Reactions to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests having occurred in Tiananmen Square itself. Yuan Mu portrayed the crackdown as a response to "a counterrevolutionary rebellion in the early hours of the morning of June 3." In August, 1989, the Chinese government released its complete, official account of the Tiananmen protests, "The Truth About the Beijing Turmoil". The narrative presented in "The Truth About the Beijing Turmoil" differs significantly from the accounts of student leaders and foreign journalists, many of which are banned in China. On the origins of the protest the book states: This contradicts the statements of student leaders, who emphasised the spontaneous nature of their
Students' hunger strike at the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests Students' hunger strike at the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests The first of two student hunger strikes of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 began on May 13, 1989, in Beijing. The students said that they were willing to risk their lives to gain the government's attention. They believed that because plans were in place for the grand welcoming of Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union, on May 15, at Tiananmen Square, the government would respond. Although the students gained a dialogue session with the government on May 14, no rewards materialized. The Chinese Communist Party did not heed