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.
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.
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.
Afterwards, Deng Xiaoping issued a victory proclamation, defining the June Fourth incident as a counter-revolutionary riot.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 April 1989, Hu Yaobang suffered a massive myocardial infarction during a Politburo meeting and passed away shortly after. His death directly triggered the subsequent 1989 Student Movement.
When meeting with U.S. President George H.W. Bush in Beijing, Deng Xiaoping stated that the overriding issue for China's problems is the need for stability; without a stable environment, nothing can be accomplished.
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.
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).