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China, 1989

This collection features sources on the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 and other developments in China at the end of the Cold War. For other collections on China’s modern political history, see: Chinese Civil War, 1945-1950; Purges in 1950s China; China’s Great Leap Forward, 1958-1961; China’s Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976; and Reform and Opening in China, 1978-. (Image: Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang speaks with fasting university students in Beijing's Tiananmen Square early Friday May 19, 1989, to urge them call off their hunger strike. The strike is in its sixth day. (AP Photo/Xinhua) )

 

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May 16, 1989

Excerpts from the Meeting between Mikhail Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping

The Chinese version of the record of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping. Deng provides a historical overview of China's relations with the Soviet Union and other countries.

May 16, 1989

Excerpts from Conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and Zhao Ziyang

Zhao Ziyang and Gorbachev discuss political and economic changes ongoing in China.

June 4, 1989

Telegram from Romanian Embassy in Beijing to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 03:00 am

Telegram from Romanian Embassy in Beijing to Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the events in Beijing as troops attempted to reach Tiananmen Square to end the protest

September 1991

Report by S. Goncharov for the Russian Leadership on the Question of the Current Situation in Relations between Russia and China (Excerpt)

S. Goncharov describes the lessons the Soviet Union drew from China's suppression of the student protests in Beijing in spring 1989.

July 15, 1989

Excerpts from the Conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and Rajiv Gandhi

Gorbachev and Gandhi discuss the Tiananmen Square Incident in China and the ongoing turmoil within the Chinese Communist Party, including the fate of Zhao Ziyang.
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Exterior of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Tiananmen Square at 25

Memories of Tiananmen Square in 1989, as told (and photographed) by a journalist who was there.

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Exterior of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Telegrams from Beijing: Czechoslovak Diplomats on the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests

In a series of flash telegrams, the Czechoslovak embassy in Beijing informed Prague on developments at Tiananmen Square from the end of May to June 4, 1989.

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