During the 1989 protests, because he advocated resolving issues within the framework of democracy and the legal system, Zhao Ziyang was stripped of all his posts by Deng Xiaoping and subsequently placed under house arrest in Fuqiang Alley, Beijing, for fifteen years until his death from illness.
Afterwards, Deng Xiaoping issued a victory proclamation, defining the June Fourth incident as a counter-revolutionary riot.
Chinese students and citizens gathered in Beijing Tiananmen Square to demand reforms, anti-corruption measures, and freedom, and were met with a military crackdown by troops and tanks.
At the Fourth Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in June 1989, Zhao Ziyang was officially removed from the post of General Secretary. Before that, Deng Xiaoping had the Central Guard Group place Zhao Ziyang under house arrest, and Wen Jiabao, then director of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee, discovered that the Central Guard Bureau took orders only from the Central Military Commission.
On the eve of the June Fourth (Tiananmen) crackdown, Zhao Ziyang drafted a telegram requesting Wan Li to return to China and convene the NPC Standing Committee to veto the martial law decree. Wen Jiabao, director of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee, suppressed the telegram and prevented it from being sent on the grounds that the procedures were not compliant.
In the early hours of May 19, 1989, Wen Jiabao accompanied Zhao Ziyang to Tiananmen Square to visit the students on a hunger strike.
Deng Xiaoping convened a meeting at home and decided to remove Zhao Ziyang from the position of General Secretary. Zhao Ziyang and Hu Qili were not notified of this meeting.
Deng Xiaoping convened a Politburo Standing Committee meeting at home to discuss whether to impose martial law in Beijing, and Zhao Ziyang explicitly stated that it could not be carried out.
Before his visit to North Korea, Zhao Ziyang consulted Deng Xiaoping, and Deng Xiaoping promised that after returning to China he would be appointed Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and agreed to the visit.
In 1989, Zhao Ziyang bluntly told visiting Gorbachev that Deng Xiaoping was the absolute authority ruling from behind the curtain. During the June Fourth period, as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, he was unwilling to order the massacre, and was therefore politically purged.
With Qiao Shi's support and Zhao Ziyang's approval, China Kanghua was officially established. It subsequently rapidly split into numerous subsidiaries, becoming a symbol of official profiteering and privileges.
On September 10, 1980, the Third Session of the Fifth National People's Congress (August 30 to September 10) adopted a resolution accepting Hua Guofeng's resignation from the office of Premier of the State Council and decided that Zhao Ziyang would serve as Premier of the State Council.
The Fifth Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was held in Beijing through February 29, restoring the Secretariat and electing Hu Yaobang as General Secretary; Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang were additionally elected to the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, and Wang Dongxing and three others resigned.