During the spring of 1989, nightly news accounts filmed in China's
Tiananmen Square alternately enthralled and horrified millions of
viewers around the globe. Chinese students took to the streets
demanding democratic reforms, only to have the government respond
with deadly force. Could the brutal massacre on June 4 have been
avoided? What did the students really want? How did power
struggles within the government and among the protesters affect
the final outcome? What version of events will be recorded in
official Chinese history books?
In honor of the seventh anniversary of the Beijing Massacre, FRONTLINE and the Independent Television Service
(ITVS) present, in its first television broadcast, "The Gate of
Heavenly Peace," airing Tuesday, June 4, at 9 p.m., on PBS (check
local listings). This critically acclaimed, two-and-one-half-hour epic
documentary
revisits the events of "Beijing Spring" and explores the complex
political process that gave rise to one of the largest popular
demonstrations in modern Chinese history. The film gives voice to
a wide range of Chinese citizens who directly participated in the
protests-including the workers whose stories were consistently
ignored by the Western press. It also examines publicly, for the
first time, how the movement was hampered by internal schisms
between moderates, who counseled patience and compromise with a
seemingly intransigent government, and extremists who, despite
their calls for democracy, had little understanding of it in
theory or in practice.
