Tiananmen Square is a recurring public setting in the book’s account of political change in China: in 1976, a spontaneous gathering to commemorate Zhou Enlai became a protest, and in 1989, demonstrations raised hopes of political opening before tanks were sent against protesters. The square’s significance lies in this sharp contrast between public assembly and the state’s capacity to suppress demands for change.

A Memorial Gathering Becomes Protest

On April 5, 1976, a spontaneous celebration of Zhou Enlai’s life in Tiananmen Square turned into a protest against the government. The demonstration unfolded amid a struggle over China’s direction following years of political campaigns. The Gang of Four blamed Deng Xiaoping for the protests; he was stripped of his positions and dismissed. The episode thus connected a public gathering at the square to an immediate reversal in the leadership contest: rather than removing the leftists Deng opposed, he was removed from power.

The protest occurred during a power vacuum after Zhou’s death. Mao Zedong had appointed Hua Guofeng acting premier instead of Deng, and Hua accumulated substantial personal power in 1976. When Mao died in September, the struggle over whether to continue the Cultural Revolution or change course became still more consequential. The square’s 1976 gathering therefore appears not as an isolated commemoration, but as a public expression of discontent within a volatile contest over political authority.

The 1989 Demonstrations and Their Reversal

In 1989, demonstrations in Tiananmen Square carried the possibility of a broader political opening. The book describes a widespread sense at the time that the protests might lead to greater openness, perhaps even to the collapse of the Communist regime. That possibility was abruptly reversed when tanks were sent against the demonstrators. The episode is identified in the book as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, a naming that places the event among the clearest demonstrations of the limits of political change under one-party rule.

The consequences extended beyond the square. Zhao Ziyang, the Communist Party general secretary who had supported the students, was purged and held under house arrest for more than fifteen years. His public record was gradually erased, reducing the possibility that he could serve as a symbol for supporters of political change. The response to the demonstrations thus combined force against protest with efforts to constrain its later public memory.

The Square in the Book’s Account of Power

The two episodes make Tiananmen Square a setting where popular participation becomes visible—and where its vulnerability to concentrated authority is exposed. In 1976, a memorial gathering became a protest and helped define the political stakes of a leadership struggle. In 1989, demonstrations prompted hopes of pluralism, but the state’s response narrowed rather than expanded political space. The recurring contrast is not simply between protest and repression: it is between the capacity of people to assemble and the party’s power to determine what that assembly can change.

The book places these episodes within a broader argument about political institutions. Inclusive institutions do not arise automatically; they are often shaped through conflict between entrenched elites and groups seeking wider political participation, and the outcomes of such conflicts remain contingent. Tiananmen Square gives that argument a concrete setting. Its gatherings show people acting collectively, while the aftermath shows how the party could purge reformers, restrict civil liberties and press freedom, and manage the public record. The square therefore represents both the possibility of political challenge and the forceful limits imposed on it.