The Chinese government sends tanks into the square, shooting at unarmed civilians and students.

An abrupt end to political reforms that once brought people so much hope.

And today, the protest movement remains a taboo in China.

This statue was called the Goddess of Democracy.

She represented what the Tiananmen students were dreaming of, democracy and liberty.

But the movement for democracy was met with a bloody crackdown.

Why?

What happened?

Let's start from the death of Hu Yaobang.

Hu Yaobang was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, and on 15 April 1989, he died.

Hu Yaobang was seen as a liberal.

He was loved by the people.

College students pour onto the streets to mourn his passing.

Soon, mourners become protesters.

They turn Tiananmen Square, the country's symbol of sovereignty, into a hub of dissent and protest.

They want a crackdown on corruption.

They want freedom of press.

They call for an awakening to reform and progress in China.

Going to march, Tiananmen Square.

Why?

I think it's my duty.

In the 1980s, the old communist states are beginning to open up.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last communist leader of the Soviet Union, is pushing for market reform in Russia.

China is walking out of the devastating shadow of the Cultural Revolution.

Deng Xiaoping, the real leader of the Communist Party behind the scenes, had launched the Open Door Policy, which introduced market economy to China.

It brought prosperity as well as moral liberty.

In this relatively free atmosphere, people begin to talk about political reform.

Now in China, lack of democracy, lack of freedom, especially freedom of press.

Do you think you get an accurate picture of the world from the news, or do you think you get propaganda?

Yeah, some part, propaganda.

This agitates the conservatives within the core of the Communist Party.

[On] 22nd April, Hu Yaobang's funeral is held.

Tens of thousands of students gather outside.

Three of them kneel at the entrance, begging to have a dialogue with the Premier, Li Peng.

Their plea falls on deaf ears.

With the consent of the most senior leaders in the Communist Party, its official mouthpiece, The People's Daily, publishes an editorial vowing to take a clear-cut stand against disturbances.

In the Cultural Revolution, the term labelled anyone against the government as a danger to society that needed to be purged.

Within hours, campus walls are lined with handwritten posters condemning the editorial and its wording.

Those who were protesting in Tiananmen Square were about to leave.

Now they are reignited and enraged.

College students set up the Beijing Students Autonomous Federation.

They demand dialogue with the government and a withdrawal of the April 26th editorial.

The government does not give in.

A standoff begins.

The April 26th editorial becomes the defining moment of the protest movement.

Eventually, it will lead to a military crackdown and determine the fate of thousands of young people in China.

We do not want to challenge with our government.

We just want to ask our government to talk with the delegation.

I think what they really wanted was a channel to participate in making decisions in government or to participate in politics.

Many of the people on the square were Communist Party members.

They were not there to overthrow the government.

4th May.

More than 100,000 college students march across Beijing to mark the anniversary of another protest that happened in 1919 against World War I's Treaty of Versailles, which handed a German colony in China over to the Japanese.

The students are joined by Beijing residents, workers and civil servants from national agencies.

Zhao Zhiyang, the Communist Party chief, calls the protest patriotic, and some of the students take comfort in this and return to campus.

The moment of quiet will be short-lived.

Students like Wang Dan, Chai Ling and Wu Kaixi strive to keep the protest going.

13th May.

A few hundred students, who had been camping in Tiananmen Square since the beginning, begin a hunger strike.

The protests continue.

Five days into the hunger strike, some students begin to faint.

Men and women across Beijing, one after another, rush food and drink to them.

People go onto the street, this time to show their support for the starving students.

Mid-May, a month in, and things begin to get complicated.

18th May.

Premier Li Peng finally agrees to meet the students at the Great Hall of the People.

Student leader and hunger striker Wu Kaixi comes in, in a hospital gown.

He interrupts the Premier's speech.

The students have certain requirements which must be met, otherwise they won't leave the square.

Tensions rise, the talks fall apart.

4am, 19th May.

Without any notice, Zhao Ziyang, the Communist Party chief who had comforted the students weeks earlier, comes to the square and asks the student to stop their hunger strike.

His plea doesn't work.

20th May.

The students ignore a newly imposed curfew in Beijing.

For the next few days, Tiananmen Square becomes an island of liberty.

Freedom of speech rules.

It will not last.

9:50pm, 3rd June.

Beijing's municipal government tells people to stay away from Tiananmen Square for their own safety.

What the public doesn't know is that hundreds of thousands of soldiers are assembled on the outskirts of Beijing.

They are waiting for the order to charge, to enforce eviction.

200,000 soldiers move into the square from different directions.

They shoot at students and residents along their way.

Noise of gunfire is heard throughout the night.

Early morning, 4th June, soldiers move into Tiananmen Square.

They dragged down the statue of the Goddess of Democracy which had come to represent the protest movement.

They seal the fate of its failure.

No one knows the death toll, even today.

Estimates run from several hundred to over ten thousand.

Some argue that by shooting at civilians, the Communist Party lost its legitimacy to rule and with it, an opportunity for political modernisation.

Others believe the crackdown brought stability to China, a price it had to pay to secure economic progress and to maintain the status quo.

Thirty years on, it is still impossible to openly mark the anniversary in Mainland China.

Vigils are held every year in Hong Kong, attended by tens of thousands.

But people are still seeking the truth and the effort to hold those accountable for the bloody crackdown continues.