Reactions to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests While the government initially tried to justify its suppression of the protest, releasing official statements and creating museum exhibits on the events of June 3–5, it now denies that such suppression ever occurred. In 2011, an opinion piece, "Tiananmen Square a Myth", was published in China Daily, the CCP's English-language newspaper. The article claims that, "When eventually troops were sent in to clear the [Tiananmen] square, the demonstrations were already ending. But by this time the Western media were there in force, keen to grab any story they could." There is no mention of a counterrevolutionary rebellion, as earlier government
1989 Tiananmen Square protests were also outraged by "Beijing Daily's 1" June article "Tiananmen, I Cry for You", written by a fellow student who had become disillusioned with the movement, as he thought it was chaotic and disorganized. In response to the articles, thousands of students lined the streets of Beijing to protest against leaving the Square. Three intellectuals, Liu Xiaobo, Zhou Duo, Gao Xin and a Taiwanese singer Hou Dejian declared a second hunger strike because they wanted to revive the pro-democracy movement. After weeks of occupying the Square, the students were tired, and internal rifts opened between moderate and hardliner student groups.