Video: Frontline’s “The Tank Man”

This week marks the 25th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. On June 4, 1989, Chinese soldiers armed with tanks and automatic weapons forcibly cleared Tiananmen Square. The Chinese government reported that 218 civilians, 10 soldiers and 13 police officers were killed along with 7,000 wounded. Other estimates went as high as 6,000 dead and 30,000 wounded. A People’s Liberation Army defector noted that a document circulated to PLA officers put the death toll at 3,700.

Touched off by the April 15 death of Hu Yaobang, a liberal reformer who had been removed as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party three years earlier, students began to assemble in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. They stayed for seven weeks, occupying Tiananmen Square, growing in number and joined by thousands of working people. They protested government oppression and demanded, among other things, a free press.

On the day after the bloody massacre cleared the square, and with the military seemingly in full control, an unknown man was caught on film standing in front of a line of tanks, briefly blocking their advance. He became an international symbol for individual freedom.

• Frontline Documentary: “The Tank Man” Part 1
• Frontline Documentary: “The Tank Man” Part 2
• Frontline Documentary: “The Tank Man” Part 3
• Frontline Documentary: “The Tank Man” Part 4
• Frontline Documentary: “The Tank Man” Part 5
• Frontline Documentary: “The Tank Man” Part 6
• Frontline Documentary: “The Tank Man” Part 7
• Frontline Documentary: “The Tank Man” Part 8
• The entire PBS Video (ironically w/​ commercials)
• The Tank Man – Frontline