The hunger strike ran from May 13 19. Hunger Strike Headquarters became the operation run by Chai Ling as its Commander in Chief, with Li Lu as its Vice Commander.
The autonomous federation also had another challenge to its relevance, because Xiang Xiaoji and Shen Tong ran its Dialogue Delegation, which sought to negotiate with the government, as a splinter group.
In fact, as we learn from Cheng, the autonomous federation was supposed to rotate its presidency among campuses, not individuals. In another view of this matter, that is in fact what happened. Its first three presidents, Zhou, Wuer, and Feng, hailed from the University of Politics and Law, Beijing Normal University, and Beijing University, respectively.
But no one could have anticipated rotation and turnover at the breakneck pace as was happening at Tiananmen Square. On May 29, Tiananmen Square got a new commander named Yang Tao, a student from Beijing University. He lasted less than a day, but at least he gave Chai Ling a day off.
May 29 was deep into a new phase after the hunger strike namely, martial law. At that point, residents of Beijing had been holding off the army for ten days, and on that day, art students were assembling the new Goddess of Democracy statue, which was unveiled the next day in Tiananmen Square.
Massacre
As the world knows, martial law troops entered Beijing on June 3, and opened fire with live ammunition at anyone in the way and even at bystanders, killing some 3,000 civilians of Beijing on their way to retaking Tiananmen Square. A tank knocked down the Goddess of Democracy statue in the early morning hours of June 4. The government of China has still not acknowledged or admitted to its crime against humanity, and there has been no accountability, no restitution, and no peace for the victims.
Those who remain outspoken continue to be harassed, or worse, by the Chinese government. For all of China's development in the twenty years since June 4, political reform, progress, and development has been nil. China continues to be a one party dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party which has committed more human rights abuses in recent years, such as crackdowns against the Falun Gong health / exercise / spiritual group, and against Tibetan monks who follow the Dalai Lama.
Standoff at Tiananmen is an excellent blow-by-blow account of the matters which it covers. However, it is not the "Everything" compendium. My only quibbles with the book are the things that it does not mention.
Epilogue
There are people who became important to the movement in subsequent years, and it would be helpful if a book expressed where they were during 1989's action. Yang Jianli, for one example, is a figure with great stature today, but Cheng's book does not connect him with the action, nor indeed mention Yang at all.
The same can be said for those from outside Beijing who can trace their fame to the June 4 uprising Lian Shengde, Tang Baiqiao, Liu Junguo. Lian traveled from Tianjin to Beijing; Tang organized in Hunan province; Liu organized in Guangdong province. Lian headed the Autonomous Federation of Universities Outside Beijing; Liu presided over the Autonomous Student's Union of Guangzhou Universities.
Cheng's book also says very little about the incident with paint filled eggs, thrown at the giant portrait of Chairman Mao, on May 23. In years after the June 4 uprising, the story became legend about the "Three Gentlemen" Lu Decheng, Yu Zhijian, and Yu Dongyue, all from Hunan province who defaced Mao's portrait.
Hat tip to Kempton.
The omission of those stories does not detract or take anything away from Cheng's book; it is excellent and commendable work as far as it goes. I did say that any history of the Chinese democracy movement is partial, and the extra stories could make a book more complete, but not totally complete. While I am not a historian, I can clearly see that this is a pitfall of that profession.
A Sequel?
