In the early morning of June 4, soldiers armed with assault rifles and live ammunition, supported by armored vehicles and tanks, shot their way along Chang’an Avenue, the main approach road to the square, taking hundreds of innocent lives and leaving a trail of crushed bicycles and burned-out buses in their wake. Beijing residents had never imagined that the army would open fire on students peacefully petitioning for policy change. The legitimacy of the Chinese regime, undermined so often by one blunder after another, crumbled to dust in the slaughter. But state violence did not loosen the
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