When the East German regime collapsed, the opposition and the old system quickly established a Central Round Table to handle free elections, the dissolution of the secret police, democratic transition, and the drafting of a new constitution.
Xiang Huayan's appeal succeeded, the court revoked his conviction, allowing him to leave prison.
On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall in East Berlin was broken through by the public, and the East German Communist regime accelerated its collapse.
The Fifth Plenary Session of the 13th CCP Central Committee, held in November 1989, decided that Jiang Zemin would succeed Deng Xiaoping as Chairman of the CCP Central Military Commission.
On October 7, 1989, East Germany still held a grand military parade, but due to crushing national debt and widespread public anger sparked by the leadership's support for the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, large-scale protests broke out. After Krenz took over as General Secretary, unable to turn the tide and blindly shaking hands with the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) further intensified conflicts, ultimately leading to reunification with West Germany less than a year later on October 3, 1990.
In October 1989, the people of East Germany staged mass demonstrations in Leipzig, Berlin, and other places. Honecker was forced to step down, the East German Communist Party formed a new Politburo, and Krenz took office as General Secretary.
According to Yu Maochun, declassified archives show that the East German secret police Stasi were deeply afraid of the spirit of the Tiananmen Movement spreading to East Germany, and once tried to prevent the protest movement from spreading, but it was too late.
In September 1989, Zhu Yuejun, who had graduated from Hengyang Medical College, worked at the Second Xiangya Hospital and obtained a master's degree from Guiyang Medical College, was admitted to Shanghai Second Medical University (now Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine) to pursue a doctoral degree. He joined the team of Professor Wang Zhenyi, a leading authority in hematology, and participated in research on the mechanism of all-trans retinoic acid-induced differentiation of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) cells.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Poland's Solidarity trade union took power, Mazowiecki became Poland's first democratically elected prime minister, and he convened a conference on experience exchange among anti-communist alliances, which Yu Maochun attended.
Two months after the June Fourth Incident, James Chao met Jiang Zemin in Zhongnanhai, one of the earliest publicly recorded meetings between the Chao family and China's top leader.
The Ministry of Gas Industry of the Soviet Union was reorganized as a whole into a corporate group. Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin made a glamorous transformation into a boss, and the ministry turned both its personnel and assets entirely into a company.
According to Yu Maochun, in August 1989, two months after the June Fourth incident, East Germany's new General Secretary Krenz visited China and shook hands with Li Peng and Deng Xiaoping, a move that further inflamed the resistance sentiment of the East German people.
Following the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, Deng Xiaoping ordered the official closure of Kanghua Company to isolate risks.
With the support and nomination of Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin became General Secretary at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 13th CCP Central Committee, and that same year he took over as Chairman of the Central Military Commission.
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.
After the 1989 June Fourth, Deng Xiaoping appointed Jiang Zemin as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
On June 21, 1989, Xu Guoming, Bian Hanwu, and Yan Xuerong, who had been sentenced to death in the Guangxin Road crossing incident in Shanghai, were executed. They had been sentenced to death in the first instance on June 15, and the West German ambassador to China had called for the three not to be put to death.
In June 1989, the Shanghai High People's Court rejected the appeals of Xu Guoming, Bian Hanwu, and Yan Xuerong, upholding the death sentences; the three were executed on June 21. The specific date of the second instance was reported to be around June 20.
On June 16, 1989, after three people in Shanghai were sentenced to death, the West German ambassador to China expressed hope that the authorities would not carry out the executions, but the three were still executed on June 21.
On June 15, 1989, the Shanghai Intermediate People's Court sentenced Xu Guoming, Bian Hanwu, and Yan Xuerong to death in the first instance, to be executed immediately, with political rights stripped for life; only 9 days elapsed from the case on June 6 to the verdict.
The Shanghai Intermediate Court heard the Guangxin Road level crossing case, which was broadcast live on television. The defendant, Yan Xuerong, is reportedly intellectually disabled from birth, and her unusual behavior in court sparked discussion; the trial date could not be verified, and she was sentenced to death at first instance on June 15.
Kim Myeong-il said that he arrived in Beijing in the early morning of June 5, 1989, returned to school after seeing the city paralyzed, and left Beijing on June 9.
Afterwards, Deng Xiaoping issued a victory proclamation, defining the June Fourth incident as a counter-revolutionary riot.
After the Guangxin Road crossing incident, Shanghai police arrested those involved, including Xu Guoming, Bian Hanwu, and Yan Xuerong. English-language materials say 11 people were arrested at the scene; the claim of dozens of arrests and nighttime raids from June 7 to 9 could not be verified.
At 20:43 on the evening of June 6, 1989, Train No. 161 traveling from Beijing to Shanghai entered the Guangxin Road railway crossing in Putuo District and plowed into a crowd gathered to mourn the victims of June Fourth and protest the massacre, killing 6 people and seriously injuring 6 others. The tragedy enraged the people at the scene; tens of thousands gathered in protest, train carriages were set on fire, and Beijing–Shanghai railway traffic was cut off. The incident is known as the "Guangxin Road Crossing Incident" or the "Shanghai June 6 Incident."
In the early morning of June 5, 1989, students from some universities in Shanghai set up barriers and sat on the tracks around the Guangxin Road crossing on the Beijing–Shanghai Railway to obstruct rail traffic in protest of the June Fourth crackdown; more than 47 passenger trains were disrupted that day.
On the night of June 4, 1989, CCTV Evening News anchors Du Xian and Xue Fei wore dark clothing, speaking in extremely slow and subdued tones to broadcast the news of martial law troops entering the city, and were subsequently transferred from their posts.
Kim Myeong-il said that on the morning of June 4, 1989, when he was coming down Mount Tai after watching the sunrise, he learned of the shooting in Beijing through a Voice of America broadcast relayed by Mount Tai's loudspeakers.
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.
As a power crisis loomed, Deng Xiaoping used tanks and machine guns to suppress the student movement, blocking China's path to freedom and democracy.
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 June 15, 1989, Xu Guoming, Bian Hanwu, and Yan Xuerong were sentenced to death in the first instance by the Shanghai Intermediate People's Court for June Fourth, and were executed by firing squad on June 20, faster than in Beijing.
According to Miles Yu, East German leader Erich Honecker was the only leader of a communist state who firmly supported the Chinese Communist Party's 1989 June Fourth massacre, and this became an important reason for the East German people's protests in Leipzig, Berlin and elsewhere.
In June 1989, Peng Liyuan, dressed in military uniform, sang “The Most Beloved People” loudly before the martial law enforcement troops on Chang’an Avenue; overseas disclosures claim that this act became her political pledge of loyalty that won her favor with the senior leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The 'Democracy Songs for China' concert was held in Happy Valley, Hong Kong, to support the student movement in Beijing. Andy Lau and others expressed their support via long-distance phone calls and appeared on the big screen.
Li Peng called Deng Xiaoping, suggesting convening an expanded Politburo meeting to implement the dismissal decision. Deng Xiaoping requested to wait until the army entered Beijing to hold the meeting.
After Li Peng announced martial law in Beijing, Jiang Zemin was the first to signal firm support for the martial law order to the Central Committee, sending a plaintext telegram in the early hours of May 20.
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.
Deng Xiaoping personally summoned the heads of the major military regions and branches, beginning the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of field troops to gather around Beijing.
On May 4, 1989, reporters and editors from the People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency, Guangming Daily, and China Youth Daily took to Chang'an Avenue, carrying banners demanding that the news must tell the truth.
During the June Fourth turmoil of 1989, Zhu Rongji broke with convention by appearing on television to make an appeal, saying that Shanghai was different from Beijing and that troops and police would not be deployed, and stating that no one could conceal the historical facts; this footage was later circulated repeatedly.
In May 1989, during the 1989 student movement in Beijing, university students staging a sit-in protest in Tiananmen Square spontaneously organized a clean-up of the entire square, clearing rubbish and attempting to implement self-managed sanitation of the public space.
Over 200,000 students and 1 million citizens took to the streets, holding the famous "April 27th Grand Parade" in support of the student movement.
People’s Daily published an editorial titled “We must unequivocally oppose this unrest,” labeling the student movement as unrest.
Deng Xiaoping officially made the decision to label the students' actions as "turmoil against the Party and socialism" and established a leading group to quell the turmoil.
Deng Xiaoping summoned Premier of the State Council Li Peng, labeling it as "turmoil", setting the tone for the subsequent clearing operation.
The Beijing Municipal Party Committee, at Deng Xiaoping's behest, reported to the Standing Committee of the Politburo, and put forward the theory of a "black hand in the Central Committee."