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Tiananmen Square Massacre

September 2023

Li Lu in 1989 leading protests at Tiananmen Square: “I am a survivor.”

No other investor has a life story as unbelievable as Li Lu

The inside story of a radical who fled Tiananmen made billions betting on China.

  • Eleanor Olcott

April 2023

The glass facade building, second from left, is believed to be the site of a foreign police outpost for China in New York’s Chinatown.

Secret Chinese police station in NY leads to arrests

US prosecutors have unveiled cases over what they described as Beijing’s “transnational repression” schemes.

  • Larry Neumeister and Eric Tucker

November 2022

A different era - former prime minister John Howard at a joint conference with the president of China, Jiang Zemin, at Parliament House in Canberra in 1999.

Former president Jiang Zemin, who guided China out of isolation, dies

Jiang Zemin presided over a decade of explosive capitalist-style economic growth in China but was also ruthless in crushing pro-democracy dissent.

  • Joe McDonald

June 2021

People at a candlelight vigil to remember Tiananmen Square at Victoria Park in Hong Kong in 2019. This was the last time the vigil was allowed on Chinese soil.

Hong Kong police clamp down on Tiananmen anniversary

Activists have called on citizens to defy a ban on events commemorating the Tiananmen massacre.

  • Michael Smith

July 2020

The farewell celebration for the Australian trade delegation in 1978.

A look back to a different time in Australia-China relations

In his new book, Geoff Kitney recalls a time when Australian leaders, such as Doug Anthony and Bob Hawke, saw only great opportunity in China.

  • Geoff Kitney
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August 2019

The Chinese army released a promotional video on August 1 for its Hong Kong-based troops at a time of uncertainty over whether the military will intervene in the city's protests.

How close is Hong Kong to a second Tiananmen?

When it comes to Hong Kong's protesters, Beijing is likely to find violence is preferable to perceived political weakness or territorial dissolution.

  • Jude Blanchette

July 2019

Li Peng

Former hard-line Chinese leader Li Peng dies at 91

The former Chinese leader's term in power included the Tiananmen Square massacre and the controversial Three Gorges Dam project.

June 2019

Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. It was Tiananmen that secured the Chinese Communist party’s grip on power, thus ensuring that the rising power of the 21st century would be an autocracy not a democracy.

China forgets, but Hong Kong vigil marks Tiananmen Square anniversary

The Tiananmen Square anniversary has been notable for the collective amnesia in China around the violent state reaction to protests which, it is thought, claimed the lives of thousands of students and onlookers.

  • Michael Smith
Marise Payne at a recent event held by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Marise Payne delivers mild slap at Beijing over Tiananmen Square

Australia's restrained response is in contrast to the US, which praised the "heroes" who were killed standing up to the Communist regime.

  • Andrew Tillett
Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. It was Tiananmen that secured the Chinese Communist party’s grip on power, thus ensuring that the rising power of the 21st century would be an autocracy not a democracy.

Beijing, Berlin and the two 1989s

Future historians may conclude that the most significant event of 1989 was the crushing of the Tiananmen uprising, not the fall of the Berlin Wall.

  • Updated
  • Gideon Rachman
Chinese paramilitary policemen stand on duty along a avenue near Tiananmen Square. Beijing has increased government suppression of rights activismsince the bloody crackdown 30 years ago.

Taiwan urges China to 'repent' for Tiananmen Square crackdown

Democratic Taiwan tends to use the Tiananmen Square anniversary to criticise China and call for it to face up to what it did.

  • Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/tiananmen-square-massacre-1n0x