People's Liberation Army at Tiananmen Square protests of 1989

Martial Law in Beijing
Part of Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989
Date May 21 – June 9, 1989 Location Beijing, China Result End of student-led demonstrations, PLA retake Tiananmen Square and streets of Beijing
Belligerents
Government of China Communist Party of China	Chinese demonstrators
Commanders and leaders
Deng Xiaoping Yang Shangkun Li Peng Liu Huaqing Chi Haotian Yang Baibing Xu Qinxian	University students and Beijing residents
Strength
180,000–250,000 troops	50,000–100,000 demonstrators
Casualties and losses
23 killed (10 PLA and 13 PAP) ~6,000 wounded 1,000 military vehicles 60+ armored personnel vehicles 30+ police cars 120 other vehicles	hundreds - thousands killed 7,000+ wounded

~6,000 wounded

During the 1989 student demonstrations in Beijing, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) played a decisive role in enforcing martial law, suppressing the demonstrations by force and upholding the authority of the Chinese Communist Party. The scale of the military's mobilization for a domestic event and degree of bloodshed inflicted against civilians were unprecedented both in the history of the People's Republic and the history of Beijing, a city with a tradition of popular protests against ruling authorities dating back to the May Fourth Movement of 1919. The subject of the Tiananmen protests in general and the military's role in the crackdown remains forbidden from public discussion in China. The killings in Beijing continue to taint the legacies of the party elders, led by Deng Xiaoping, and weigh on the generation of leaders whose careers advanced as their more moderate colleagues were purged or sidelined at the time. Within China, the role of the military in 1989 remains a subject of private discussion within the ranks of the party leadership and PLA. Only outside of China is the subject part of the public discourse.

The student movement in Beijing in the spring of 1989 was triggered by the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15. Well before martial law was declared on May 19, the government called army troops into the city to help the police maintain order. On April 22, the Beijing Garrison's 13th Safeguard Regiment (3rd Safeguard Division) and nearly 9,000 soldiers from the 38th Army (112th Division, 6th Armored Division, engineer and communications regiments) were deployed around the Great Hall of the People during Hu Yaobang's funeral. Outside the Hall, in Tiananmen Square, nearly 100,000 students had gathered on the night of April 21 to mourn Hu Yaobang. The 38th Army was called into Beijing a second time, after the publication of the April 26 Editorial, to join Beijing Garrison troops in guarding Tiananmen Square against protesting students. Several hundred thousand students marched from campus through the city centre on April 27, but did not enter the Square. About 5,100 troops were involved in this second deployment. There were no clashes with civilians and the troops pulled out on May 5. The Beijing Garrison troops were called upon to guard the Great Hall on May 4, for the Asian Development Bank board meeting, and from May 13–17 for Mikhail Gorbachev's state visit to Beijing.