====Tiananmen Square massacre====
:{{See also|Tiananmen Square massacre}}
The death of Hu Yaobang on April 15, 1989, coupled with growing economic hardship caused by high inflation, triggered protests by students, intellectuals, and others. The protesters camped out in Beijing's Tiananmen Square to mourn Hu's death and to protest against those who would slow reform.
Martial law was declared on May 20, 1989. Late on June 3 and early on the morning of June 4, military units were brought into Beijing. They used armed force to clear demonstrators from the streets. There are no official estimates of deaths in Beijing, but most observers believe that casualties numbered in the hundreds.
Near the end of the [[Cold War]] China's Communist Party faced the challenge of large-scale protests in Beijing's [[Tiananmen Square]] and in more than 100 other cities including [[Shanghai]] between April 15, 1989, and June 4, 1989. Disagreements about how to respond split the top Party leadership and forced out the Party General Secretary at the time, Zhao Ziyang. The decision by Deng Xiaoping, then China's Paramount Leader, to order the [[People's Liberation Army|People's army]] to break up pro-[[democracy]] protests by force undermined the Party's legitimacy.
In the months prior to the fall of the [[Berlin Wall]], pro-democracy movements worldwide flourished and socialism fell into disrepute. In an object lesson about the duplicity of socialist slogans, buzzwords, and phrases geared toward the youth and the naive - China's People's Army killed 10,000 of China's own people.<ref>"[https://dailycaller.com/2017/12/24/chinese-killed-at-least-10000-at-tiananmen-square-newly-declassified-documents-claim/ Chinese Killed At Least 10,000 At Tiananmen Square, Newly Declassified Documents Claim]", ''Daily Caller'', 12/24/2017.</ref> In fact, China's People's Army has killed more of China's own people than it has ever been used against any foreign enemy in its entire history.
====WTO membership====