Book contents
- Deadly Decision in Beijing
- Deadly Decision in Beijing
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Main Characters
- Chronology
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Party-State Leadership in the Deng Era
- Part II Elite Politics and the Making of the Tiananmen Protest
- Part III The Decision for Military Intervention
- 7 Was It a Revolution?
- 8 The Martial Law Decision
- 9 Military Operation as Symbolic Display of Power
- Part IV The Political Impact
- Notes
- Index
9 - Military Operation as Symbolic Display of Power
June 3–June 4, 1989
from Part III - The Decision for Military Intervention
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 February 2023
Book contents
- Deadly Decision in Beijing
- Deadly Decision in Beijing
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Main Characters
- Chronology
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Party-State Leadership in the Deng Era
- Part II Elite Politics and the Making of the Tiananmen Protest
- Part III The Decision for Military Intervention
- 7 Was It a Revolution?
- 8 The Martial Law Decision
- 9 Military Operation as Symbolic Display of Power
- Part IV The Political Impact
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Chapter 9 challenges the notion that the military operation was the right response to the protest. It will do so by describing the manner in which it was carried out on June 3–4. The tasks of “clearing up the square” and securing the city would have required much less. It was “an ox knife to kill a chicken.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Deadly Decision in BeijingSuccession Politics, Protest Repression, and the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, pp. 187 - 220Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023