Tiananmen: the people against the party
Thirty years ago, Chinese students rose up to demand democracy and were victims of bloody repression. Nourished by the "Tiananmen Papers", a captivating dive into the heart of the events of the spring of 1989.
On April 15, 1989, Hu Yaobang, former secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party, who was dismissed two years earlier, following the student protests of 1986, he had supported in their democratic demands, dies of a heart attack.
Wanting to pay tribute to him, thousands of students converge on Tian'anmen, the largest square in the world, symbol of communist power, confronted, for a decade, the wind of freedom that blows over China and weakens the dictatorship of the single party . The slogans claim the freedom of expression and the transparency of the government.
First installment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hLCozo3p3I
This first episode traces the beginning of the biggest movement for the democratization of China's history and the showdown between some 200,000 demonstrators - soon supported by the workers, Pekingese and big cities - and the government led with an iron fist by Deng Xiaoping, party secretary-general Zhao Ziyang and prime minister Li Peng.
On May 20, after a masquerade of dialogue with student leaders, martial law is proclaimed.
Handful archive footage How, thirty years ago, the Chinese Communist Party came to commit a mass crime whose exact number of victims is still unknown?
Twelve years after the events in 2001, the leak of thousands of secret documents retracing the internal struggles of Chinese power, the "Tiananmen Papers", revealed the chain of events. Based on these exceptional documents, the film retains the thread of the days from April to June 1989 thanks to poignant archival images commented by specialists from China and by the former leaders of the movement themselves, for the majority in exile.
The ghosts of the "Beijing Spring" continue to haunt them, while a totalitarian regime still governs the country.
Documentary by Ian MacMillan (France / United States, 2019, 52mn)
Second installment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXcrXHs7p-0
on May 20, martial law is proclaimed. Two hundred thousand soldiers penetrate to Beijing ...
Two hundred thousand soldiers penetrate in the capital, but are quickly stopped by Pekingese who fraternize with them.
At the same time, dissension arises among the students, between the advocates of non-violence and the most radical. On May 27, Wang Dan, one of the leaders, sensing the imminence of the drama, unsuccessfully urges his comrades to evacuate the place.
On June 3, soldiers more subject to the regime, and who were ordered to shoot, assail the students. In a few hours, the dead are in the thousands.
The day after the massacre, the image of a man alone in front of a tank goes around the world, while a huge apparatus of repression unfolds throughout the country.
Handful archive footage How, thirty years ago, the Chinese Communist Party came to commit a mass crime whose exact number of victims is still unknown?
Twelve years after the events in 2001, the leak of thousands of secret documents retracing the internal struggles of Chinese power, the "Tiananmen Papers", revealed the chain of events.
Based on these exceptional documents, the film retains the thread of the days from April to June 1989 thanks to poignant archival images commented by specialists from China and by the former leaders of the movement themselves, for the majority in exile. The ghosts of the "Beijing Spring" continue to haunt them, while a totalitarian regime still governs the country.
Documentary by Ian MacMillan (France / United States, 2019, 52mn)
Pierre Haski and Lun Zhang
The journalist and president of Reporters Without Borders Pierre Haski and Lun Zhang, former protester in Tiananmen in 1989. Their portrait is signed Gael Legras.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucvbei6DQHA
Pierre Haski on the Tiananmen movement
Émilie Aubry reflects on the events of 1989 and their commemoration
prohibited in 2019, with Pierre Haski, journalist, president of Reporters Without Borders
https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/089842-001-A/tiananmen-entretien- with-stone-haski-1-2 /
Presentations of the documentary "Liu Xiaobo, the man who challenged Beijing"
Liu Xiaobo is a Chinese dissident, Nobel Peace Prize winner.
https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/089842-003-A/tiananmen-maintenance-with-pierre-haski-2-2/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnmrSfFQ0fI
