Near the end of the [[Cold War]] China's Communist Party faced the challenge of large-scale protests in Beijing's [[Tiananmen Square]] and in more than 100 other cities including [[Shanghai]] between April 15, 1989, and June 4, 1989. Disagreements about how to respond split the top Party leadership and forced out the Party General Secretary at the time, Zhao Ziyang. The decision by Deng Xiaoping, then China's Paramount Leader, to order the [[People's Liberation Army|People's army]] to break up pro-[[democracy]] protests by force undermined the Party's legitimacy. | Near the end of the [[Cold War]] China's Communist Party faced the challenge of large-scale protests in Beijing's [[Tiananmen Square]] and in more than 100 other cities including [[Shanghai]] between April 15, 1989, and June 4, 1989. Disagreements about how to respond split the top Party leadership and forced out the Party General Secretary at the time, Zhao Ziyang. The decision by Deng Xiaoping, then China's Paramount Leader, to order the [[People's Liberation Army|People's army]] to break up pro-[[democracy]] protests by force undermined the Party's legitimacy. |