Word: lawness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Tiananmen Square, demanding greater democratization and an end to nepotism and corruption. On Saturday, May 20, with the government and the Chinese capital paralyzed, the curtain rang down ominously on Act I: Premier Li Peng, a principal target of the demonstrators' wrath, and President Yang Shangkun imposed martial law; troops from the People's Liberation Army (P.L.A.) mustered to enter the city...
...last the curtain fell again, with the disturbing clang of a prison door closing. Li Peng appeared on television for the first time since martial law was declared, receiving -- as if to underscore his legitimacy -- a covey of newly arrived ambassadors. The Premier declared that the soldiers would move into Beijing as soon as the city's residents understood the need to restore order. From all available signs, Deng Xiaoping had cast his lot with the hard- line faction headed by Li. The losers were a more reformist group led by party chief Zhao Ziyang. Diplomatic sources said that Zhao...
Though the leaders of the P.L.A. initially seemed torn by the crisis, by week's end most active generals had sided with the hard-liners, out of personal loyalty to Deng and concern for the restoration of order. But a question arose: Could the troops impose martial law without spilling the blood of hundreds and perhaps thousands of fellow Chinese, thereby giving the lie to the army's proud claim to be one with the people...
...denouncing Li and urging an end to press censorship. Until the hard-line faction emerged victorious, China's official press and television reported with neutral accuracy on the pro- democracy demonstrations. By contrast, last Friday's prime-time TV news was constricted to official statements of support for martial law...
...city theoretically under martial law, Beijing seemed amazingly lacking in tension throughout the week. "There is absolutely no sense of anarchy here," reported TIME correspondent Richard Hornik, who had returned to the capital for the first time since serving as the magazine's Beijing bureau chief from 1985 to 1987. "Buses are running again, and the streets are full of bicyclists. The markets are full of both shoppers and produce, and there have been only scattered reports of hoarding...