During the
1989 student demonstrations in
Beijing, the
Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) played a decisive role in enforcing
martial law, suppressing the demonstrations by force and upholding the authority of the
Chinese Communist Party. The scale of the military's mobilization for a domestic event and degree of bloodshed inflicted against civilians were unprecedented both in the
history of the People's Republic and the
history of Beijing, a city with a tradition of popular protests against ruling authorities dating back to the
May Fourth Movement of 1919. The subject of the Tiananmen protests in general and the military's role in the crackdown remains forbidden from public discussion in China. The killings in Beijing continue to taint the legacies of the
party elders, led by
Deng Xiaoping, and weigh on the generation of leaders whose careers advanced as their more moderate colleagues were purged or sidelined at the time. Within China, the role of the military in 1989 remains a subject of private discussion within the ranks of the party leadership and PLA. Only outside of China is the subject part of the public discourse.