation of the political system. On the morning of June 4th, military
action was taken to clear the square of demonstrators, thus ending the protests.
As the biggest rally
in the history of the People's Republic of China, 3 the Tienanmen Square protests have a particular
role in the contemporary history of the country, that I shall here analyse. I shall first explain the
main motives for the movement, then in a second time describe how the protests got out of the
Government's control, and finally examine the present-day consequences of the ‘Beijing Spring'.
