30 Years After Tiananmen Protests, 'The Fight Is Still Going On For China'

Zhou Fengsuo was a top university student when the first protests broke out in the heart of the ancient imperial city of Beijing, set off by the death of reformist leader Hu Yaobang in April 1989.

But he threw caution to the wind as students marched to Tiananmen Square before Hu's funeral. Tens of thousands of students like him from across the country, professors, blue-collar workers and passersby joined in the following months. Often dubbed the "student democracy protests," those who assembled in Beijing and elsewhere across China didn't just want democratic reform. Among other things, they demanded labor bargaining for workers, a free press and an end to party corruption.

But by May, officialswho were sympathetic to the student protesters lost out to factions led byDeng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who ordered that the demonstrations be put down. On the night of June 4, tanks rolled in to the square and began shooting. Violent crackdowns in other Chinese cities followed in