Ordinary people resisted the Beijing massacre by vandalizing military vehicles and venting their rage. These young working-class men received long prison sentences; some were executed.

Zhao Ziyang and Li Peng clashed on how to handle the student protests, with Zhao arguing for a more open press and for democratic and legal solutions. Students declared a hunger strike shortly before Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's visit to Beijing. Millions of Beijing residents hit the streets to support the hunger strikers. Deng Xiaoping decided to impose martial law. When Zhao Ziyang refused to implement martial law, Deng decided to replace Zhao as general secretary with Shanghai Party secretary Jiang Zemin.

The aftermath of the Beijing massacre was as momentous as the crackdown itself. “Purging and sorting-out work” compelled all Beijing work units to investigate people who had been involved in the spring’s demonstrations, and all urban Party members were required to reregister and affirm their loyalty. Ever since 1989, the Party has handled the aftermath of June Fourth like an abusive partner who knows that they have done something wrong but still uses the threat of violence to force compliance from the citizens of China.

People throughout China rose up in outrage when they learned of the Beijing massacre. They blockaded roads and railways, and even formed new political parties. In Chengdu, authorities followed the Beijing model of "clearing the square," and in the process, police killed demonstrators. Shanghai's leaders responded differently, mobilizing loyal workers to clear blockades instead of resorting to violence. In late June, explosions rocked two passenger trains, causing mass casualties. Communist Party officials in Beijing blamed saboteurs who were reacting to the Beijing massacre.

In late May and early June 1989, Deng Xiaoping, Yang Shangkun, and Li Peng prepared the People's Liberation Army to enter Beijing and forcibly clear Tiananmen Square.

"Beijing massacre" is more accurate than "Tiananmen massacre" because most of the people killed by the army fell on the streets of Beijing, not inside the square. Tiananmen Square was, however, a site of death and violence: at least five students were shot and killed inside the square, and the army forcibly removed protesters from the Monument to the People's Heroes.

Details remain murky about the order for the PLA to open fire on protesters, but it is clear that there was an order. Soldiers received verbal orders permitting them to shoot as they advanced toward Tiananmen Square on June 3.

The Beijing massacre killed ordinary people as they went out to witness or block troops advancing toward Tiananmen Square. Soldiers also killed people trying to get to work, seeking medicine for their children, or hiding in their own homes.

Chapter three examines China’s role in the drafting and adoption of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.By covering the drafting of two different international agreements that occurred nearly a decade apart, this chapter illuminates China’s evolving posture as it shifted from a novice acting as a taker during the CAT negotiations to a more experienced regime participant attempting to constrain the regime during the negotiations over OPCAT.This chapter also documents the emergence in the late 1990s of a group of countries with shared views about resisting the kind of visiting authority envisioned in OPCAT, and the PRC’s cooperation with this group.I also briefly discuss the PRC’s interactions with the Committee against Torture to demonstrate that even though the PRC has been a taker toward this body it is not necessarily in substantive compliance with this convention.

Chapter 6 parses the explanatory factors that account role as a constrainer and taker in the human rights regime.It also explores Beijing’s cooperation with other-like minded countries as a secondary influence on its behavior.It argues that the two most prominent explanatory variables were the CCP-government’s antipathy for scrutiny of its record and its preexisting ideas that stressed state sovereignty and local conditions, which caused Beijing to take positions that limited the authority and scope of the human rights regime.At the same time, I show that image concerns had an important restraining effect, inclining the PRC toward more cooperative stances.