1989 Tiananmen Square protests Tiananmen Square protests. Deng was of the main forces behind China's economic reform. Chinese Premier Li Peng visited the United Nations Security Council on 31 January 1992 and argued that the economic and arms embargoes on China were a violation of national sovereignty. The European Union and United States embargo on armament sales to China, put in place as a result of the violent suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests, remains in place today. China has been calling for a lift of the ban for years and has had a varying amount of support from European Union members. Since 2004,
1989 Tiananmen Square protests As the events were unfolding, it was labelled a "counterrevolutionary riot", which was later changed to simply "riot", followed by "political storm" and finally the leadership settled on the more neutralized phrase "political turmoil between the Spring and Summer of 1989", which it uses to this day. In English, the terms Tiananmen Square Massacre, Tiananmen Square Protests or Tiananmen Square Crackdown are often used to describe the series of events. However, much of the violence did not actually happen in Tiananmen, but outside the square in the city of Beijing near the Muxidi area. The term also gives a misleading