Tiananmen square anniversary: what sparked the protests in China in 1989?
Beijing brutally cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators, killing as many as 10,000 people on 4 June
What sparked the pro-democracy protests in 1989?
In April 1989, the popular reformist leader Hu Yaobang died. During the 1980s he had been a high-ranking Communist party official who had promoted economic and political reform, but was ousted by his conservative opponents. Two days after his death, on 17 April, several hundred students marched to Tiananmen Square and laid a wreath at the Monument to the People’s Revolutionary Heroes. They called for greater freedom of
